Soichiro Honda

About

Soichiro Honda was an Japanese enginner and industrialist. In 1948, he established Honda and oversaw its expansion from a wooden shack manufacturing bicycle motors to a multinational automobile and motorcycle manufacturer.

In early life

Honda was born in Tenryū, Shizuoka a small village under Mount Fuji near Hamamatsu on November 17, 1906. He spent his early childhood helping his father, Gihei, a blacksmith, with his bicycle repair business. At the time his mother, Mika, was a weaver. Honda was not interested in traditional education, his school handed grade reports to the children, but required that it will be returned stamped with the family seal, to make sure that a parent had seen it. Soichiro created a stamp to forge his family seal out of an used rubber bicycle pedal cover. The fraud was soon discovered when Honda started to make forged stamps for other children. Honda did not realize that the stamp had to be mirror-imaged. His family name 本田 was symmetrical when written vertically, so it did not cause a problem, but some of other children's family names were not.

So what's interesting?

• The billion-dollar business that is Honda began with a series of failures and fortunate turns of luck. Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation for a job after interviewing for a job as an engineer, leaving him jobless for quite some time. He started making scooters of his own at home, and spurred on by his neighbors, finally started his own business.
• Soichiro and his wife Sachi both held private pilot's licenses. He also enjoyed skiing, hang-gliding and ballooning at 77, and he was a highly accomplished artist.
•  He and Takeo Fujisawa made a pact never to force their own sons to join the company.
• His son, Hirotoshi Honda, was the founder and former CEO of Mugen Motorsports, a tuner for Honda vehicles who also created original racing vehicles.

To know more interesting things plz subscribe us and join our page on facebook