Honda’s youth
1906 – Soichiro Honda, the son of a weaver and an ironsmith, was born at the foot of Mount Fuji. When he was a child, Honda would help out in his father’s bike repair shop. This is where his fascination for machines started.
1922 – After his studies, Honda moved to Tokyo. There, he started working as an apprentice mechanic. After six years working in the garage, he returned to Hamamatsu, the village where he was born and raised. First, Honda opened a weaving mill, but after it went bankrupt, he decided to open a garage.
The seeds of success - the 1940s
1946 - Honda started working with a job lot of old radio generator engines used by the army during the war. He fitted one of these engines to a bicycle, giving birth to the first ever version of the Honda motorcycle. With 10 staff, Honda worked hard to meet the demand for motorcycles. The first version of the motorcycles were not very user friendly. The engines and oil were not of good quality. They had to be warmed up before starting, and needed up to 30 kick starts. However, the motorcycles sold well despite these disadvantages. People were looking for alternative ways to move around and the motorcycle seemed to be the perfect solution.
1947 - When all 500 radio generator engines had been used, Honda designed a new type of engine, dubbed the chimney engine after its elongated top. After a few improvements, this culminated in the Honda A-Type engine. One of Honda’s goals was to make user-friendly products. “When you make something, you think about the person who will spend the most time with it.” With this slogan in mind, Honda’s company set to work to make a comfortable motorcycle that everyone could easily use. Despite the practical disadvantages of the A-Type, the motorcycles continued to sell well, followed by the B-Type and C-Type, but still remained a prototype.
Even during these early days, Soichiro Honda was already striving to always make the best possible product and only put that product on the market. Honda worked on making a motorcycle with a strong frame and stronger tyres. This became necessary as the engines were getting more powerful and the bicycle frames could no longer withstand their force. The new motorcycle frame turned out to be easier to mass-produce, which was an added bonus for Honda.
1948 - One year later, the Honda Motor Company was born. Honda set up the new business along with his lifelong business partner, Takeo Fujisawa. The company started local, with 34 employees and a budget of 1 million yen, which converts to approximately 6,000 euros. Soichiro Honda’s dreams had come true, although he did not yet know that his future would exceed even his wildest dreams.
In a short period of time, Honda had built a successful business and masterminded a huge technological advance. Want to know what happened next? Come back to this page soon to read more about Honda’s first, fully self-produced motorcycle, and how Honda became the largest motorcycle manufacturer in Japan and far beyond.
