Intro: As a tremendous lover of anything British, Soichiro Honda forged of an association with the Rover Group in the early 1980s.
This led to the opening of the first Honda factory at a former airfield in Swindon, Wiltshire, in 1990, where joint-effort products were made.
However, the arrival of BMW and the sale by British Aerospace of its troubled subsidiary, Rover Cars, led to a period of terrible acrimony, as Honda was effectively sidelined by the British government sponsored sell-off. Fortunately, it was able to ride out the storm and, having opened its third plant at Swindon in 2001, where it is now building the new Civic, Accord and also the CR-V models. This is one of the main production bases for the CR-V as the American market is feed from this factory. This year, 50,000 to 60,000 Honda CR-Vs are planned to be exported.
In 2001 the plant was expanded through the addition of a second factory, which added 100,000 units to the original 150,000-unit annual capacity.
2002 was a record year for Honda’s Swindon UK car and engine production facility, with a record 176,698 cars rolling off the production line. It was topped in 2003 with 184,693 units, comprising 114,000 CR-Vs and 70,693 Civics.
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