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Nissan has announced plans to cut its Sunderland workforce by 1,200. Thousands of unsold cars are stored around the factory's test track

 

Honda is halting production at its Swindon plant in April and May, extending the two-month closure announced before Christmas to four months. Honda and Japanese rival Toyota are both cutting production in Japan and elsewhere. Pictured, Hondas await export at a pier in Tokyo

 

Earlier this week Jaguar Land Rover said 450 British jobs would go

 

The open car storage areas in Corby , Northamptonshire, are reaching full capacity

 

Imported cars stored at Sheerness open storage area awaiting delivery to dealers

 

Newly imported cars fill the 150-acre site at the Toyota distribution centre in Long Beach , California

 

The build-up of imported cars at the port of Newark , New Jersey

 

Stocks of Ford trucks in Detroit , Michigan

 

New cars jam the dockside in the port of Valencia in Spain

 

Peugeot cars await shipment to Italian dealers at the port of Civitavecchia

 

Unsold cars at Avonmouth Docks near Bristol

 

With many manufacturers on extended Christmas shutdown, the number of cars rolling off production lines in December fell 47.5% to just 53,823

 

Thousands of new cars are stored on the runway at the disused Upper Heyford airbase near Bicester, Oxfordshire, on December 18, 2008.

 

Sales of new cars in the UK have slumped to a 12-year-low and production of cars at Honda in Swindon has been halted for a unprecedented four-month period because of the collapse in global sales and represents the longest continuous halt in production at any UK car plant. The announcement comes on a day when the EU's Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen warned the outlook for the European car industry was 'brutal' and predicted not all European manufacturers would survive the crisis.