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



Above Picture (Image 2): 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.



Above Picture (Image 3): Earlier this week Jaguar & Land Rover said 450 British jobs would go.

Above Picture (Image 4): The open car storage areas in Corby - Northamptonshire, are reaching full capacity.

Above Picture (Image 5): Imported cars stored at Sheerness open storage area awaiting delivery to dealers.

Above Picture (Image 6): Newly imported cars fill the 150-acre site at the Toyota distribution centre in Long Beach, California.

Above Picture (Image 7): The build-up of imported cars at the port of Newark, New Jersey.

Above Picture (Image 8): Stocks of Ford trucks in Detroit, Michigan.

Above Picture (Image 9): New cars jam the dockside in the port of Valencia in Spain.

Above Image (Picture 10): Peugeot cars await shipment to Italian dealers at the port of Civitavecchia.

Above Picture (Image 11): With many manufacturers on extended Christmas shutdown, the number of cars rolling off production lines in December fell 47.5% to just 53,823.

Above Picture (Image 12): Thousands of new cars are stored on the runway at the disused Upper Heyford airbase near Bicester, Oxfordshire, on December 18, 2008.

Above Image (Picture 13): 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.