MARYSVILLE - Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. will stop making motorcycles in spring 2009.

There will be no layoffs, company executives said Wednesday, Feb. 27. The decision is one part a move to a bigger plant and another part a re-emphasis on automobiles, executives said.

Motorcycle employees comprise 3 percent of Honda's Ohio work force of about 15,000 employees. Last year, Honda in Ohio made 44,000 motorcycles - Gold Wing touring and VTX cruiser bikes. By comparison, the company made 701,317 cars and light trucks last year at its two Ohio assembly plants.

The company will stay for now with daily production of 120 cycles, said Jan Gansheimer, motorcycle plant manager.

Gansheimer said some workers took the announcement hard. Built in 1979, the motorcycle plant was Honda's first in America.

"We announced this as quickly as we could to our associates," she said.

Work at the Marysville plant and another plant in Japan, the Hamamatsu factory, will be consolidated in a new plant in Kumamoto, Japan, the company said.

Executives said the motorcycle move did not represent a retreat from Ohio. The company recently expanded engine production at its Anna, Ohio plant to supply a new auto plant in Greensburg, Ind., Honda spokesman Ed Miller said. He said the new Indiana plant will create about $1 billion more work for Honda suppliers in Ohio alone.

Miller also said the impact of the motorcycle decision on Ohio suppliers would be "minimal." There are 38 Ohio suppliers to motorcycle production, but only one solely focused on Honda of America Manufacturing, executives said. Miller would not identify that operation, but he said he believed the business was not in the Dayton area.

Miller acknowledged that the weakening economy has dampened the motorcycle business. But he added: "The market was not the deciding factor in this."

"I think our products are popular," Gansheimer said. "Overall, we've seen some decline in the market, just due to economic conditions."