Interested in Automobiles

• Soichiro Honda became interested in the automobile industry at a young age. At the age of 15, in 1922, Honda left school when he was accepted as an apprentice at Tokyo Art Shokai. Art Shokai was a company that serviced automobiles.
  
  

Racing Automobiles

• In 1923, Soichiro Honda began building automobiles for racing with Art Shokai owner Yuzo Sakakibara. These cars used secondhand American engines with bodies fabricated by Honda.
  
  

Parts Supplier

• In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Soichiro Honda created a manufacturing company called Tokai Seiki Heavy Industry. Tokai Seiki supplied piston rings to several companies like Toyota and Nakajima Aircraft.
  
  

Motorized Bicycles

• Honda's manufacturing company was destroyed during World War II. In 1945, Honda took a small 2-stroke 50-cc engine and attached it to a bicycle. This motorized bicycle is considered the beginning of the Honda Motor Company.
  
  

Bearing the Honda Name

• In 1947, Soichiro Honda released the first product to carry the Honda name. The product was an A-type auxiliary bicycle.
  
  

Honda's First Automobile

• Honda unveiled its first automobile, called the S360, in 1962. Honda's first venture into the auto-racing world was in 1964 when he entered the Formula One Series.