Honda is to close its Swindon factory for two months next year, as plummeting car sales force manufacturers to announce new rounds of cuts in production.

The Japanese carmaker will stop all vehicle production at Swindon in February and March, reducing output by 21,000 units on top of cuts of 32,000 already announced.

Figures published on Friday by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders showed car production fell 25 per cent last month to the lowest October level since 1991.

“The ... figures reflect the rapid reduction in global demand for motor vehicles,” said Paul Everitt, SMMT chief executive. “We expect to see further reductions in factory output in November and December.”

Honda’s two-month shutdown means Swindon’s output, originally planned to be 228,000 cars in the current financial year, will fall to 175,000 – 29 per cent below last year’s total.

In September, the carmaker said it would reduce output by 22,000 with an extra 10 days closure before the end of the year. A further reduction of 10,000 was announced in October, with the Swindon plant due to close for 13 days in February and March.

The latest announcement will suspend production for 28 days in February and March, stopping output altogether for the two months.

Honda said it had no plans to make redundancies among the 4,800 staff, and remained totally committed to the Swindon factory – its main European manufacturing base.

Earlier this week, Britain’s car industry became the latest to ask for government financial aid and tax breaks to address the “unprecedented circumstances” of the credit crunch.

Throughout the autumn, manufacturers have been announcing production cuts in the run-up to the end of the year, reducing shifts, closing down for short periods and extending the Christmas holidays.

Bentley, the luxury carmaker majority-owned by Volkswagen of Germany, reduced output by 15 per cent in September – cutting shifts and hours worked for some of its slower-selling models at its plant in Crewe. Like Honda, it has made further cuts by dropping the night shift for one model and extending the Christmas break to a month as sales fell further.

In the first round, it discontinued the contracts of up to 50 agency workers. It has promised no involuntary redundancies among the 3,800 workforce.

In October, Ford moved to four-day working on its only UK assembly plant at Southampton which makes Transit vans, cutting output for the year from more than 70,000 units to about 65,000.

Jaguar Land Rover, now owned by Tata of India, has cut shifts and production days at Solihull, Halewood and Castle Bromwich. Toyota of Japan, which on Friday opened a new Avensis line at Burnaston near Derby, has cut the number of shifts on the Auris line.

Nissan UK halted production of the Micra and Note at its Sunderland factory over two weeks, offering volunteers for redundancy a “retraining opportunity” to support them.

Vauxhall closed both its Luton van plant and the Halewood Astra factory this week, with further non-production days planned before the end of the year.