The Poor Boy Who Created Honda

[Music] Honda motor is Japan's third largest car and motorbike outfit panda is not going to sell you this car and it could be dangerous [Music] [Applause] [Music] for many people in Japan it was an ordinary day on November 17 1906. however it was also the birth of soichiro Honda who would go on to change the world in more ways than one Honda's father was a blacksmith who had a bicycle repair shop whilst his mother worked as a weaver their family was very poor and of Honda's eight siblings five of them died during childhood due to poor health however as Honda grew up he became very interested in tools and machines and was especially keen on learning how Vehicles worked after we saw his first car a Ford Model T whilst he was just a toddler he chased after it mesmerized by its design that memory and the smell of the oil would stay with him forever now around this time bicycles were becoming very popular all over Japan and customers began to line up in front of his father's repair shop Honda spent a lot of time watching his dad work and then practicing repairs himself Honda even learned how to make his own toys from whatever materials he saw lying around within a few years Honda was regularly helping his dad out in the repair shop however when it came to academic learning Honda did terribly in school he just wasn't interested in what they were teaching and longed to be back in his father's Workshop instead since he lacked interest in school his grades suffered the class were given reports with their grades on which they were meant to take to their parents who would then stamp a family seal on it to show they'd seen the report card however Honda didn't want his parents to see he was failing and disappoint them so he decided to create a family seal using a scrap rubber bicycle pedal cover so that his teacher would think his parents had stamped her and it worked in fact it worked so well that other kids in his class who were afraid of showing their low grades to their parents came to him asking if he could create family seals for them as well so they didn't have to show their parents their report card eventually though Honda got caught and his dad wasn't mad he'd done it his dad was mad his work had been sloppy enough to get found out despite not getting much of a formal education Honda was quickly developing his skills in his father's workshop and had a genuine fascination with machinery and Engineering then in 1917 when Honda was 11 years old he heard that a pilot named Art Smith was going to demonstrate the aerobatic cape abilities of the biplane so he decided to borrow some money from the petty cash box took one of the bicycles in his father's shop and rode for 20 kilometers to the military's Airfield to watch the show except when he got there he realized he didn't actually have enough money for the admission fee so he decided to climb up a tree to watch the demonstration Honda found it incredible and this only increased his love for machinery and invention but when he returned home his father had discovered what had happened luckily instead of being angry Honda's father was far more impressed of his son's determination and initiative and perhaps deep down he was proud his son had the same appreciation for engineering that he did so he let the incident pass foreign [Music] in 1922 after finishing school Honda spotted an advertisement in a newspaper for a car servicing company named art chokai the ad said assistant wanted for auto repair shop in Tokyo he figured that if the company could afford to be running ads like this maybe they'd have spaces available for apprenticeships for young men like him wanting to get into the trade so at the age of just 15 he decided to leave home in search of a job and headed to Tokyo going from his small village to the bustling streets of Tokyo was an intense experience but his hunch had been right and he was able to get an apprenticeship working at Art Show Kai garage unfortunately on his first day he was given the job of cleaning up scrubbing the dirty floors and preparing meals for the owners in fact he would often end up babysitting the owner's child so not exactly what he'd had in mind plus apprenticeships at the time weren't paid so he was merely given a small space to rest and a bit of food to eat but soon after joining an earthquake hit Tokyo which caused many of the mechanics to have to leave work for a while to repair their homes the auto repair shop was now understaffed and hunt finally got his chance as he was asked to fill in as a mechanic by working extremely hard this role was soon made permanent Honda was eager to learn and spent his days repairing cars and motorcycles which at the time were limited to only the upper class it was here that Honda encountered a very wide range of vehicles from all different manufacturers which sharpened his knowledge even more Honda would always take a lot of care in examining each vehicle assigned to him for repair and on his work breaks he'd read whatever car related magazines he could get his hands on it wasn't long before Honda was not just repairing vehicles but designing spare parts as well given that Honda was doing a lot of great work for this company one of the owners named uzo took it upon himself to educate Honda about the business side of the trade as well as the technical side yuzo was the ideal Mentor for Honda and it was him who introduced Honda to the world of Motorsports you see in 1923 user had decided to begin manufacturing his own race car and he asked Honda to help him out with building it their second design which they named the Curtis ended up winning the 1924 Japanese Motorcar Championship Honda was on board as the accompanying engineer and this victory at a young age both winning the race and the thrill of helping to build something like this was a feeling he'd never forget and a feeling he had continued to Chase [Music] when he turned 20 Honda was called up to fulfill his obligations in military service however during the medical examination it was found out he was colorblind and he was excused from Duty shortly after this in 1928 his mentor the owner of art show Kai presented him with an opportunity saying that he wanted Honda to set up his own branch of archokai in hamamatsu a Japanese City very close to the village where Honda was born given Honda was still in his early twenties it was a lot of responsibility to run his own auto repair shop but he clearly impressed his managers and so Honda gladly accepted Honda's Branch grew slowly at first it was just him running it all by himself initially and when people brought their cars in for repairs some were put off by how young he seemed assuming that he was inexperienced but he eventually managed to build up a good reputation in the area and by the mid-1930s he'd managed to hire a full team to help at last Honda was making good money for himself he'd worked his way up from an unpaid Apprentice looking after his boss's baby to running his own successful auto repair shop and as a rich young man Honda was never shy about having a good time there are many reports of him enjoying himself in the company of lots of geishas stories of him throwing parties and even dancing nude at his wedding Honda worked hard but he partied even harder however sometimes his Knights of drinking did not end so well there was one incident whilst drunk where he accidentally knocked a geisha out of a window from the second floor fortunately she survived by landing on some wires although they reportedly had to cut the electrical wires to save the woman which resulted in the entire town experiencing an electrical power outage Honda also continued to enjoy racing but that too would nearly end in a fatal disaster when in 1936 Honda was involved in a serious car crash during the Japanese high-speed rally that forced him to quit racing completely he spent three months in hospital and had a permanent scar for the rest of his life the doctors commented that he was lucky to get out alive at all the incident was a wake-up call for Honda suddenly having an influx of wealth had led him to a bit of a Playboy Daredevil lifestyle but several Close Encounters had made him reevaluate what he really wanted he realized that even though his auto repair shop was doing well he was dissatisfied with car repair it was time for a new and bigger challenge foreign [Music] Hondas saw a lot of potential in manufacturing and asked Art Show Kai if he could turn his auto repair shop he was running for them into a separate company where he would produce piston rings unfortunately our chokai did not like this idea at all the business was doing well and making a lot of money they had no interest in stopping that and entering a whole new field especially since producing their own car parts rather than repairing them seemed like a lot more risk and cost however Honda was determined to pursue his new vision so he and a friend decided to go into business together setting up their own separate business called Tokai Seiko heavy industry at first Honda would still spend his days working at his repair shop and then spend his nights working on this new car park Manufacturing Company he'd started trying to create piston rings it was exhausting trying to do both though and he didn't get much sleep he also took evening classes to improve its understanding of metals and Alloys and for two years he worked tirelessly until he reached a revolutionary piston design breakthrough in 1939 at this point he turned over his duties at Art Show Kai to his trainees and began to fully focus on this new manufacturing company they began piston production and for the first time in a while underfelt truly excited by his work again but that excitement was short-lived as they were soon bombarded with manufacturing challenges for example they received an order from Toyota but of the thousands of Pistons they ordered from Honda's company only three past Toyota's high quality standards it was a big setback but Honda decided he'd go visit universities and factories all over Japan to further understand the manufacturing process and develop his skills further eventually he obtained enough knowledge and skill that he was able to produce piston rings that passed Toyota's quality standards and better yet Honda figured out a way to mass produce them using an automated process which meant even unskilled laborers could produce them this meant he was able to produce them in bulk at a relatively low cost orders rapidly increased and since Honda couldn't keep up with the man from his Workshop he opened a factory to mass produce the piston rings unfortunately just as Honda's manufacturing business was really taking off Japan was gearing up for war when Japan entered World War II in 1941 many of Honda's male employees were called for military service leaving Honda's plan with lots of vacant positions the war also meant that there were a lot of supply shortages and Honda had difficulty sourcing materials when enemy planes dropped fuel cans out of the sky Underwood tell his employees to look for the Fallen cans as they could still be used for manufacturing that's how desperate for supplies he was in 1944 it was beginning to look like Japan would lose the war and when a bomb was dropped on one of Honda's factories it looked like he might lose his business in another cruel twist just a year later Hunter's other Factory would be destroyed in an earthquake it was so destroying that what he'd spent years building was quite literally turned to Rubble the company had already been struggling immensely because of the war but this was the final nail in the coffin for his company he was going out of business so Honda sold whatever was left of his manufacturing business to Toyota [Music] thank you there was a massive fuel shortage after the war and transportation at this time was limited mostly to bicycles people needed a way to get around easily and cheaply whilst being extremely fuel efficient so Honda had an idea he attached a small motor to his bike which soon caught the attention of people all around the city sensing this could be a good solution to his country's problems Honda created the Honda technical Research Institute in 1946 using the money he had left after selling his piston ring manufacturing business the sole purpose of this was to figure out the best way to make motorbikes using some Surplus military engines Honda had managed to obtain he was able to successfully build working motorbikes that immediately became a hit in Japan soon he was flooded with orders and ran out of used engines so under developed his own engine however to be able to mass produce enough motorbikes to fulfill the demand Honda needed more money to invest in production and unfortunately in the league economic conditions following the war investment was not easily available but as always Honda found away he reportedly wrote letters to 18 000 bicycle shop owners across the country explaining his idea and asking him to invest in his new motorbike design three thousand of those bicycle shop owners wrote back to say they'd invest in Honda's motorbikes so Honda was back in business Honda Motors Co was incorporated in 1948 to manufacture small capacity motorcycles with the goal of producing an affordable motorbike which would help Japanese people more easily get around Honda also teamed up with business partner takio fujisawa Who provided not only additional investment for the company but also was a great business operator and strategist allowing Honda more time to devote to the product side of the business Honda's first fully fledged motorbike was the d-type which stood for dream although it was a bit too bulky and heavy but Honda soon found success with a new and improved model called the Super Cub which was lighter smaller and safer and an immediate success orders poured in from all over the country Honda then turned its focus to entering the U. S market but prior to the 1960s the stereotypical image of the American motorcyclist was that of a rough unruly unsavory character so to try and change this Honda ran an extremely successful advertising campaign with the slogan you meet the nicest people on a Honda this mixed with the more lightweight design encouraged families and younger people to disassociate the motorcycle from previous stereotypes and thus Bridge a whole new market with their motorbikes as a result nearly one out of every two motorbikes sold in the US in 1964 was a Honda motorcycle and pretty soon small lightweight motorcycles were zipping all across American roads and by the end of the 1960s Honda was the biggest motorcycle company in the world producing about a million per month in fact Honda is still the largest motorcycle producer to this day Not only was Honda a financial success it was a racing success too in 1966 Honda Motors took on the constructors championships in all five motorcycle classes in the Grand Prix as the team with the most points at the end of the season by this point Honda bikes had won pretty much all of the major racing titles there was to win Honda motorbikes were huge success by all metrics but sochiro Honda still had one dream left that he hadn't fulfilled it was finally time for his biggest and most ambitious project to date with the holidays approaching we all know most people put off shopping until the last minute and if you have an online store or you sell anything online you know the feeling of getting hit with a ton of orders all at once when you're buried in orders and emails from stress customers you'll wish you had ship station shipstation works with all your favorite places to sell online including Amazon Etsy eBay Shopify and more you can manage every order from one simple dashboard or to make routine shipping tasks print shipping labels and easily compare rates and delivery times to make sure you're getting the best deal on every shipment basically you'll save time money and stress during the holiday Rush plus it's so easy to get started with shipstation you can get set up within minutes and since shipstation is sponsoring this video they've agreed that if you use my link below you'll get two months to try it completely for free so this holiday season give yourself the gift of stress-free holiday shipping go to shipstation.

com magnates today and sign up for a free 60-day trial and start saving time and money on every shipment that's shipstation. com magnates to get started now for free [Music] ever since seeing his first car as a child Honda had wanted to produce his own and given his own humble beginnings he especially liked the idea of making an affordable quality car so almost everyone could experience having one however almost everyone told Honda that now he'd found success with making motorbikes he should stick to that as there was so much more competition in the car market especially in America where the big car brands were so dominant but Honda had always been a risk taker and after feeling like he'd conquered two wheels he was now ready to move on to four Honda motorco's first automobile attempt was actually the t360 mini truck which went on sale in 1963 but it wasn't popular they're never sold very well but as always though when Honda got a setback like this it just meant he had to figure out a new approach now in the early 70s there was a growing environmental movement with more concern about air quality and pollution this resulted in U. S cities introducing the Clean Air Act which forced stricter regulations on vehicles immediately all of the big car manufacturers appealed this and said the new rules were possible whereas Honda simply said I'll find a way and set about to build a new revolutionary engine that passed the new pollution tests it was called the compound Vortex controlled combustion engine and was not only more environmentally friendly but also allowed people to travel further using less fuel so whilst the established forces in the American car market were lobbying to scrap the regulations Honda had been taking action and finding a solution under himself would later comment when Congress passes new emission standards we hire 50 more engineers and GM hires 50 more lawyers by 1972 he'd come up with the Honda Civic which would be the first car to use this new cvcc engine this energy efficient Compact and lightweight passenger car was the perfect answer to the oil crisis of 1973 where gas prices were so high the Honda Civic was light on fuel low on emissions and reliable essentially it was the perfect car at the perfect time and the Honda Civic would soon become one of the most popular cars in the world when sales of the Honda Civic crossed 1 million Honda Motors then introduced the Accord this was the more upscale model intended to attract middle-class drivers looking to mix great design with a practical price point through Word of Mouth Honda started to develop a reputation for reliability sales were increasing and Honda established itself as one of the leading car manufacturers when the Accord proved to be popular Honda confidently entered the luxury car market as well by introducing the Acura brand to America in 1986 which also raked in large sales both in the US and Japan Honda now had multiple different offerings for different types of consumers all of which were selling well thus by the end of the 1980s Honda was the third largest car company on the planet foreign [Music] with liver failure soichiro Honda succumbed to the disease and died in 1991.