September 24, 1958 – Happy Birthday, Honda (Part 1)

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/

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