Harish Palaniappan's

There was a guy, a 'Whiz kid' in mechanical engineering who fixed a motor to his bicycle and drove it around with all the pride. This guy was Mr.Honda... and the vehicle later developed into a 'Motorcycle'..(the one that we all drive so badly in India)

Popular myth: Honda got into big busines when the company exported motorcycles to the America visionizing a huge demand for motocycles. Honda instantly sold great looking motorcycles to the americans.

The truth: Those were the days when motocycles were driven by leather-Jacketed, oil smelling, teenage rebellions in America...the early 1970's. Mr.Honda was especially confident of the 250cc and 305cc machines he sent across to the US.

[Wait a minute.. ??.. if you are in India you probably may not see such cc vehicles in near future, not even import them... since its unneccesarily powerful and dangerous for India and hence banned.]

The large machines that Honda sent to US had a unique handlebar designed like Buddha's eyebrows. This.. Mr.Honda thought would be a unique selling point(USP)

But Buddha's eyebrows weren't interesting to the biking rebellion in the US. Honda company executives were treated discourteously whichever dealer they approached.

Later came, Honda's supercubs, the 50cc machines (like our T V S 50's in India). The supercubs were exported to US, but not for the market... it was for Honda employees for their own personal transport around the concrete jungle of Los Angeles.

It was then... the US people got interested in Honda seeing the supercubs... also at this time Honda had problems with the reliability of larger cc machines. So all effort was put into selling the supercubs which later became US's best selling motorcycle... Advertizing also helped a major extent... thanks to a great slogan. The slogan was invented by a University of california undergraduate.

"You meet the nicest people on a Honda"... (probably attacking the biking rebellion :0)

And so Honda started making waves... and is ruling many core market segments since then.

Today..of course Honda is not one company.. its a group of companies and is into high power bikes, concept cars, solar powered vehicles, water scooters, small jets, lawn mowers, custom made vehicles..and what not.

Some picture treat for those who read till here..