Goodbye to the Swindon Plant
Honda recently announced it would close the Swindon plant in Southwest England. This worried a few people because the Civic Type R is built there. However, we were sure Honda wasn’t going to let a thing like a closing plant keep it from producing its killer front-wheel-drive sports car. The company will simply bring the production of the vehicle to the U.S.
“Given our efforts to optimize production allocation and production capacity on a global scale, we have concluded that we will produce the Civic for North America in North America,” Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo told Automotive News.
The plant builds the Civic hatchback and the Civic Type R. t’s a major part of the company’s operations due to the fact that the Civic continues to be a high seller for the brand. The Swindon facility has been an important production plant for the car company for around 30 years, according to Motor Authority.
In addition to closing the Swindon plant in England, the company will close the Turkey plant that makes Civic sedans. While that’s less impactful for the enthusiast side of the market it’s still important to note. The company believes between American and Canadian facilities, it will be able to pick up the slack.
We certainly hope so. Honda’s 306-horsepower Civic Type R is a force to be reckoned with. The car is perhaps the best-driving front-wheel-drive car ever produced. The car gets rave reviews often, and Honda recently tweaked the model for 2019.
