Honda America has paid a major compliment to the carmaker's Swindon plant – citing the Wiltshire facility as playing a key role in helping the distributor to its ninth year of record sales.

Swindon supplies the US market with CR-V SUVs and Civic Si – the US equivalent of the Civic Type-R in Europe. Sales of the CR-V were 24 per cent up in 2002 at 146,256 units.

Tom Elliott, executive vice president of America Honda Motor says: “The success of the CR-V and the Civic helped Honda achieve sales of more than 1.18m vehicles in 2002. Our target for 2003 is 1.35m – and a tenth straight year of record sales.”