BAR Honda drivers help build 500,000th Swindon Civic

5 July 2002: Honda has produced its half millionth Civic at the Swindon car plant, with a little help from Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis!

The BAR Honda Grand Prix drivers took time off F1 duties to help build the milestone Civic, a mint green 1.6SE Civic 5 door. Working alongside the 4300 Honda Associates at the plant, the drivers discovered that Honda road cars are built with the same care and attention as their GP machines, only very much quicker – a new one rolls off the line at Swindon about once every 30 seconds!

And naturally when they’d downed tools and finished assembly, they took the machine out for a little spin on the factory test track. It is an important part of the job because Honda test drives every car it builds, as part of its quality control process.

F1 stars were instructed to drive a bit slower than normal, to go easy on the tyres and brakes, and keep off the kerbs.

"I’d never seen anything like this before," commented Jacques. "The speed at which everybody works is quite amazing. It’s quite stressful. I thought we’d get in the way but everybody seemed OK with us."

Olivier similarly enjoyed his new experience: "It’s the first time I’ve done something like this and I really enjoyed working with the guys. I was really surprised how quickly the cars are built – 800 cars per day was a big surprise."

Car production at the Honda of the UK Manufacturing (HUM) Swindon plant began with the Accord in late 1992, with the Civic 5 door model added a couple of years later.

Of the half million Civics built at Swindon, more than half have been exported – and recently sales of all Civics (including locally built examples) topped the two million mark in Europe.

July 2002