Honda began by strapping surplus radio-generator engines to bicycles
In 1946 Soichiro Honda and a dozen men worked in a tiny shack, bolting 500 war-surplus engines, originally built to power radio generators, onto ordinary bicycles. When the supply ran out, they copied the engine. That scrappy start grew into the world's biggest motorcycle maker and the company behind the most-produced motor vehicle ever, the Super Cub.
The founder's first venture nearly failed on quality. In 1937 Honda set up a firm making piston rings and won a contract with Toyota, only to lose it because the rings were not good enough. He enrolled at engineering school without finishing, toured factories to study Toyota's quality methods, and by 1941 had an automated process that produced acceptable rings even with unskilled wartime labour. During the war Toyota took a 40 percent stake and he was demoted within his own firm.
Then the business was wrecked. American bombing destroyed one plant in 1944, and an earthquake in January 1945 brought down another. After the war Honda sold the remains to Toyota for 450,000 yen and used the money to start a research institute, the shack where the motorised bicycles were born. Their homemade engine was nicknamed Bata Bata after its noise. In 1949 he hired Takeo Fujisawa, whose business sense balanced Honda's engineering; the two retired together in October 1973.
Growth came fast. The first Honda motorcycle with its own frame and engine, the Dream, appeared in 1949. Honda won world championships in two racing classes in 1961 and became the largest motorcycle maker within a few years. Cars followed in 1963, starting with a tiny pick-up truck and then a sports car whose chain-driven rear wheels betrayed its two-wheeled roots. In 1986 it became the first Japanese carmaker to launch a separate luxury brand, Acura.
Not every decade went smoothly. After the founder's death in 1991, Honda fell behind rivals, missed the boom in trucks and SUVs, and in 1992 and 1993 Japanese media reported it was at risk of a hostile takeover by Mitsubishi Motors. Its chief, Nobuhiko Kawamoto, pushed products built around what buyers wanted, such as the CR-V, and shocked fans by pulling out of Formula One after 1992. Honda still makes over 14 million combustion engines a year.
Source: Honda
