HONDA Brand History
Honda was founded by Soichiro Honda, a mechanic who managed to
develop his own design for piston rings back in 1938. At first he tried
to sell the design to Toyota but they declined, which determined him to
start his own company. So, ten years later, in 1948 Honda Motor was
officially founded.
In their early days, Honda produced scooters and motorcycles and their
first model was the A-Type, in 1947. Some don't consider this a
full-fledged motorcycle because the company was not founded yet. To make
everybody happy, the first bike under the Honda brand was released in
1949 and was called Dream D-Type. It produced around 3 horse and had a
full 98cc.
After this came their first big seller, the 146cc, OHV, four-stroke
E-Type Dream which reached a production capacity of 130 units per day by
October 1951. One year later, they made the F-Type, which had a 50cc
two-stroke engine which took over the two-wheeler Japanese market
producing 6,500 units per month.
In 1953 they made the J-Type Benly, in 1954 the 200cc scooter Juno, and
in 1957 Honda introduced their first twin-cylinder bike, the legendary
250cc OHC four-stroke C70 Dream. The same model was altered in 1958 by
fitting it with an electric starter and renaming it C71.
