55 Years Ago Today CAR was thankful Honda didn’t threaten the British motor industry...

Has there ever been a story more laden with irony? In 1965, CAR felt the British motor industry was safe – for now

Ipredict that before the 1965 European [F1] season is out we shall witness a Honda victory. And when it happens, it will be the finest thing for the future of racing since Mercedes-benz flung down the grand prix gauntlet,’ Peter Miller stated boldly in his profile of Sochiro Honda in the June 1965 issue of Small

Car – which, on its front cover, heralded its change of name to CAR the following month.

Change was in the air. Elsewhere in the issue, a group test run in Australia because of lack of test-car availability in the UK pitted the British stalwarts of the Ford Cortina and Morris 1100 against two new rivals from Japan, the Toyota Corona and Isuzu Bellet. No longer domestic-market microcars, here were potentially world-beating rivals which made British cars seem unreliable and ill-equipped. With Japanese cars, there was no options list, everything came as standard.

But it was the rise of Honda – a man who didn’t even build passenger cars at the time – that astonished Miller most of all. Here was a humble blacksmith’s son, an apprentice mechanic who first drove a car when extricating a customer’s vehicle from the flames and rubble of the Art Trading Centre repair shop amid the 1923 Tokyo earthquake. His efforts during the rebuilding won sufficient business to allow him to set up his own racing car and motorcycle business. Sequestered by the Japanese government to make piston rings during the war, the business was flattened in an American air raid, but Honda bounced back with a bicycle business in 1948. His startup capital was just £1000.

‘Five years later the company began making motorcycles,’ Miller explained. ‘Today it is the biggest producer in the world, with the Honda family controlling 15 percent of the total stock and the firm’s employees holding another 30 percent.’ Honda wasn’t just a startling success story, it was a different kind of company, one with engineers at its core. ‘[Sochiro] invariably wears a white cotton coat and striped Honda cap, the standard works uniform. He could easily be mistaken for a mechanic.’

In addition to its foray into F1, Honda was about to launch a ‘full-scale UK sales operation’, with the S800 sports car imminent. A Brabham-honda had just set a new F2 lap record at Snetterton – 103.13mph. ‘If hard-won racing victories can lead to worldwide sales domination, it’s lucky 59-year-old Sochiro doesn’t build saloons,’ Miller mused. Little did he know that, just over a decade later, British Leyland would be licence-building Honda saloons and rebadging them as Triumphs and Rovers. And to date, Honda engines have powered six F1 World Championship-winning cars.