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Honda has announced that car production at its Swindon plant will stop for 35 days in April and May because of the collapse in global demand.
Production cuts were already planned for the months of February and March
The company has no plans for redundancies at the plant and it aims to safeguard employment.
Honda, like other carmakers, has been under pressure with car sales on the slide.
According to provisional Acea figures, sales in Western Europe declined by 7.8 per cent in 2008 but Honda sales plummeted 15.7 per cent.
PricewaterhouseCoopers said this week car production across Europe will retrench 12 per cent in 2009 as carmakers match supply with demand.
David Hodgetts, director of Honda in the UK, said that there were no signs of recovery in the European car market.
“We have to reduce our production output further to better match the current level of market demand.”