All you need to know about Honda.
DATE OF BIRTH: 1949
NATIONALITY: Japanese
Honda's history is built around engine development and starts in the mid-1920s when automotive mechanic Soichiro Honda experimented with building race cars, using an 8-litre V8 fighter airplane engine. In 1936, he set a racetrack average speed record (75 mph) in Japan. He set up a company manufacturing metal spoked wheels, and piston rings of such quality that he landed his first big customer - Toyota Motor, who promptly bought his company.
After the second World War, Honda established the Honda Technical Research Institute, whose first project used war-surplus small engines to provide power for bicycles. At the same time, a former army officer with no money, Takeo Fujisawa, responded to Honda's need for a backer with a promise that he would find the resources he needed. In 1949, Honda produced its first motorcycle prototype - the first Honda Dream. The first 4-stroke small motorcycle engine was made by Honda in 1951 and by the end of the 1950s, it was up there with the motorcycle firms which later became world giants - Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki. In 1959, Honda products provided a much higher power-to-weight ratio than competitors and the brand won the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. From then, Honda bikes dominated key races year after year. Subsequently, the "Model T" of the moped world, the 50cc Super Cub took the fancy of a young population in Japan, and Europe, who needed economical transport.
Honda went into car production in 1961 - the first vehicle was a 30hp light truck, the T-260. The second was a two-seater sports car, the S500, with 44hp out of a 500cc engine. By 1963 Honda was back to its racing roots, developing Formula 1 cars, and in 1967 came first and fifth in the Mexico City GP. Meanwhile, Honda experimented with air-cooled engines, and made one in the Honda 1300, but it was so technologically overbuilt that it cost the company money on every car sold.
In 1971, Honda developed the Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion (CVCC) engine which beat emissions requirements without the need for a catalytic convertor or cutting down power. In 1973, that was at the core of the success of Honda's first "world car", the Civic. That year, the founders retired, and Honda had become a major brand with leading-edge technology. It now has the first production fuel-cell cars in use on a pilot basis in cities in Japan and the US.
Best Car: The current Jazz.
Worst Car: The Civic of the early 1990s.
Weirdest Car: The Dream Solar Car - in 1996 it won the 3,000-km World Solar Challenge across Australia.