Friday is the last day the Honda UK plant will produce cars for a period of four months.

Just over 2,500 of the 3,700 employees, will clock off and take an extended break, receiving their full basic pay for the first two months, but around 60% thereafter.

The move is in response to the downturn in the UK car market. On Friday the Japanese car company said global third quarter net profit had dropped 89%.

Although many motor manufacturers have cut production due to collapsing demand, none have gone as far as Honda, the company though says it has no plans for redundancies and the move is to safeguard jobs for workers who want to stay at the company.

Staff will be paid during the closure, but will have to work unpaid overtime when the plant reopens

But it is thought that more than 1,000 staff have signed up for a voluntary severance package and some have already left the business.

A senior director at the South Marston plant, said the company was not giving any guarantees but was "giving their best intentions".

He added Honda could not tell what the economic situation will be within the next three months. The point of view was that if they achieved sales plans...which they were fairly confident they would, through February, March [and] April, then Honda would expect to return to production in June and that's what the firm intention.

As an indication of Honda's comitment to restart production the company would be ordering parts from next month.

When production restarts on 1 June, their will be fewer vehicles assembled as production, which was at around 240,000 vehicles a year, will resume at half that level.

Staff will be paid during the closure, but will have to work unpaid overtime when the plant reopens, a spokesman for Honda said.

Honda, which employs 4,200 people in the UK and exports the Civic to 60 countries worldwide, has also cut 3,100 temporary jobs in Japan and reduced global production by 56,000 vehicles.

Honda have announced that its net profit for the three months to December plummeted 89%.

The company made a net profit of 20.24bn yen ($226m; £158m), far lower than the 200bn yen it made in the same period the year before, prompting the company to cut its annual forecast by more than 50%.

The group now expects net profit for the year to March 2009 to be 80bn yen, less than half its earlier forecast of 185bn yen.

Vauxhall, Jaguar, and Land Rover have all stopped production or cut the working week as demand for their cars fall.