We were invited to Honda of South Carolina’s historic Line-Off Ceremony where Honda introduced and rolled off the assembly line its newest side-by-side, the Pioneer 700.
The ceremony took place at HSC in Timmonsville, SC, a facility that is also celebrating 15 years of producing off- road vehicles for Honda. HSC began production of ATVs in July, 1998, with a workforce of about 200 employees, or as Honda calls them, associates. HSC started with about 200,000 square feet of work space.
Today, HSC is using 535,000 square feet of work space and employs 650 associates. It was announced during the Pioneer Line-Off Ceremony that Honda is investing an additional $27 million in the Timmonsville plant over the next four years and has added 65 new jobs for side-by-side production.
Among the distinguished guests at the Line-Off Ceremony were South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley; South Carolina Secretary of Commerce Bobby Hitt; South Carolina state Senator Hugh Leatherman; Katsumi Fujimoto, business managing officer for Honda’s North American operations; and Honda president Brian Newman, among others.
The Line-Off Ceremony is just that: a production model is rolled off the production line. When the Pioneer 700 was rolled off the production line on June 21, it marked the first of all Pioneers, which will be built at the Timmonsville plant.
HSC currently builds 21 ATV and side-by-side versions and produces 100,000 units yearly for both the U.S. and export markets.
