You meet the nicest people.
In a production run so far of 63 years, more than 100 million examples of the Honda Cub have rolled off the production line, making it the record holder for any motor vehicle, and by a long way.
As much as the common perception was of the Honda Motor Company being autocratically run by Soichiro Honda, it was, at least in the early days, a double act. Honda was first and foremost an engineer, and the burgeoning organisation needed a strong guiding hand on the marketing side.
That guiding hand was Takeo Fujisawa, and to him fell the responsibility of sorting out the myriad aspects of primarily keeping the company afloat as Japan’s economy headed inexorably towards recession, as well as planning the expansion necessary for survival.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s Honda’s main thrust was the production of small capacity two-stroke engines, supplied to numerous companies to be attached to bicycles, as well as powering Honda’s own motorcycle, the 98cc Dream. Fujiwara reasoned that the next big step was the production of a new-generation four-stroke, and by July 1951 they had one – the 146cc Type E Dream. Working with Soichiro on the design was a young engineer, Kiyoshi Kawashima, who had graduated from the Hamamatsu Institute of Technology in 1948. The first road tests were carried out by Kawashima himself, and proved to be an outstanding success. The new Type E was also an instant success in the showroom, with Fujisawa’s new national dealer network clamouring for stock. In 1953, 32,000 of the new model were built at Honda’s Tokyo factory. ‚
Not withstanding the success of the Type E, Fujisawa reckoned the company needed to address the bottom end of the motorised transport market, which had fuelled the growth with the early powered bicycles. The result was the F Type Cub, with a 50cc two-stroke engine driving the rear wheel. The engine could also be purchased separately and clipped onto most bicycles. More than 70,000 of the complete
Type F models were built in 1952.
The sales avalanche set Honda’s thinking towards international expansion, but that required a major investment in tooling. Gathering all the cash they could muster, Honda and Fujisawa flew to USA in November 1952, intent on purchasing the latest machine tools within their meagre budget. However the timing was less than perfect. Back in Japan, the Korean War was ending and with it, the US buying spree in Japan for supplies. Once again the Japanese economy began a downward spiral and Honda, like many other manufacturing-based businesses, faced desperate cash-flow issues, making it a prime target for a takeover bid. Fortunately, Honda found a saviour in the Mitsubishi Bank, who recognised the potential in Honda’s planned global expansion.
Soichiro Honda strongly felt that the key to the expansion was through success on the world’s racing circuits, and began a process that was to have farreaching effect. In 1954 Honda and Fujisawa took off for Europe, where the boss wanted to see the
Isle of Man TT, and Fujisawa was equally keen to examine first-hand the way European motorcycle manufacturers went about their business. Their suitcases were soon bulging with components like spark plugs, carburettors and electrical components. They frequented motorcycle and scooter showrooms and kept their eyes and ears open.
The 1959 Isle of Man TT was where the western world was first alerted to the extent of Honda’s racing ambitions, but prior to that a far more epochal situation was unfolding back in Japan. Fujisawa had envisaged a truly universal form of two-wheeled transport, mid-way between a motorcycle and a scooter. It needed to be light and simply designed, needing no complex tools for maintenance, quiet running and most of all, capable of being massproduced on an enormous scale. The type of volume Fujisawa had in mind transcended all current thinking, and would require either sales arrangements with overseas distribution companies, or establishing their own. By and large, Honda chose the latter.
Thinking scooter
Honda’s electric start Juno scooter of 1954, named after a Roman goddess, had used fibreglass-reinforced plastic for body panels, but the machine itself was plagued by various problems and was discontinued after just a year and a half in production. A heavily revised Juno with flat-twin engine was produced in 1962 but was also short lived.
What was on the company’s drawing boards was the C100 Super Cub, and replacing heavy and expensive metal components with plastic was high on ‚
“Gathering all the cash they could muster, Honda and Fujisawa flew to USA in November 1952, intent on purchasing the latest machine tools within their meagre budget. However the timing was less than perfect.”
the agenda. The new C100 called for components such as the front mudguard, engine cover and leg shields to be cast in polyethylene, but when no outside company was able to produce such a large die, Honda made their own. The new engine, displacing just 49cc, produced nearly as much power as Honda’s first four-stroke, the 146cc Type E. Existing Honda factories were deemed incapable of producing the planned runs – 30,000 per month – so a brand new facility was built at Suzuka. The C100 used a spine-type frame, with a pressed steel rear section connected to the steering head by a large diameter steel tube, upon which was mounted the air filter. The engine and its unit 3speed gearbox was suspended almost horizontally at an angle of 10 degrees. This design allowed the rear suspension to be of a conventional swinging arm type, with pressed steel blades for the leading link front forks which were controlled by oil-damped shock absorbers. Rather than place the fuel tank in the accepted position behind the steering head, it sat below the seat, which hinged from the rear. 17-inch wheels with narrow section tyres handled the rough Japanese roads far better than could the typical 10-inch scooter wheels, with enhanced stability thanks to the increased gyroscopic effect. The overhead valve engine was a masterpiece of simplicity that was able to run on poor quality fuel, and use very little of it. There is no conventional oil pump. Instead, oil carried in the crankcase is
scooped up by a spoon-like projection on the big end of the conrod and flung around the engine. It seems to work perfectly. More radical was the transmission, with a clutch system that did away with the normal handlebar-mounted clutch lever. Instead, the clutch was automatically engaged on each up or down movement of the rocking gear pedal – a massive selling point for inexperienced riders. Perhaps the biggest plus was the astounding fuel consumption figure – quoted as 221 miles per gallon. That translates to just 1.06 litres per 100 kilometres, and with space for just 3 litres in the fuel tank, a range of almost 300km between fills.
Selling the sizzle
The well-organised and perfectly planned international expansion saw Honda distribution centres open in Europe and South East Asia, and in 1959, USA. In 1961 another branch was established in West Germany. From their premises in California, Honda hit the market at exactly the right time as the country experienced a post-war boom and people turned to recreational vehicles. Within four years, one third of Honda’s export production was headed for USA.
Coincidentally, another company was establishing a branch in Los Angeles around this time. Grey Advertising had begun in 1917; a twoman shop operating from tiny premises with grey-painted walls in New York, hence the name. Grey had expanded exponentially, particularly in the ‘fifties when it acquired its first major client, Proctor & Gamble. When Grey opened in Los Angeles, it went hunting for local business.
Honda USA, with its quirky motorcycles attempting to snare a foothold in the land of the big vee-twin was very much an unknown quantity, but Grey relished the challenge to put it on the map. Grey’s Creative Director Robert Emmenegger is credited with the hugely-successful campaign,
“You meet the nicest people on a Honda”. In direct contrast to the anti-social stereotyped image of motorcyclists that had been perpetuated in numerous low-grade movies, the campaign sought to position motorcycling, and especially Honda, as a cool means of transport, available to all ages and sexes. The stamp of any well-positioned and wellexecuted advertising campaign, “You meet the ‚
nicest people” hardly changed in more than 12 years. Although the media spend on the print campaign was significant, it rarely appeared in motorcycle magazines, which continued to run Honda ads featuring specific models. The main campaign instead ran in mass-market magazines, women’s magazines, and specialist media. Compared to motorcycle magazines, these titles were very expensive, but the gamble paid off – big time.
As well as the campaign itself, the Honda image was further embellished by the hit song
“Little Honda”, written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love of the Beach Boys. It was initially recorded by that band but only featured as a track on their album All Summer Long. Soon after, the song was covered by The Hondells – not actually a rock group but a bunch of studio musicians – and released as a single as well as on an album called “Go Little Honda”
– all eleven tracks featuring motorcycling themes. So successful was the single that The Beach Boys’ recording label Capitol Records released the
Beach Boys’ version as a single soon after. All this catapulted Honda into a stratospheric awareness amongst the buying public, and it did other Japanese brands like Yamaha and Suzuki no harm either.
A pigeon pair
The two featured bikes here may appear identical, but there is one significant difference. A button. The C102, released in 1960, was the electric start version of the big selling Super Cub, or C100, which carried a small price premium for the added convenience. Battery and coil ignition replaced the C100’s magneto, but otherwise the models were exactly the same.
The C102 featured here is owned by David Howe and was recently featured in the highly successful Art of the Motorcycle exhibition at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. The C100 is owned by John Steain and both he and David are long-time members of the Macquarie Towns Restoration and Preservation Club. Honda’s obsession with public acceptance extended to a complete re-think of the exhaust system, which is quaintly explained in the original sales brochure. “Although the capacity of most mufflers installed on motorcycles are 13 times that of the cylinder displacement, our Super Cub is equipped with a muffler which is 23 times more than the capacity of the cylinder. Moreover, the number of explosions is half that of the 2-stroke engine so the quiet rhythmical sound of the Super Cub sets it apart as a luxury vehicle.” Other appointments aimed at social graces included a fully enclosed rear chain, and rubber mounting for the rear sprocket to the hub to ensure maximum smoothness in the transmission. The only real option listed was the choice of a dual seat, or a single seat with a luggage rack. There was also a colour choice; red/white or blue/grey.
The original Super Cub was the forerunner of a range that would grow through various engine capacities (65cc, 85cc and a change to overhead camshaft instead of overhead valve) until 1967, but the basic styling and concept exists to this day. The current Super Cub (C125) uses a fuel-injected 124.9cc OHC engine with a four-speed gearbox. An electric version, called the EV-Cub, with two-wheel drive from motors in each hub, was displayed at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show, but has yet to reach production.