Honda Motor Co. has announced its plans to cease production of motorcycles in the U.S. next year and transfer the work to Japan, in order to produce bikes more efficiently.

The 330,000-square-foot Marysville, Ohio, plant, built in 1979, produces Gold Wing and VTX cruiser motorcycles.

The plant employs 450 workers, however Honda says there will be no layoffs when production ends in spring 2009. The workers will remain with the company, to produce cars, trucks, engines and parts and filling other jobs at Honda’s operations in west-central Ohio.

Last year, the plant produced about 44,000 Gold Wing and VTX cruiser bikes. The current production of 120 motorcycles a day will continue for now.

Motorcycle production at the Marysville plant and at the Hamamatsu factory in Japan will be consolidated at an expanded motorcycle plant in Kumamoto, Japan, in 2009.

The Japanese plant will be capable of producing up to 600,000 motorcycles a year. Capacity at the Marysville plant is 75,000.