How Did Honda Motorcycles Start?
The fledgling Honda Motor Company sets a path for its future
In August of 1949, the Honda Motor Company had completed the first prototype of a very important motorcycle. Technologically advanced for its day, it featured such Honda firsts as a kickstarter and chain final drive, as well as such rarities as a telescopic front fork and two-speed transmission. Power came from a 98cc two-stroke single with square bore and stroke dimensions, 50mm x 50mm, and it churned out 3 horsepower at 5000 rpm. According to legend, Soichiro Honda and his 20 employees celebrated with a party in the office, complete with home-brewed sake. One of the employees said, “It’s like a dream!” And Mr. Honda shouted, “That’s it! Dream!” and officially christened the new motorcycle the Dream Type D.
To understand the Dream D’s significance to Honda, you have to know something of its background. After World War II, Japan was essentially starting over from the ground up, and people desperately needed inexpensive transportation. Honda’s first efforts in 1947 resulted in the A-type engine, a 1-horsepower 50cc two-stroke that attached to bicycles and used army-issue hot-water bottles as fuel tanks. Employees nicknamed it the chimney, partly for its tall cylinder, and partly for the fumes created by the raw pine-resin fuel civilians had to burn at the time. But Honda wasn’t the only one engaging in the enterprise. Many others had the same idea to provide cheap transport, and new companies sprouted up left and right; by the early 1950s, there were more than 200 Japanese motorcycle manufacturers. Standing out in such a crowd was crucial to a firm’s future, and it was hoped the Dream D would provide a launching point for the Honda Motor Company.
But that’s not what happened. At that time, Honda sold both engines and complete motorcycles to distributors, and the Dream D wasn’t as popular as putting a Honda engine in a competitor’s frame. Honda’s business partner, Takeo Fujisawa, told distributors that if they wanted to sell the Dream, they could no longer get engines; if they wanted engines, they could not get the Dream. Such tactics angered some of the distributors enough that they supposedly threatened Fujisawa with knives. The Dream also had problems with insufficient clearance between its tires and fenders; mud would pack up during poor weather on the primitive roads of the time.
Yet Soichiro Honda had always preached learning from mistakes. “To me,” he once said, “success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection.” The Dream D offered that opportunity, to build success out of failure. And it would result in the Dream E of 1951, a radical departure for Honda, and one that would start the company’s climb to the forefront of motorcycle manufacturing.
Fuel was extremely scarce and expensive, and by late 1949 some of Honda’s competitors had turned to more economical four-stroke engines. Despite some initial reluctance, Mr. Honda decided to take the four-stroke path as well. This was an ambitious undertaking: If the company had to risk expensive retooling to produce such engines, the design would have to be a good one. But Mr. Honda was willing to wager everything on the strength of bold engineering ideas.
That design was an overhead-valve (OHV) four-stroke engine, an idea far ahead of its time in Japanese motorcycle manufacturing, where most were using lawn-mower-like flathead engines. An OHV engine allows higher rpm because it offers less restriction to airflow through the engine. Its more compact squish combustion chamber also allows a substantial boost in compression ratio, giving not only more pulling power, but better fuel economy too. The single-cylinder 146cc E-type engine could go 220 miles on a gallon of fuel, yet delivered 5.5 horsepower, and in an impromptu test, a test rider took the two-speed prototype on a rainy ascent of the Hakone Mountains, while Mr. Honda followed in a car. The machine made the climb easily, in top gear, averaging 45 mph.
By 1952 demand for the Dream E was brisk, despite the existence of some 200 other motorbike producers. In fact, the E’s sales success allowed the company to raise new money, which was used to renovate or build three manufacturing plants, as well as buy sophisticated machine tools and production equipment. It also enabled the company to cut its dependency on suppliers and set up its own distribution network. The Dream E design is regarded as the turning point in Honda’s early history for all those reasons–and two more.
The Dream E showcased Mr. Honda’s technological genius, and ambition. Honda pushed forward faster than the competition. Other manufacturers could not develop engines as innovative and sophisticated as Honda could, nor as rapidly, and soon began to fall by the wayside, until of the nearly 200 only four now remain. Moreover, the Dream E was one of the first times Mr. Honda was willing to bet it all simply on the strength of an idea. That approach–the belief in bold engineering solutions–became the company’s trademark, and is still true today. You can see it in such products as the Interceptor®, the Silver Wing®, the FourTrax® Foreman® ES, and the FourTrax Foreman Rubicon®. By 1952, the Honda Motor Company wasn’t out of the woods yet. But it had learned a way of doing business that would allow it to grow and prosper in the years to come.
A Brief History of Honda’s American Manufacturing
Honda had painstakingly marshaled a reputation of superb quality for its made-in-Japan motorcycles. But in the ’70s, consumers’ attitudes had been hardened by years of disappointment and frustration in American-made products, best illustrated by General Motors’ problems with the Vega, Ford’s with the Pinto, and the AMF-built Harley-Davidsons of the time. Honda’s first U.S. plant offered an opportunity to change consumers’ minds about American quality. But the effort had to succeed. If it did, Honda could proceed with the $250-million auto plant it planned to build. If the Marysville Motorcycle Plant (MMP) failed because of quality problems, Honda’s reputation, and its future, could have been damaged beyond repair.
Of course, as history shows, the Marysville experiment did everything expected of it: It upheld Honda’s reputation for quality and allowed the company to expand with additional plants in this country. Although the MMP was built primarily for motorcycles, the plant was designed to allow production flexibility, including the assembly of ATVs. Ten years after the first motorcycle was assembled, the best-selling ATV in America–the FourTrax® 300–rolled off the line. Honda followed the MMP with the Marysville Auto Plant (MAP, the first Japanese auto plant in the U.S.), the Anna Engine Plant (AEP), Honda Engineering North America (EGA), the East Liberty Auto Plant (ELP), Honda Transmission Manufacturing (HTM), Honda Power Equipment (HPE), and Honda of South Carolina (HSC), the company’s first exclusive ATV plant.
Several reasons account for the success of Honda’s U.S. plants. Start with just the physical aspects. Both the 260,000-square-foot MMP and 280,000-square-foot HSC plants are far smaller than their counterparts in Japan. Japanese plants in particular were of little use as models, in part because of their vastly greater production capacity, and because of their hodgepodge nature; they had been built and then expanded repeatedly over the years.
What the American plants needed was the strictest efficiency and, in the MMP’s case, flexibility to assemble different models. As Takao Shirokawa, one of the MMP’s original team members, said, “The plant was designed to minimize traffic between adjacent departments, to try to minimize space, and try to maintain efficient logistics inside the plant. We tried to make the most efficient, but small, motorcycle plant. Profitability was the key to this plant. So [the question was] how to minimize the cost of assembly. We tried to pursue efficiency.”
One crucial element of efficiency and quality control at HAM is the use of Honda’s own assembly and production machinery. Tour the MMP and the HSC ATV plant, as well as Honda’s other facilities, and you’ll see the usual array of Japanese die-cast machines and American tubing-benders. But most of the high-tech precision equipment was designed and built by Honda Engineering. Welding equipment used for ATV frames, as well as stamping dies, injection molds and other machines, all bear the Honda Engineering stamp.
The American Advantage
Building machines to make machines also provides Honda with a rapid response time.
In a competitive market, the ability to respond quickly to customer needs has given Honda an invaluable marketing edge. At Honda Engineering-including Honda Engineering of North America–engineers work closely and early in the design process with those in R&D, saving time in creating new jigs, fixtures, stamps, and dies. The arrangement also allows better, more rapid maintenance, as well as kaizen–the Japanese word for improvement–of equipment and processes.
Physically, there’s little else about the MMP and HSC that break new ground. The processes and the people make the greatest difference. Take, for example, the sophisticated powder-coat paint process used for FourTrax frames at both the MMP and HSC. This efficient, high-quality, low-emissions technology received the Ohio governor’s award for Outstanding Achievement in Pollution Prevention in 1998.
Apart from such purely physical aspects, the attitude the region’s inhabitants bring to their work is also crucial. Before construction began on the MMP, Honda officials visited several Midwest manufacturing plants, and were convinced the people there owned a work ethic similar to that of their Japanese counterparts.
What’s more, Honda treats its associates in ways almost unheard of at other plants. For instance, open communication allows associates, as Honda’s employees are called, to make assembly techniques more efficient. And every associate is treated equally, down to the seemingly minor detail of all employees sharing a single common lunch room, rather than being segregated into labor and management dining areas.
Honda also offers a single pay scale for all assembly associates, which facilitates movement from department to department. Such movement allows cross-training of associates, the development of new skills and a clearer vision of the entire assembly process that has led to many associate-driven improvements over the years. Keeping associates involved and satisfied is a key point in maintaining Honda’s high level of quality.
Honda also ensures quality by working closely with its suppliers. At first that was difficult at the MMP because American suppliers were unwilling to supply Honda with parts because of the low production numbers (150 Gold Wings a day in 1981-1983 vs. 1000 units a day at one of Honda’s Japanese plants). Suppliers were also unaccustomed to the level of quality Honda demanded, and were initially unwilling to make the investments necessary to provide such quality at such low volumes.
Honda persisted, though, offering training, advice, and even furnishing equipment–an unheard of relationship between client and vendor at the time, and still rare in this country. Yet most suppliers appreciated Honda’s involvement, because it allowed them to improve their own quality, and so expand their business. These days,
Honda of America Manufacturing (HAM) spends $6.4 billion on goods and services from some 450 vendors and suppliers.
The Honda Difference: Putting it Together
Perhaps the most important way Honda ensures the highest quality in its ATVs and motorcycles is by guaranteeing and monitoring quality every step of the way. “It starts with very high-grade materials,” says one company spokesman, “continues with quality suppliers, and then, in a phrase we use, quality in the process. That means we have standards, measurements, repeatable and monitorable, whether it’s for a weld, or for material specs for frame material, or the quality of the injection-molded plastic material, or how long it stays in the mold–all those things are very quantifiable for high quality and durability.
“Finally, the ultimate standard we apply is customer satisfaction, which has to do with the customers’ expectations and how they use the product. If they put a premium on durability and longevity and performance, we have to think up what materials and processes will ensure those things that will satisfy the customer for many years of use.”
At the outset, with the construction of the Marysville Motorcycle Plant, Honda took an enormous gamble. But Honda bet that the quality of its U.S.-assembled motorcycles and ATVs would lead to success, and so it ensured quality at every level, with people, processes, material, and machinery.
That commitment to quality led to the building of seven more facilities in this country over the following two decades, for a total of eight, with a total work force of more than 20,000 associates, and a capital investment of $4 billion in Honda’s North American Manufacturing and R&D operations.
Honda built its reputation on that most enduring value–quality-from the very beginning, and never relented. Every motorcycle and ATV that rolls out of the MMP and HSC is a testament to that lifelong commitment.
How was the Honda Rune Created?
Bringing the Dream to Reality
As Large Project Leader (LPL) on the Valkyrie Rune, Masanori Aoki was challenged to make a personal and professional odyssey of sorts. Originally a specialist in Honda sport bikes, Aoki brought to bear those high-performance tricks of the trade while designing the new-generation Gold Wing, the GL1800, which has more sporting appeal and ability than most people ever imagined possible.
Armed with such an intimate knowledge of F6 design and production, he was called upon to work his engineering sleight-of-hand once more with the Rune, producing a machine the likes of which has never been attempted. How did Aoki accomplish that task? That’s exactly what we asked.
Usually new models begin with an engineering design, but the Valkyrie Rune design was created from an HRA prototype model. Has Honda ever done this before, starting with a styling model?
There were some production machines that started with styling models but the Rune is the first model that reproduced the original design fully and faithfully.
What other vehicles did the Rune/T2 mock-up remind you of?
Because the Rune/T2 mock-up is a new design with a full measure of originality, no other motorcycles come to my mind. When I think about automobiles, however, it brings the images of American cars from the 1940s and 1950s.
What did you think as an engineer when you were first assigned to create a running replica of a styling design? Did this process seem backward?
To be honest with you, I thought it would be impossible to mass-produce the product without changing the styling design. It was just too radical of a design. And yes, as an engineer I thought the process was completely backward; we’ve never seen anything like this before.
With the sport bikes you’ve worked on and even the GL1800, you probably began the projects with a certain engineering mindset. How did you approach the Rune assignment, which was styling oriented above all?
Since there were no distinct function or performance goals that had to be met, we were free to focus on capturing the styling and design from the mock-up. That included all elements such as the location of the front and rear tires, and the location, position and dimension of the engine.
To that end, we had to spend a significant amount of time creating a clay model to maintain the original design. Also, we had to incorporate 11 new technological and production methods to achieve our goals-that’s a significant amount of new production technology.
Was it easy for you to relate to the Rune/T2 from the start, or did you have a time when you finally embraced the concept in full?
Honestly speaking, when I first saw the T2, I said to myself, “Are we really going to produce a motorcycle like this?” It was pretty wild looking. But when I attended the Cycle World motorcycle show held in Long Beach and saw the reaction from the customers on a first-hand basis, I completely grasped the concept.
We were hoping that the T1 mock-up would be most popular because new-model development had already begun based on the T1. Frankly speaking, people at the show who saw the T2 mock-up expressed a most unusual degree of excitement. In fact, the customer response was so strong it was difficult for many Japanese to understand such enthusiasm. The T2 was nearly four times more popular than any of the other designs-far and away the overwhelming favorite. I remember how one person even said, “I will bring $30,000 in cash, so please sell it to me right away.”
How did your experience with the GL1800 help you with the Rune project?
During the development time I spent in preparation for the GL1800, I learned how Americans enjoy riding motorcycles. The Rune has similar aspects such as “enjoying the appearance” and “enjoying the exhaust sound” besides the more measurable aspects of a motorcycle such as accelerating, stopping and going around curves.
Our understanding is that the Rune exhaust system was one of the more difficult challenges to overcome. Why was this so, and how did you solve the challenge?
The styling design had already been decided, and the short length posed a potential problem with exhaust pipe volume. Also, we wanted the Rune to have a distinctive exhaust sound that was a reflection of the bike’s visual image. So we had to design a unique silencer, and we changed things in the exhaust collector. Also, to achieve the complex shape of the muffler end cap, we employed the lost-wax casting technique, a manufacturing method typically not used in the motorcycle industry. But when I look at the production version of the Rune, I can smile and know that all the work was worth it in the end.
