1In 1922, a 15 year old boy shows up for his first day at work
2at a small auto repair shop in Tokyo, Japan.
3The owner who questioned if the boy was even meant for this type of business
4assigned him to clean the workshop and look after his child instead.
5At the time, nobody thought much of it neither did they care
6but only because they had no idea who this kid would eventually become.
7Fast forward a few decades and that boy Soichiro Honda
8was now competing with some of the biggest car brands in the world
9while also owning the largest motorbike manufacturer.
10This is the story of how one poor Japanese boy went from babysitting children
11to building the multi-billion dollar brand with Honda Motors.
12The story begins in 1906
13in a small poverty ridden village called Tenryu Shizuoka at the foot of Mount Fuji.
14It was there that Gihei Honda and his wife welcomed their first son - Soichiro Honda.
15Soichiro's father was a local blacksmith from the village
16who also fixed bicycles on the side
17while his mother was an accomplished weaver.
18Raised in difficult economic situations,
19Soichiro lost five of his siblings growing up due to health issues.
20When Soichiro was eight years old,
21he was going about his normal routine in the neighborhood
22when he heard a strange rumble that grabbed his attention.
23He followed the sound until he came across a big piece of strange machinery rolling along on four wheels.
24This machine was a Ford Model T
25and Soichiro was left captivated by what he had just witnessed.
26"It was the first car I saw."
27"What a thrill!"
28"I could not understand how it could move under its own power."
29"And when it had driven past me, without even thinking why, I found myself chasing it down the road as hard as I could run."
30This experience left a mark in his life that would forever change the way he would engage with machines.
31He learned how to wet the blades of the farm machinery and repair bicycles.
32He was fascinated by all kinds of engines and motors
33but Soichiro hated the idea of going to school.
34And instead of pursuing a proper education
35he spent the majority of his childhood helping his father with his bicycle repair business.
36His lack of interest in school affected his grades so terribly
37that he used some rubber that he found to forge his family's stamp on his grade reports.
38That way, his father wouldn't need to sign the paper and see his grades.
39Eventually, he got caught
40and his father punished him by making him kneel on his knees for an entire day without lunch.
41In 1922, Soichiro came across a magazine ad for a Tokyo-based automobile servicing company called Art Shokai.
42He reasoned that since the company was one of the most popular motor car services in the city
43they might be in need of new workers.
44So he wrote a letter to Art Shokai inquiring about a job
45and luckily enough, he received a positive reply.
46So at the age of 15, Soichiro dropped out of school,
47left home and headed for Tokyo in pursuit of his dreams.
48When Soichiro got to Tokyo,
49he was overwhelmed to see how fast and different city life was compared to the village he had come from.
50When Soichiro arrived, the shop's owner Yuzo Sakakibara had a job already prepared for him.
51He was to babysit the owner's child.
52Soichiro was disappointed to find that over the next few months, he wasn't making any money
53and the only work tasks he was assigned was to carry a baby wrapped around on his back.
54The only thing that made him stay was the shame of returning home a failure and facing his parents.
55As time went by the owner couldn't keep up with the high demand of his automobile business,
56so he finally pulled Soichiro in to help him out.
57Even though Soichiro started out doing menial tasks,
58he gradually climbed his way up until he became a trusted mechanic at the company.
59His talent and dedication eventually caught the attention of the owner,
60who decided to take little Soichiro under his wing
61and teach him not only mechanical repairs but the business side of the company as well.
62Although Sakakibara's repair work included both automobiles and bicycles,
63cars were not as popular then as they are today.
64Not only were automobiles a luxury that only people of the upper class could afford
65but most of the automobiles around at the time were foreign made.
66Through his work, Soichiro quickly became familiar with a wide range of automobiles
67including Lincolns, Mercedes, Daimlers
68and even various motorcycles that were brought into the workshop.
69Soichiro poured everything he had into expanding his knowledge and understanding of his craft.
70It was through this company that Soichiro was also introduced to the world of motorsports.
71Around this time, motorsports were quickly gaining popularity around Europe, America and even Japan.
72And in 1923, Sakakibara himself began to build racing cars
73with the help of his workers, including Soichiro.
74Their first model was the Art Daimler built using a second-hand Daimler engine.
75And their second model was the Curtiss.
76The Curtiss was made using another second-hand engine from an American Curtiss Biplane
77placed on the chassis of another American car, the Mitchell.
78This car would go on to race in the 5th Japanese Motorcar Championship in 1924
79taking a stunning first position
80with Sakakibara's brother as driver and Soichiro as the accompanying engineer.
81It was a special experience for the 17 year old boy
82and from then on, motorsports became his religion.
83In 1926, Soichiro was drafted for military service
84but didn't pass the medical exams as they revealed that he was colorblind.
85Thus he was excused from the army and was able to keep working at Art Shokai.
86By 1928, Yuzo Sakakibara wanted to expand his business
87and decided to open a branch of Art Shokai in Hamamatsu.
88He believed there was no better man to leave in charge than his young apprentice.
89And at the age of 21, Soichiro was called upon to run the new branch.
90However, Soichiro's repair shop struggled during the first year,
91largely because people didn't want to entrust their cars with someone so new and so young.
92So Sochito had to live off the scraps that other repair shops cast aside.
93Still, the young man used all the knowledge and skill he had acquired over the years
94and in time, he successfully managed to grow his business.
95By the 1930s, his new shop had grown from a one-man operation to a staff of 30 people.
96The branch grew at an incredible pace during the next few years
97and with so much work to be done, Soichiro had to bring his wife in to help run the company.
98Even though Soichiro was known as a brilliant mechanic,
99he was also a prodigious racing driver
100and this was another skill that helped him stand out from his peers.
101Inside his shop, Soichiro had built the Hamamatsu race car
102in which he managed to set a new speed record by driving it up to 120 kilometers per hour -
103a record that stood for 20 years in Japan.
104However, racing at the time was far more dangerous than it is today
105and in June 1936,
106Honda was involved in a serious crash while racing the Hamamatsu in the suburbs of Tokyo and almost died.
107Soichiro's left arm was fractured,
108his shoulder was dislocated and his face was damaged.
109Despite spending a couple of months at the hospital nursing his injuries,
110Soichiro returned to the racetrack only four months later.
111His family however was unhappy with his return to racing
112and after several arguments with his wife and father, Soichiro never raced again.
113By 1936, Honda became tired and weary of his repair work.
114He wanted to do more and was planning to move on to manufacturing car parts.
115He proposed turning the Art Shokai Hamamatsu branch into a separate company for this purpose
116but the shareholders of the company disagreed with him.
117The investors saw that the current orders and workload from the repair shop were bringing in enough profit
118and they didn't want to take a gamble on a venture they believed was unnecessary.
119So Soichiro decided to open his own company to manufacture piston rings
120and founded the Tokai Seiki Heavy Industry
121and made one of his close friends Shichiro Kato the president of his company.
122Soichiro and Kato worked tirelessly in their new venture
123and together started the Art Piston Ring Research Center.
124Soichiro in particular was still working at his Hamamatsu branch
125spending his days at the repair workshop and his nights developing pistons.
126For a long time, they struggled to make any breakthrough
127and during the next couple of years, Soichiro had worked so much
128that he lost a lot of weight causing his face to look emaciated.
129All the stress his body and mind were going through made him look like a completely different person.
130And after a series of failures Soichiro decided to enroll as a part-time student
131at the Hamamatsu Industrial Institute
132to improve his knowledge of metallurgy.
133It wasn't until 1939 when Soichiro would finally create a successful working piston.
134Confident in his design, he quit his job at Art Shokai
135handing the branch off to some of his trainees
136and proceeded to work full time at his new company.
137Honda began producing pistons day in and day out
138but his creations were still flawed and nowhere near the quality they needed to be.
139Toyota contacted Soichiro to make pistons for the company
140and out of the 50 he submitted, only 3 passed Toyota's standard.
141It was a big setback for Soichiro but he didn't give up.
142He spent the next few years traveling around Japan
143visiting steel-making companies and universities to improve his knowledge of manufacturing piston rings.
144After gaining confidence in his knowledge and experience, Soichiro gave it another try.
145The result was incredible.
146Not only did his new pistons pass quality control
147but orders also began to come in from all over the country.
148So much so that the company went on to employ around 2000 people
149just to catch up with the orders.
150Things were starting to look great for Soichiro and his company until...
151Japan joined the Pacific War in 1941
152and Soichiro's company was placed under the direct command and control of the Ministry of Munitions.
153The following year, Toyota took over 45% of the company's equity
154and Soichiro was downgraded from president to the position of senior managing director.
155Things went from bad to worse as many male employees began to resign
156as they were drafted for military service
157and his company began to struggle.
158Soichiro did everything he could to keep his company afloat
159but he wasn't ready for what was yet to come.
160In 1944, air raid sirens began to intensify in Japan
161and it became very obvious that the country was headed towards defeat.
162Hamamatsu was in great danger
163and Soichiro's company was struck by a direct bomb blast, destroying the factory.
164The company would go on to suffer a second misfortune in January 1945
165when the Nankai earthquake shook the region and the Iwanta plant collapsed.
166Japan eventually surrendered in August 1945
167but by then, Soichiro had nearly lost everything.
168After the war, Soichiro decided to sell what was left of his company to Toyota
169for a sum of 450000 yen
170and publicly told everyone that he was going to take some time off to figure out what the future would hold
171as Japan was left in ruins.
172A year after the war, the country experienced an economic meltdown
173that threatened the lives of its citizens.
174There was a shortage of food clothing and shelter
175and the resources were rationed.
176As a result, Soichiro couldn't even find enough gas to drive his car to the market and buy food for his family.
177One day, Soichiro came across a generator engine that belonged to the Japanese imperial army
178which was used during the war to power up a wireless radio.
179He was fascinated with the engine
180and after figuring out how it worked, a bright idea came to him.
181What would happen if he attached this engine to a bicycle?
182By no means was this a new invention.
183The practice of clipping a motor onto a bike was common in Europe
184and a few of these had even made their way to Japan
185but Soichiro knew the country was in desperate need of cheap transportation
186and so, in 1946,
187Soichiro used his old warehouse to establish the Honda Technical Research Institute
188for the sole purpose of figuring out a way to make motorbikes.
189There, he and a staff of 12 men followed through with his idea
190and successfully managed to put together a motorbike using some engines he found along with other spare parts.
191These new bicycles instantly became a hit
192and orders began to come in from different parts of the country.
193Soon enough, Soichiro was running out of used engines
194so he decided to design and develop one of his own.
195In 1947, he finished the Type-A engine
196and for the very first time, the Honda name was emblazoned on a machine.
197Soichiro founded the Honda motor company in 1948
198with the initial goal of building motorcycles to help get Japanese workers around.
199The only problem was, Soichiro needed more money to expand his production
200so he wrote an open letter to all 18000 bicycle shop owners in Japan,
201telling them that he had thought of a solution to get Japan moving again.
202Out of the 18000 stores he wrote,
203he received positive responses from 3000 of them
204and they provided him with the money he needed to start making his first shipments.
205A year later, the company produced its very first complete motorcycle: the Model D.
206Even though the Model D was a big achievement for Honda it was too big and heavy.
207And because of this only a few people bought the motorcycle.
208Soichiro wasn't satisfied with this,
209so he stripped down the motorbike and worked long hours to make another bike that was smaller and lighter.
210After three years of trial and error,
211he succeeded in building another motorcycle and named it the Super Cub.
212The Super Cub was an instant hit and became so successful that it won the emperor's prize.
213Honda also joined efforts with investor Takio Fujisawa
214who provided the capital he needed as well as financial and marketing strategies.
215This partnership became the foundation upon which the Honda motor company was built on.
216The Super Cub reached the United States in 1958
217with a sticker price of just 295 dollars
218which was a quarter of the price of what other American motorcycles cost.
219And thanks to the company's marketing and engineering skills,
220it soon outsold both Triumph and Harley Davidson in their respective home markets.
221But by then, Soichiro had also expanded his motorcycle brand into the racing world.
222Racing at the time was more than a sport,
223it was the biggest platform for these manufacturing companies to showcase their cars and motorbikes to the rest of the world.
224So he traveled all over the world to see the races,
225studying and examining all the motorcycles of his competitors.
226In fact, throughout his career on the track,
227whenever a benchmark was set by one of his competitors,
228Honda would take this information home and strive to surpass it.
229It was this attitude that took Honda motorcycles from an awful and disappointing finish at their first international race in 1954
230to the manufacturer's team prize at the 1959 Isle Of Man TT -
231the biggest motorcycle race in the world.
232Two years later, Honda would win again at the Isle Of Man TT
233and his success on the racetrack put the Honda name on the map.
234By the 1960s, Honda had become the biggest motorcycle company in the world.
235After the release of the Honda Dream in 1949,
236they had produced a total of 10 million motorcycles by 1968.
237However, becoming the biggest motorcycle company wasn't enough for Soichiro.
238There was another big dream he'd been chasing since he was eight years old
239and it was none other than entering the car making industry.
240When Soichiro announced he was going into the automobile market,
241many people warned him that it was too risky for the company
242and that he was better off just making motorcycles.
243Around this time, Japan had Nissan, Toyota
244and a few other companies, who were competing in the tough world of the automobile market
245and Japanese officials tried to convince Soichiro that the country didn't need another car manufacturer
246but Soichiro didn't listen to their arguments.
247Honda debuted its first automobile in 1963
248with the release of the T360 Mini truck -
249a small but reliable pickup truck.
250Unfortunately, the mini truck never gained much traction
251and it was soon followed with the company's first ever sports car: the S-500.
252This S-500 was a two-door roadster with a four-speed transmission
253capable of reaching 80 miles per hour.
254It was a smaller car but it was smooth and easy to drive
255but sadly, only around 1300 cars of this model were built,
256making it one of the rarest Honda cars ever made.
257But just like Soichiro did with his motorcycles,
258Honda brought its cars into the racing world.
259The Honda RA271 made its formula one debut at the 1964 Belgian Grand Prix.
260It only took one year for Honda to achieve a first place victory
261at the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix
262with their new successor - the RA272.
263But despite its early success on the race track,
264Honda was nowhere near beating its competitors in the car market,
265so they took a break from racing
266and turned their attention to building one of the most successful cars in the automobile market -
267the Honda Civic.
268Honda debuted their new model in 1972
269and in the following years, it became one of the most popular cars in the world.
270One of the reasons for its success, especially in European and American markets,
271was due to the oil crisis of the 1970s.
272During this period, shortages of fuel spread all over the world
273and to tackle this, Soichiro devised a brand new method for fuel management
274called the compound vortex controlled combustion
275or CVCC for short.
276This allowed people to travel further distances with their car without burning too much fuel.
277The Honda Civic also tackled the pollution problem caused by exhaust gases
278by adding a catalytic converter to its vehicles,
279something that other big automakers didn't consider as much at the time.
280And just like that, Honda was rapidly becoming popular in the automobile market.
281Even though Americans might have bought the Civic out of necessity,
282it was the Honda Accord that really changed the game.
283Initially, the Honda Accord debuted as a compact hatchback
284but it later expanded to sedans.
285This new model contained the same fuel-efficient feature as the Civic
286but with a better moderate size and thanks to their wider interior space and comfort,
287the Honda Accord would later become one of the best-selling sedans in the automotive history.
288At the beginning of the 80s the Honda motor company was the third largest producer of cars in Japan
289and by the end of the decade, it was the third biggest car company on the planet.
290Soichiro Honda retired from the company in 1973
291and later died on the 5th of August 1991.
292Looking back on my work,
293I feel that I was doing nothing more than mistakes, blunders and serious omissions
294but I am proud of the achievements.
295Although I did one mistake after another,
296my mistakes and failures never occurred for the same reasons.
297Honda has now expanded into multiple industries including jets boat engines,
298power equipment and robots to name a few.