Honda Indiana Spits Out 100,000th Civic

"Civic Pride," reads the huge banner hanging over the heads of the white-dressed workers from the Honda Manufacturing of Indiana (HMIN) plant in Greensburg, Indiana. The reason can be found in the middle of the crowd: the 100,000th Civic to have been built here.

"This milestone is based on the commitment our Honda associates in Indiana make every day to build products of the highest quality for our customers," Rick Schostek, vice president of HMIN said in a release. "This is an important achievement for our entire team."

The HMIN facility was opened in October 2008 (the same Civic Pride banner, but in different colors, was visible then too) when, despite the fact the economic crisis was just beginning, Honda hoped to eventually reach 200,000 units a year. One year + a few months and 100,000 units later, that goal seems far, far away... But not unreachable.

The Civic is slowly creeping to become an American favorite. This January, it ranked sixth in the top of US' best selling vehicles, with an increase of 12.1 percent in sales for the month over last year.

As for the plant, the $550 million facility is the seventh auto assembly plant in North America and the second highly flexible zero-waste-to-landfill facility. It employs 1,000 "associates," as Honda calls its workers, despite the fact that when it opened it planned on hiring 2,000.

Here, Honda produces the Honda Civic Sedan and Honda Civic GX, so far the only natural gas vehicle built in America.