HONDA MOTORCYCLES
DREAM MACHINES

What is your favorite of ALL Honda Motorcycles?

Empowered by Mr. Honda's vision, the company would rapidly - just one year later - be building the D-Type: the first Honda Motorcycles and the first modern Japanese motorcycles.

It's easy to figure out why "D" type right! DREAM. :-)

Besides being a dreamer, Mr. Honda was a racer and a great manufacturer. He had also the ability to team up with brilliant businessmen, what took Honda Motorcycles and Honda Motor Company to what it is now, 56 years later: one of the major motorcycle and car manufacturers in the whole world.

To better understand what Honda motorcycles is now, it's also important to mention some important moments, situations, and models.

There are some things and many interesting facts from the early Honda Motorcycles history I bet you don't know, so keep reading! :-)

1947 - And the story started... Soichiro Honda manufactures what would be his first product of many: the A-Type bicycle engine.

1948 - Honda Motor Company is founded.

1949 - Honda builds its first D-Type Motorcycle, better known as the Dream.

1952 – Honda builds its first F-Type the 50 cc Cub. Basically a small engine attached to the rear wheel of bicycle.

Just to give you an idea of the impact this had in the history of Honda motorcycles:

In November 1952, their production of 7,000+ units represented 70% of the total outcome of Japanese motorcycles for that year.

Thanks to the 50 cc Cub, from 1953 to 1954 Honda Motorcycles lead sales in the local market. It's worth mentioning that those were very competitive days. There were many manufacturers competing for a very fast growing and demanding market.

As from 1955 and after going public in the Tokyo Stock Market, the success of the less expensive models - particularly the 50cc Super Cub - permitted to Honda Motorcycles a very healthy business practice:

-->To ensure that low cost motorbikes were sold in a number big enough to maintain $$$ the development of the higher level motorcycles as the 250/350 overhead camshaft machines.

Honda Motorcycles also understood very quickly that Production had to be backed by Sales Promotion, and following their always innovative spirit Honda Motorcycles were:

• The first Japanese manufacturer to export to the United States in    September 1954.

• The first to build their own racetrack to fine tune their machines    inhouse, May 1958.

• The first to go abroad with American Honda Motor Co., Inc. in Los    Angeles, 1959.

• The first manufacturer to offer a One Year Guarantee.

Another model of that time worth mentioning was the CS71.

Before 1958, most Japanese motorcycles were copies of American and European motorcycles, but this machine inspired in the C70 Series, finally and definitely gave birth to a unique Japanese style.

There is an anecdote that says that Soichiro Honda, at the time deeply involved with mysticism, designed these motorcycles following the lines of a typical Shinto Temple.

For that time, the 348 pounds, 250cc, 18hp, 75 mph, with electric starter motorcycle was a definitely a dream machine!

Then came 1959 and Honda Motorcycles made their debut in the Isle of Man TT, the biggest race on earth for that time. This event was considered back then as the Tour of France, the Soccer World Cup or the Super bowl of motorcycling.

After an exciting race, the team obtained the 6th, 7th, 8th and 11th places with four of their five riders. This gave to the "rookies" their first team victory and marked the entrance of Japanese Motorcycles to the global and competitive scene.