The Untold Story of Honda Creation

This story starts in the year 1914. An eight-year-old boy was playing in a small village in Japan. While he was playing, he saw a machine moving on wheels. It was a Ford Model T car. Seeing this car surprised him very much. This was the first time the boy became interested in cars and how machines work.

The boy's name was Soichiro Honda. Nobody knew at that time that, in the future, his name would be seen on cars all over the world.

Soichiro Honda was born in 1906 in a small village near Mount Fuji in Japan. His father was a blacksmith and also repaired bicycles part-time. Honda had five brothers and sisters, but some of them had already died because of illnesses. His parents had big hopes for him. However, Honda did not like school very much. He liked fixing bicycles more than studying.

When he was sixteen years old, Honda saw a notice in a newspaper. A famous car service station in Tokyo called "Hachiko" was looking for technicians. Honda wrote a letter to the company, and luckily, he received a positive answer. This was when he left his home and school to go to Tokyo for work.

However, Honda’s dream was tested when he arrived at the company. The owner made him start with cleaning work and even gave him babysitting tasks. Honda felt frustrated. He had left his home and parents behind, but he was doing work that seemed meaningless. He felt too embarrassed to go back home, so he continued working there for several months.

Soon, the owner allowed Honda to work in the workshop. Honda liked this work very much and quickly learned about different cars and their parts. Within a few months, he had learned a lot. During this time, the company made two cars using used engines. These cars went on to win first place in the Japanese Motor Car Championship in 1924.

Honda was a good mechanic, but in these races, he worked as both the engineer and the driver. This was the moment when he truly became passionate about cars. For many years, he continued to work at Hachiko, gaining experience and knowledge.

In 1928, when Honda was twenty-two years old, his boss decided to open a new branch in Hamamatsu city and gave Honda the responsibility to run it. Honda started the new branch with only one worker and grew it to thirty workers in just two years. He had become an excellent mechanic and racing driver. Using his skills, he designed a car for his boss that could go one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, breaking all previous speed records. This record lasted for twenty years.

Honda wanted to start his own workshop, but fate was not kind to him. In 1936, during a race, he had a serious accident. He survived, but his left arm was broken, his shoulder was dislocated, and he had many injuries on his face. It seemed that his dream of racing and working as a mechanic had ended.

Months later, after recovering, Honda asked his boss if he could stop repairing cars. He suggested starting a separate company to make spare parts. The boss rejected the idea because the company was already earning profits and did not want to take any risks.

Determined to follow his dream, Honda decided to start his own parts manufacturing company. In 1936, when he was thirty years old, he and a friend started a company called Honda Heavy Industries. They did not have any investment, so Honda worked at Hachiko during the day and spent nights making engines and pistons for his own company. He worked very hard for many months but did not achieve much success at first.

To improve his skills, he studied metallurgy at a university. After three years of hard work, he was able to make pistons successfully. He then showed his designs to Toyota, but out of fifty designs, forty-seven were rejected. Honda had no choice but to continue. He studied the market and visited factories across Japan to learn more about the industry.

Finally, Honda made pistons that passed quality control. Orders began to come in, and his company hired two thousand workers to fulfill them. At last, Honda’s dream was starting to become reality.

In 1941, Japan entered World War Two, and the government took control of many companies, including Honda’s. Honda was made the senior managing director. In 1944, a missile destroyed his factory. Then, in 1945, Japan faced two nuclear attacks, which forced the country to surrender to the Americans.

Even though Honda had to sell his possessions to survive, he did not give up. He used a small army engine to power a bicycle, creating a cheap and easy way to travel during a time when resources were scarce. This idea was very successful. People wanted these bicycles, and Honda designed his own engine. This was the first time a machine carried the Honda logo.

Honda did not have enough money to make these bicycles in large numbers. So he wrote letters to eighteen thousand shop owners. Three thousand of them trusted him and paid in advance. Over the next three years, Honda launched a motorcycle called the “Super Cub”, which became very popular. By 1958, it even sold more than Triumph and Harley Davidson motorcycles in the United States.

Honda loved racing and soon decided to make cars. In 1962, his first motorcycle won first place in an international race, bringing him fame all over the world. By 1960, Honda Motor had become the largest motorcycle manufacturing company in the world, and by 1968, it had sold ten million motorcycles.

Honda then entered car manufacturing. In 1972, he launched the Honda Civic, which became famous all over the world and is still popular today. By 1980, Honda Motor was the third-largest manufacturing company in Japan. Honda retired in 1973 and passed away in August 1991.

From being a curious boy in a small village to becoming a global automotive pioneer, Soichiro Honda’s life is a story of hard work, innovation, and never giving up.