Soichiro Honda The
founder of Honda, Soichiro Honda was a mechanical engineer with a passion for
motorcycle and automobile racing. Honda started his company in 1946 by
building motorized bicycles with small, war-surplus engines. Honda would
grow to become the world’s leading manufacturer of motorcycles and later one of
the leading automakers. Following its founder’s lead, Honda has always been a
leader in technology, especially in the area of engine development.
Soichiro Honda was described as a maverick(特立独行的人) in a nation of
conformists. He made it a point to wear loud suits and wildly colored shirts. An
inventor by nature who often joined the work on the floors of his factories and
research laboratories, Honda developed engines that transformed the motorcycle
into a worldwide means of transportation. Born in 1906, Honda
grew up in the town of Tenryu, Japan. The eldest son of a blacksmith who
repaired bicycles, the young Soichiro had only an elementary school education
when, in his teens, he left home to seek his fortune in Tokyo. An auto repair
company hired him in 1922, but for a year he was forced to serve as a
baby-sitter for the auto shop’s owner and his wife. While employed at the auto
shop, however, Honda built his own racing car using an old aircraft engine and
handmade parts and participated in racing. His racing career was short lived,
however. He suffered serious injuries in a 1936 crash. By 1937,
Honda had recovered from his injuries. He established his own company,
manufacturing piston rings, but he found that he lacked a basic knowledge of
casting. To obtain it, he enrolled in a technical high school, applying theories
as he learned them in the classrooms to his own factory. But he did not bother
to take examinations at the school. Informed that he would not be graduated,
Honda commented that a diploma was "worth less than a movie theater ticket. A
ticket guarantees that you can get into the theater. But a diploma doesn’t
guarantee that you can make a living." Honda’s burgeoning
company mass produced metal propellers during WW Ⅱ, replacing wooden ones.
Allied bombing and an earthquake destroyed most of his factory and he sold what
was left to Toyota in 1945. In 1946, he established the Honda
Technical Research Institute to motorize bicycles with small, war-surplus
engines. These bikes became very popular in Japan. The institute soon began
making engines. Renamed Honda Motor in 1948, the company began manufacturing
motorcycles. Business executive Takeo Fujisawa was hired to manage the company
while Honda focused on engineering. In 1951, Honda brought out
the Dream Type E motorcycle, which proved an immediate success thanks to Honda’s
innovative overhead valve design, The smaller F-type cub (1952) accounted for
70% of Japan’s motorcycle production by the end of that year. A public offering
and support from Mitsubishi Bank allowed Honda to expand and begin exporting.
The versatile C100 Super Cub, released in 1958, became an international
bestseller. In 1959, the American Honda Motor was founded and
soon began using the slogan, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda," to offset
the stereotype of motorcyclists during that period. Though the small bikes were
dismissed by the dominant American and British manufacturers of the time, the
inexpensive imports brought new riders into motorcycling and changed the
industry forever in the United States. Ever the racing
enthusiast, Honda began entering his company’s motorcycles in domestic Japanese
races during the 1950s. In the mid-1950s, Honda declared that his company would
someday win world championship events--a declaration that seemed unrealistic at
the time. In June 1959, the Honda racing team brought their
first motorbike to compete in the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy race, then the
world’s most popular motorcycle race. This was the first entry by a Japanese
team. With riders Naomi Taniguchi, who finished sixth, Teisuke Tanaka, who
finished eighth, and Kiyoshi Kawashima, who would later succeed Soichiro as
Honda Motor president, as team manager, Honda won the manufacturer’s
prize. However, they were not pleased with their performance.
Kawashima remembers: "We were clobbered. Our horsepower was less than half that
of the winner." Learning from this experience, Soichiro and his
team worked even harder to make rapid progress in their motorsports activities.
Two years after their first failure, they were the sensation at the TT by
capturing the first five places in both the 125ce and 250cc classes. The upstart
Japanese had outclassed all their rivals. As a result of the team’s stellar
performance, the Honda name became well known worldwide, and its export volume
rose dramatically. Soichiro seemed to have foreseen the future of Japan, which,
twenty years later, was to become one of the world’s leading
economies. Honda would become the most successful manufacturer
in all of motorcycle racing. Honda has since won hundreds of national and world
championships in all forms of motorcycle competition. While
Honda oversaw a worldwide company by the early-1970s (Honda entered the
automobile market in 1967), he never shied away from getting his hands greasy.
Sol Sanders, author of a Honda biography, said Honda appeared "almost daily" at
the research lab where development work was being done. Even as president of the
company, "he worked as one of the researchers,’ Sanders quoted a Honda engineer
as saying. "Whenever we encountered a problem, he studied it along with
us." In 1973, Honda, at 67, retired on the 25th anniversary of
Honda’s founding. He declared his conviction that Honda should remain a youthful
company. "Honda has always moved ahead of the times, and I attribute its success
to the fact that the firm possesses dreams and youthfulness," Honda said at the
time. Unlike most chief executive officers in Japan, who step
down to become chairmen of their firms, Honda retained onty the title of
"supreme adviser". In retirement, Honda devoted himself to public service and
frequent travel abroad. He received the Order of the Sacred Treasure, first
class, the highest honor bestowed by Japan’s emperor. He also received the
American auto industry’s highest award when he was admitted to the Automotive
Hall of Fame in 1989. Honda was awarded the AMA’s highest honor, the Dud Perkins
Award, in 1971. Honda died on August 5, 1991 from liver failure
at 84. His wife, Sachi, and three children survived him. In 1959, the American Honda Motor used the slogan," ______" to change the negative image of motorcyclists in America.