The Inspiring Life Story of Soichiro Honda | Automotive Icons

0:00 today Honda is one of the most popular car brands and by far the most popular motorcycle brand in the world Hondas are sold in over 150 countries and it's hard to find a place where the brand is not well known what's lesser known however is the story of its founder hey I'm Creech this is creaching cars and today we'll be taking a look at the inspiring life story of soichero Honda soliciro Honda was born in the rural Village of comio near hamamatsu in Japan on November 17 1906 his mother was a weaver and his father was a trained blacksmith who made his living repairing bicycles during his early years soichiro helped his father around the shop at the time bicycles were beginning to take off in popularity especially in larger cities so Ichiro's father would buy damaged bikes and repair and restore them before

0:46 reselling them if you didn't know Japan has a very conformist culture with strict ideas about expected Behavior but from a young age soichiro became disinterested in the traditional school system and showed that he wasn't afraid to go a different route from from his peers at his school the children were required to return their report cards with the family signature to prove their parents had seen it not wanting his parents to know that he was performing poorly so aichiro was able to forge his family name onto a bike pedal and stamped the signature onto his report card after his initial success with this he began making other Forge stamps for his classmates until his little scheme was finally uncovered by the teacher in addition to his experience in his father's shop so Ichiro had a couple other notable experiences around Motors that certainly shaped him as a person he never forgot the first time he had seen

1:32 an automobile come through his small village he loved the smell of burning oil that the car gave off later recalling that to him it smelled like perfume later on socharo would take one of his father's bicycles and go see a demonstration of an airplane done by the famous pilot Art Smith by age 15 he was sure that he wanted to be around machines for the rest of his life he had seen an ad in a newspaper for a job helping around an auto repair shop in Tokyo so soichiro left school for Tokyo and got the job at art chokai Auto Repair there switch hero would grind out the following six years cleaning up the shop and doing other menial tasks his efforts would eventually pay off and the owner of the shop yuzo sakakibara allowed soichiro to start working in a secondary shop where the owner built race cars in 1923 sochiro showed his

2:18 dedication by Saving three cars during an earthquake that hit the area so Ichiro was then able to be the riding mechanic as the brothers who owned the shops won first place at the Japan Motor Car Championship in 1924. after this racing success sakakibara was eager to open up more shops and so Ichiro took the opportunity to open an art show Kai shop back in his hometown of hamamatsu at the age of 21. the risk of common earthquakes in Japan is what initially inspired Honda to create very durable spare parts for cars and bikes he began to create his own replacement parts that were often better than the originals and he even started to receive patents for some of his Innovations so ajiro would also race in his spare time however in 36 he would crash his turbocharged Ford race car at the tamagawa speedway as a

3:05 result of the crash he would injure his right eye and his brother was injured as well this event pushed him to give up any ambition of being a race car driver sochiro Honda's art show Kai shop became very successful in his area but after nine years of running the shop he desired more he wanted to create a separate research facility to create new parts specifically piston rings in the beginning but the sakaki bar Brothers weren't on board with this plan and if sochiro were to make it happen he would have to do it all himself so in 1937 soichiro would officially leave our shokai and found his own company he named it Tokai seki and went to work on developing improved piston rings with his ties to art show Kai severed soichiro needed a large customer to help get his business going who better than Japan's leading Vehicle Manufacturer at

3:52 the time Toyota Honda sent 30 000 piston rings to Toyota but the quality control inspectors were dissatisfied with his product and only deemed three rings as acceptable for use so Ichiro persevered through this initial failure and improved on his designs in manufacturing during the next few years he would work tirelessly and sleep in his Workshop he even pawned off his wife's jewelry to keep his business going and eventually he was able to mass-produce piston rings that were higher quality in his relationship with Toyota improved as Japan began to militarize in the late 30s with plans to invade China production ramped up across the board with Toyota being integral to Japan's vehicle manufacturing sochiro was able to produce 40 of the piston rings that Toyota used with the dawn of World War II came a big production opportunity for

4:38 so hero and he was finally able to reap the rewards for all his hard work however things would take a turn for the worse as Japan got the United States involved in the war in 1944 the United States would bomb soichiro's hometown of hamamatsu destroying his Factory and inventory as the war came to a close with Japan's surrender so Ichiro decided not to restore his Factory as he was uncertain about the future of Japan's economy he sold the remains of Tokai Seiki to Toyota for 450 000 Yen so aichiro took the next year off spending their time at home with his friends and his wife Sachi before the end of 1946 sochira knew he wanted to get back in to manufacture Japan's economy was rebuilding relatively well after the war so he purchased a factory and started the Honda technology research

5:24 institution so it's your return to his roots and began working on bicycles but he didn't want to make just another bicycle so he began experimenting with putting different engines on the bicycles he also took small military radios that were left over from World War II and fitted them to the bicycles so that the rider would have a radio with this initial design soichiro went around his hometown which was still fairly small at the time and managed to sell 1500 models sochiro had also reconnected with a friend who worked for an aircraft manufacturer which had used Honda's piston rings his friend's name was Takeo fujisama and he was able to work with soichiro Honda and manage the company's finances to set it up for Success better than Honda had been before after this small success socho approved upon his design with a two-stroke engine and brought the Honda

6:09 a-type to production in 1949 he changed the name to Honda motor company and introduced the company's first motorcycle called the d-type or the dream two years after the dream was released so it sure began experimenting with four cycle engines for the first time and during the early 50s soichiro and his family were finally able to live comfortably again with the early success of Honda Motor Company in 1959 after increasing success in Asia Honda opened up a dealership in Los Angeles the dealership was a success and by 1964 Honda became the largest manufacturer of motorcycles not just in Japan but in the entire world Takeo fujisama was still managing the company's finances and he and soichiro made a great Duo as Honda directors with this incredible success

6:55 in motorcycles Honda knew it was time to get into the growing car market the first automobile Honda would produce was the 1963 t360 pickup truck this was a small truck classified as a k-car in Japan they used a 356 cc engine Hunter then produced the S500 a small sports car which showed that the brand had some range of products they could deliver on a few years later Honda developed and produced the N600 this was a compact passenger car and in 1969 became the first car that Honda would sell in the United States in 1973 soichiro and Takeo fujusama were still overseeing the operations of the company and they oversaw the development of the Civic as we all know Pacific would go want to be one of the most popular cars ever selling nearly 30 million models at the

7:43 time of this recording the Civic would end up being siliciro's last direct contribution to the world as in October 1973 he and fujisawa would step down together but so each year was still the Supreme advisor to the board for the next 10 years he enjoyed a productive and fun retirement with activities like skiing and hang gliding as well as doing charitable work with the Honda foundation so Ichiro had a son named hirotoshi however he never wanted to force his son to take over the company as he felt like that would compromise the company's values as you may know his son went on to found the company Mugen Motorsports on August 5th 1991 at the age of 84 so Ichiro passed away due to liver failure he left behind his incredible and inspiring story of never giving up and holding on to your values

8:29 as he created one of the most well-known and trusted brands in the world hope you enjoyed this video personally I love the life story of socho Honda and I'm really glad I got to share with you this video is part of a series on the channel called Automotive icons where I look at the lives and Innovations of pioneers within the automotive industry for more content like this check out the automotive icons playlist on the channel and subscribe so you don't miss future videos thanks for watching and I'll see you next time