Mr Hodgetts moves to Honda (UK) from the company's Swindon car plant where he has 20 years' experience with Honda. This culminated in his current role as director of planning and administration, where he played a particularly notable role last year in guiding Honda's plant through the four-month shutdown early in 2009, followed by the successful restart of production operations in June of last year.

Talking about his appointment, Mr Hodgetts said: 'Honda (UK) has an excellent reputation and this new role provides an exciting challenge for me personally to move across and head up the sales side of the business. I will be aiming to ensure that Honda continues to be the best we can possibly be, viewing every day as a chance to improve and positively challenging how we can provide even better customer satisfaction.'