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Honda cutting production in Swindon again – 500 jobs at risk

Honda is cutting another 500 jobs in Swindon It’s only a year since Honda announced 800 job cuts at Swindon (which eventually was 550) and now they’re about to cut a further 500 as weak demand – particularly in Europe – sees the Swindon plant producing just half the cars it could. The plan is to cut shifts from 3 to 2 a day, which will result in the loss of 340 permanent jobs and 160 temporary ones, and production will be centred on just one production line to increase efficiency and flexibility. The Swindon Plant – which builds the Civic, Civic Tourer, CR-V and Jazz (and the Civic Type-R from next year) – has been hard hit by the slump in European sales in the last five years and, despite still strong UK sales, production levels of 120,000 cars a year – just half of the Swindon capacity – are not enough to sustain the current staffing levels.

Honda Gives You Wings

YOU might be more familiar with its cars and motorcycles, but did you know that Honda also made planes? If boat engines and quad bikes weren’t enough to keep the Japanese firm occupied, it recently embarked on a project to manufacture high-end business jets. With a base in America and more than a decade of research under its belt plus a small fleet of development aircraft, the company has announced that its first customer specification model is almost ready to fly.

Top Gear Christmas Special: Video trailer

Top Gear Christmas Special - Iraq to Bethlehem The first clue we had about what the Top Gear Christmas Special would be this year was back in October when we caught the boys out playing in the Middle East with a trio of rather battered roadsters. It seemed like the makings of another road-trip special with the madness of the Middle East as a backdrop for the madness of Top Gear. It was only a month later we learnt that the Middle East was to be the backdrop for the 2010 Top Gear Christmas Special with the boys searching for ‘The Baby Jesus’ on a road trip to Bethlehem as three modern-day wise men (oxymoron obviously springs to mind).