Soichiro Honda kicked off his legendary automotive empire in 1946 by strapping surplus two-stroke radio generator engines onto standard pedal bicycles in a tiny wooden shack in Hamamatsu.

A closer look

Soichiro Honda kicked off his legendary automotive empire in 1946 by strapping surplus two-stroke radio generator engines onto standard pedal bicycles in a tiny wooden shack in Hamamatsu. Japan’s post-war infrastructure was completely devastated, leaving public transportation in ruins and fuel in desperate shortage. These crude motorized bikes were loud, emitted an incredibly foul stench, and required the rider to pedal vigorously just to get the engine to kick over. Yet, they provided cheap, reliable mobility to a broken nation and sold like absolute hotcakes. What started as a desperate post-war hack job using leftover military trash eventually evolved into the largest motorcycle manufacturer on the planet. It is genuinely inspiring to realize that the multimillion-dollar engineering marvels currently dominating MotoGP and global highways trace their direct lineage back to a noisy, glorified weed-whacker strapped to a pushbike