How Did Soichiro Honda Build His First Motorbike?

David Senra, reading Sol Sanders, says Soichiro Honda built his first motorbike because crowded trains and buses were unbearable and a gasoline shortage made it impossible to drive his car. He fitted a military gasoline motor, the kind once used to run generators for radios, onto a bicycle.

Transportation of any kind was desperately needed after World War II, and the makeshift motorbike was an instant success. When the surplus military motors were exhausted, he decided to design and build a motor for the bicycle. Relatives and friends criticized the business. Some said he should open a garage, since automobiles were bound to increase rapidly in Japan. Critics said a motorbike was only something for a black marketer. That was in fact the principal use, and even his wife rode one through the countryside to gather food for the family. Honda's point was that the product was necessary for the same reason: it economized gasoline, which was in short supply.

In 1949 Honda was 43. Senra calls that the start of a company still thriving 80 years later.