Sandisk Imagemate Sddr-31 on 2040-parts.com

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.

Alpina B5 Bi-Turbo (2011) launches

The Alpina B5 Bi-Turbo 2011 debuted at Goodwood If you went down to the Goodwood Festival of Speed over the weekend you may well have come across Alpina’s latest offering – the Alpina B5 Bi-Turbo – which, following the news yesterday that BMW have retired the current generation (E60) M5 and that you’ll have to wait intil next year for the new M5 – is the only way to hop in to a brand new ‘Hot’ 5 series for at least the next 9 months. Not only is the Alpina B5 the only really quick 5 series on the market now, it will also be a lot less ubiquitous in the long run than BMW’s own M5. A lot to be said for that.

July 10: How many miles to a bar?

Drove to Arcadia and back, six miles each way. I kept watching the fuel gauge to see when it would pop over and I would lose a bar. It finally did after about 14 kms, or 8 and a half miles.