ACTIVITY at Honda's Swindon plant has helped UK car manufacturing break the one million unit barrier this year.

Honda of the UK Manufacturing Ltd (HUM), a subsidiary of the Japanese multinational automotive company Honda, produces over 600 cars every day at the Wiltshire site.

This contributed to the UK's overall car manufacturing output hitting 140,888 cars last month - an increase of 9.9 per cent on the same month in 2012, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

September's figures pushed the number of cars produced so far this year to 1,125,433 units, up 3.9 per cent up on the first nine months of 2012.

HUM produces the whole car, the Honda Civic, in Swindon - right from casting, engine assembly and pressing through to welding, painting and final assembly. One of its latest projects is the fuel-efficient CR-V 1.6 i-DTEC.

September saw 230,743 engines built overall in the UK - up 8.3 per cent on the last year's figure for the same month.

Year-to-date expansion of 1.2 per cent saw UK engine production near two million units for this year.
SMMT chief executive Mike Hawes said September's figures underline how the car manufacturing industry is one of the UK's biggest success stories of recent years.

He said: “This long-term financial commitment and robust demand for UK-built products demonstrate the global appetite for high-quality, desirable products borne of the UK's world-class design, research and development and engineering."

He added: “While the overall market is striving against tough conditions, there remains cause for optimism in some areas, with the truck sector out-performing the market in September."

But UK manufacturing of commercial vehicles (CV) dipped 27.5 per cent to 6,963 units in September.
Only 67,609 CVs overall have been manufactured in 2013 so far - down 17.9 per cent on the first nine months of 2012.

Mr Hawes blamed subdued CV production on continuing uncertainty in the EU and restructuring of UK operations.