In March of 1954, just six years after Mr. Soichiro Honda launched Honda Motor Company, the proud owner made a bold proclamation to his employees and to the world. He also directed his words at the motorcycle Grand Prix racing community, which resided on the other side of the planet from Honda’s home base in Hamamatsu, Japan. The message? Mr. Honda’s company would compete at the 1955 Isle of Man TT, the toughest road race on the FIM’s Grand Prix World Championship calendar.
The racing fraternity in Europe, home for the top (if not all) Grand Prix teams that competed at the Isle of Man and other road race tracks, barely shrugged at the news. Say again — Honda who?
Okay, we’ll say it again: Honda Motor Company, and only days before Mr. Honda’s brazen — nay, brash — announcement, the fledging company had competed in one of its first international forays, an obscure race held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Honda’s team bike finished a yawn-inducing 13th place in a field of 22 entries. (Pause now for yawning.) A couple months later, Mr. Honda himself visited the tiny island in the middle of the Irish Sea to spectate the 1954 Isle of Man TT for a closer look at what racing on the landmark isle was all about, and more specifically what Honda’s race team would face the following year. That first visit to the TT left a long and lasting impression on Honda the man, prompting him to up the ante for Honda’s future racing debut there.
At that same time Mr. Honda realized that the muted response by the established European teams to his bold proclamation had been warranted. At the time, Honda Motor’s first-ever “serious” race bike produced a paltry 8 horsepower, less than half of what the experienced European race teams were developing for their world championship 125cc motorcycles.
Clearly, if any success at the Isle of Man TT was to be (published in 1990) that Honda’s initial 125cc twin-cylinder racing engine “only developed 8bhp when MV Augusta or MZ [engines] had the figures of at least 18bhp.” Honda certainly did have a long way to go, prompting Mr. Honda to cancel his IoM TT plans for 1955. Ditto for 1956, ’57 and ’58. Honda Motor’s journey to the TT continually got sidelined because of testing, testing and more testing in Japan. And like a concerned, yet proud, Little League dad, Soichiro-san kept a close eye on his budding team’s progress. Perhaps the team could make the 1959 TT …
