SOICHIRO HONDA - A GREAT HISTORY OF JAPANESE CAR MANUFACTURE

In today’s blog, I would like to share a wonderful story of Soichiro Honda biography and his inspirational story.

First of all, let me start off with one of his most famous quotes “ experience is the most cruel teacher”. Let’s take our eyes off the road for a moment. In my opinion, I think its difficult to find a person who has not heard about Honda Motor company, one of the biggest company in the automobile industry. From various brand of vehicles, the four-wheel drive, motorcycles, racing motor and etc. However, perhaps only a few or none of you know the real story of how challenging it was for Mr. Soichiro Honda to establish Honda. The numerous trials and failures he faced before successfully establishing Honda as it is today.

Soichiro Honda was born in Yamahigashi on the 17^th of Nov 1906. He is the founder of the Honda Motor Co., Inc. Corporation and automobile companies in the U.S. and Japan. His father, Gihei Honda was a local blacksmith runs a bicycle repair shop and his mother, Mika, was a weaver. His family was not wealthy but Soichiro’s upbringing was happy. His father instilled his children the importance of hard work and interest in mechanical things. It was all thank to the strict education from his father that makes Honda interested in machinery . He inherited his father's inborn manual dexterity and curiousity about machines.

At school, he got the nickname “black nose weasel” because his face was always dirty when helping out his father in the workshop. At his starting career, Soichiro always faced with failure, illness, out of money and he dropped out of college. In 1922, after finishing 8 years of schooling, he worked as an assistant for Hart Shokai repair shop in Tokyo. Initially he had only done unskilled job such as cleaning but his talent around machinery was spotted by the shop owner and was allowed to design race cars. 

Soichiro Honda was appointed to lead a branch office in Hamamatsu when he was 21. Since the earthquake in Japan in 1923, Honda decided to replace the radius of the car with metal instead of those made of wood because they cannot absorb shock. His idea was a success and was then exported all over the world. He signed his first copyright when he was 30 and created his own workshop named Tokai Seiki to develop the concept of the piston ring. In 1938, Soichiro Honda decided to sell his idea to Toyota but was rejected because the ring does not meet their standards. 

He refused to give up and continued working towards his goal. With strong determination, he struggled and redesigned for two years, in the end, Toyota gave him the contract. However,Japan was preparing for war at that time and this causes building materials to be short in supply. Eventually, he came up with his own form of concrete and build his factory. With the factory now build, he was ready for production but his factory was bombed twice and steel become unavailable. He then decided to sell his piston factory to Toyota. Was this the end for Honda? No, of course!

After the war in 1947, there was a gasoline shortage in Japan. So, he could not used his car. He then came up with an idea to attach a small motor to his bicycle. His neighbours were impressed and soon demand started to pile up. Eventually, he ran out of materials to supply the overwhelming demand. This is another big hill for Soichiro Honda to overcome again. Will he give up now? No, again!

Soichiro Honda then wrote to 18000 bicycle shop owners and receive 5000 replies to provide him with the capital to raise funds for his factory. Unfortunately, the motorcycles that was manufactured was too bulky to work well, so he continued to develop the motorcycle and finally able to introduce to the world the “Honda Cub”.

Today, Honda Corporation employs over 10000 employees in the U.S. and Japan, and is one of the world’s largest automobile companies. Honda succeeded because one man made a truly committed decision, acted upon it and made adjustment on a continuous basis. Failure was simply not considered a possibility. Last but not least, Honda was a man who had a burning desire to succees. He took action and hang on to his purpose although he met many obstacles.

Soichiro Honda once said, “ Many people dream of success. I believe that success can be achieved only through repeated failure and self-analysis. Success is only one percent of your work, and the rest-bold overcoming of obstacles. If you are not afraid of them, success will come to you itself”. Today’s prosperity of Honda Motor proves the truth of its founder