With more than 14 million internal combustion engines built each year, Honda is the largest engine-maker in the world. In 2004, the company began to produce diesel motors.
Honda is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Their shares
trade on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and the New York Stock
Exchange, as well as exchanges in Osaka, Nagoya,
Sapporo, Kyoto, Fukuoka, London, Paris and Switzerland.
American Honda Motor Co. is based in Torrance,
California. Honda Canada Inc. is headquartered in the
Scarborough, Ontario district of Toronto, Ontario, and
is building new corporate headquarters in Richmond Hill,
Ontario, scheduled to relocate in 2008. Honda of Canada
Manufacturing is based in Alliston, Ontario. Honda has
also created joint ventures around the world, such as
Honda Siel Cars India Ltd , Hero Honda Motorcycles India
Ltd, Dongfeng Honda Automobile Company in China and
Honda Atlas Cars Pakistan.
Company founder Soichiro Honda was a
mechanic who, after working at Art
Shokai, developed his own design for
piston rings in 1938 . He attempted to
sell them to Toyota. He
constructed a new facility to supply
Toyota, but soon after, during World War
II, the Honda piston manufacturing
facilities were almost completely
destroyed.
Soichiro Honda created a
new company with what he had left. The
Japanese market was decimated by World
War II; his country was starved of money
and fuel, but was still in need of basic
transportation. Honda, utilizing his
manufacturing facilities, attached an
engine to a bicycle which created a
cheap and efficient method of transport.
He gave his company the name Honda
Giken Kōgyō Kabushiki Kaisha which
translates to Honda Research
Institute Company Ltd. Despite its
grandiose name, the first facility
bearing that name was a simple wooden
shack where Mr. Honda and his associates
would fit the engines to bicycles. The
official Japanese name for Honda Motor
Company Ltd. remains the same in honor
of Soichiro Honda's efforts. On 24
September 1948 the Honda Motor Co. was
officially founded in Japan.
Honda began to produce a range of
scooters and motorcycles and Soichiro
Honda quickly recovered from the losses
incurred during the war. Honda's first
motorcycle to be put on sale was the
1947 A-Type (one year before the
company was officially founded).
However, Honda's first full-fledged
motorcycle on the market was the 1949
Dream D-Type. It was equipped with a 98cc
engine producing around 3 horsepower.
This was followed by other highly
popular scooters throughout the 1950s.
In 1958, the American
Honda Company was
founded and one year
later, Honda introduced
its first model in the
United States, the 1959
Honda C100 Super Cub.
The Honda Cub holds the
title of being the
best-selling vehicle in
history, with around 50
million units sold
around the world.
By the 1970s,
Honda became the largest
producer of motorcycles
in the world, and
remains so as of 2007.
In the United States
during the 1960s, large
motorcycles had the
image of being ridden by
tough, hardened
characters. It was an
image fostered by owners
of Harley Davidson
motorcycles, but Honda
countered this public
perception with their
successful "You meet the
nicest people on a
Honda" advertising
program. Honda
introduced their new
SOHC inline 4-cylinder
750 in 1969, which was
immediately successful
and established this
configuration as one of
the most popular for
performance motorcycles.
