BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO HONDA
What’s Honda, and when did it start making cars?
Honda is the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer. But it does cars too, obviously. Also quad bikes, lawnmowers, outboard motors, power tools, generators, humanoid robots and jet aircraft among many other things.
Founded as the Honda Technical Research Institute by Soichiro Honda in 1946, the company started out retrofitting surplus generator motors to bicycles.
Then in 1948 it became the Honda Motor Co and soon began making proper motorcycles using its own engines and chassis. The company’s first cars arrived in 1963. First came the T360, a little pickup truck so named for its mid-mounted 356cc motorcycle engine. The tiny but gorgeous and
