In 1906, in a small village on the island of Honshu in Japan, a boy named Sothro Honda was born to a blacksmith father who also worked part-time repairing bicycles. Honda’s five siblings had died of various diseases.
Honda used to repair bicycles with his father
At the age of 16, Honda got a job as a technician at an automobile service station in Tokyo called Ajshukai, but when he got there, he was given a cleaning job.
After a few months, Honda also started getting workshop work from which he learned the working of vehicles well within a short period
In 1928, the owner of It Shukai opened another branch and entrusted Honda to run it. Within a few years, Honda had become an expert mechanic.
Along with that went four racing cars, and then Honda designed a sports car for its owner.
Running at a speed of 120 km per hour, this vehicle broke all the old records
This record remained in the name of Japan for the next 20 years. Honda wanted to open his workshop, but in 1936, Honda was seriously injured in a car racing accident.
After recovering, Honda started an auto parts company at the age of 30, but he had no money to run the company.
After that, Honda worked for Shokai during the day, while at night he tried to make engine pistons for his new company.
But despite several months of efforts, he was unsuccessful. After that, Honda entered a university to learn joinery and after three years of hard work, he finally succeeded in making pistons in 1939. He then quit his job and started making pistons.
When he pitched his pistons to the Toyota company, 47 of his designs were rejected. He spent the next several years understanding the market.
After which Honda once again produced pistons and this time it was successful.
All the companies passed on the pistons made by him and then the orders started coming in droves
Honda suffered another blow when World War II broke out in 1944 when the Honda factory was hit by a missile during an air raid.
Honda sold its assets to Toyota for four and a half million yen. After the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan bowed to the United States
The war was over, but like Honda, the situation in all of Japan was from bad to worse. Once Honda got an engine from a Japanese army vehicle, Honda installed this engine on a bicycle and faced many problems, including inflation and transportation. The Japanese people love this Honda idea
Honda wrote an open letter to 18,000 shopkeepers. 3,000 shopkeepers sent him money. In the next three years, Honda made a motorcycle.
Launched as the Super Cub, which immediately took the market by storm, the racing enthusiast Honda created a sports bike that won the international racing competition in 1962, after which the Honda name began to reverberate around the world.
By 1960, the Honda motorcycle company had become the largest company in the world, but Honda’s real dream was to make cars.
After the success of the motorcycle, after years of hard work and several design rejections, the Honda Civic was launched in 1972. It was very popular and its new models are still popular all over the world
In 1980, Honda Motors was the third largest manufacturing company in Japan, and then in the next 10 years, this company became the third largest company in the world.