On this day in engineering history, Soichiro Honda founded
the Honda Motor Company, a Japanese motorcycle manufacturer that would one day
become the world's fifth largest car company. Today, Honda is the second largest automaker
in Japan, the fourth largest
carmaker in the United
States, and the world's largest maker of
engines. The company's product lines include automobiles and all-terrain
vehicles (ATVs), jets and jet engines, robots and lawn mowers, scooters and
motorcycles, marine engines and watercraft, and electrical generators.
The Chimney and the
C100 Super Cub
In 1937, a young mechanic named Soichiro Honda began selling
piston rings to Toyota.
The sub-contractor expanded his enterprise to the manufacture of other engine
parts, but Japan's
defeat in World War II destroyed much of the island nation's industry. Japanese
citizens still needed basic transportation, however, so Soichiro Honda began
attaching engines to bicycles. In 1946, he bought 500 two-stroke motors that were
designed to power electric generators. The mechanic mounted them on proprietary bicycle
frames and adapted the surplus motors to run on turpentine, a fuel that he
distilled from pine trees.
Ten years after he began selling piston rings to Toyota, Soichiro Honda's 1/2-hp
A-Type went into production. Nicknamed the "chimney", the first Honda motorcycle
belched smoke and stank like turpentine. Nevertheless, the motorbike became a
popular mode of personal transportation at a time when money was tight, fuel
was scare, and public transportation was crowded. In 1949, Soichiro Honda
improved upon his original design with the D-Type, a motorbike that could
reach speeds of 50 mph. Then, during the 1950s, Japanese consumers snapped up
the C100 Super Cub, and easy-to-ride motorcycle with a crossbar-free frame.
The World's Largest Motorcycle
Manufacturer – and More
The end of the 1950s marked the birth of the Honda Motor Company in
Japan and the founding of an
important subsidiary, the American Honda Company, in the United States.
As sales of Honda motorcycles spread across North American and around the
world, the Tokyo-based company introduced a small pickup truck, the T360, with
four different body styles and a 30-hp engine. Several months later in 1963, Honda
unveiled its first automobile – a two-door roadster with a four-cylinder, 44-hp
engine. Weighing just 1500 lbs., the Honda S-500 had a four-speed manual
transmission with a chain drive for the rear wheels.
During the early 1970s, the Honda Motor Company became the
largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world. Not content to rest on its
laurels, however, the company set it sights upon the American automotive marketplace.
Editor's Note: Click here for Part 2 of this two-part series.
Resources:
http://corporate.honda.com/america/timeline.aspx
http://www.carseek.com/reviews/honda/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda
http://www.edmunds.com/honda/history.html
http://smokeriders.com/History/Honda_History/honda_history.html
http://www.just-auto.com/factsheet.aspx?id=205
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_S500
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