In 1954, the Isle of Man TT Motorcycle Competition was held as scheduled. Motorcycle fans from all over the world gather here and are excited. There was an Asian face in the audience, a middle-aged man. This Asian man watched the motorcycles whizzing by in front of him at a speed of 200 to 300 kilometers per hour. His eyes were filled with passionate flames. This flame burned his passion again, so he decided that our company will also participate in the Isle of Man TT. Motorcycle road racing. As soon as the news came out, many people thought this uncle was crazy. This crazy uncle is Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda.

This guy Ichiro is very much like Alang. He has been bohemian and loved freedom all his life. No, he should have been bohemian and loved technology all his life. As long as it is something he wants to do, he must overcome all difficulties and improve the technology to get it done. ?This tenacity is an important reason why he can turn Honda into a global enterprise. Of course, in addition to this, this guy has been a boss who dares to think and do things since he was a child. He has been dishonest since he was a child. He basically did everything he couldn't do. This kind of spirit of not being afraid of anything, not being able to do anything but imagining it, actually made him write a significant stroke in the history of cars and motorcycles. Oh, no, it should be two strokes, which two strokes? One is the Isle of Man TT motorcycle race, and the other is F1.

To talk about the Isle of Man TT motorcycle race, we have to start from the beginning. What did Ichiro do originally? Originally, Ichiro was engaged in auto repair. Soichiro is a typical loser. His grandparents were still farming in the fields. It was only in his father Honda Yihei's generation that he began to learn crafts in workshops, but life was still hard. In Ichiro's generation, in order to have a better way out, Ichiro embarked on the path of studying, no, it was an apprenticeship. The place where he studied was an auto repair shop, and the boss was a technical expert. But the first thing Ichiro did after he left was not to repair the car, but to take care of the children. Isn't this a typical success study textbook? The boss will first train your mind and temper your character, and then he will pass on his unique skills to you, and then you will be number one in the world. Ichiro's apprenticeship experience was similar to this, but in the end he did not become the best in the world, but became the owner of an auto repair shop.

I believe in this sentence: You can’t cover up some people’s light, and they will definitely leave something in history. Ichiro is such a person. When this guy opened an auto repair shop, he found that many auto parts were substandard and of surprisingly poor quality and reliability. What was even more annoying was that no one improved this thing, so Ichiro took the car The repair shop was closed and a factory was built to produce piston rings. This is comparable to the time when Porsche turned its tractor factory into a super sports car factory. Piston rings were not actually produced for long, but Ichiro learned a lot through the production of piston rings and laid a foundation for the future. This is also a typical success theory, that is, what you learn now will be used in the future. This is really what happened to Ichiro. As we all know, the war of aggression against China inevitably occurred. Ichiro's company Tokai Seiki was 40% owned by Toyota to produce engine parts for the military. From then on, Ichiro started to have troubles. He was really unlucky to follow the anti-Japanese war. Until later, Tokai Seiki was bombed by the US military. Ichiro sold all his shares to Toyota and went home to take care of his children. Note that this place is still a typical part of successful learning. For example, Ang Lee cooked for his family at home for several years, and then after becoming famous, this experience was beautified as hibernation or recharging his energy. Therefore, Ichiro going home to take care of his children should be a sign that he will be successful in a few years.

Ichiro was taking care of the children at home, so Japan lost the war. Hey, no, actually there is no necessary relationship between the two. However, Japan did lose the war, and after its defeat, it left behind some military items, including radio engines. When Ichiro saw this engine, his mind turned around and his eyes lit up. Damn it, I'm going to be awesome again this time. Not long after, Mrs. Ichiro was riding an engine-driven bicycle through the city, and Ichiro was indeed awesome again. From this power-assisted bicycle track motorcycle, Ichiro and his small team overcame many technical problems, built their own engine, and successfully launched the motorcycle on the market. However, because Ichiro was too radical after the success at that time, there were some problems with the two products put on the market, and the company was in danger of breaking the capital chain. Takeo Fujisawa felt that Ichiro's bad temper would only make things worse if he stayed in the company, so Tell Ichiro: Ichiro-kun, you go to Europe for a vacation, I will handle this little matter, trust me, good gay friend, you have to trust. So, Ichiro took a plane to the UK, came to the Isle of Man, and saw the TT motorcycle road race. As a result, a small company that had not yet established a foothold in the motorcycle industry decided to participate in the world's top motorcycle event and became a big deal. Not a small piece of news.

Then, there will definitely be big news after the moderate news, otherwise it would be pointless for Ichiro to go home and take care of his children. According to the rules of success, you will definitely succeed after you go home to take care of your children. So, in 1961, Ichiro's Honda motorcycle team finally won the championship and took all the top five places. From an unknown small motorcycle company to later surpassing the world's first-tier motorcycle companies and winning the championship, Honda Motorcycle has achieved leap-forward development. It is an extremely huge honor for every Honda person, but Soichiro Honda But ordinary people cannot be satisfied with their existing achievements.

After winning the Isle of Man, Ichiro is going to Europe for vacation again. This time he did not go to the Isle of Man because it has become Honda’s battlefield and there is no point in going there. Soichiro Honda, who has already won the world championship in two-wheeled cars, has set his sights on the four-wheeled car event-F1. You know, Honda had manufactured several trucks and cars at that time, and the Japanese government had not yet given Honda a license to produce cars. However, Honda relied on its tough attitude to face the officials of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Japan and vigorously demonstrated the benefits of building cars. , and expressed his position that he must build a car. As a result, Honda took its own motorcycle championship team and turned to the research and development of automobiles. To say that participating in F1 means Honda, it is definitely more important than other manufacturers. Why? At that time, F1 was dominated by Ferrari. What was Ferrari? It specializes in building luxury sports cars. If it can achieve excellent results in this competition, then Honda will become very powerful. And in the actual operation process, the research and development work of Honda's F1 racing car did provide a good technical foundation for Honda's subsequent research and development of civilian cars. This is both unexpected and expected. In the second year of participation in the Mexican Grand Prix, Honda's F1 racing car RA272 won the overall championship. In fact, thinking about it now, how awesome is it to win in an F1 car with so many experts in the second year of competition? However, what I want to know most is what our colleagues at Toyota, Suzuki and Fuji thought at the time. Were they scolding their mothers?

After seeing this, everyone must think that Ichiro is such a bad guy that he has no friends. However, Ichiro is also a human being after all. At that time, all the cars produced by Honda were air-cooled, but water cooling had become a trend, but Ichiro was stubborn and refused to let the company develop a water-cooling system, only air-cooling. In the later F1 car, Jo Schlesser had poor air-cooling and racing heat, which led to oil leakage and steering failure, which ultimately led to the car crash and death. But at this time, Ichiro still insisted on being cold, and many people said they could not accept it. When this conflict was irreconcilable, Ichiro's good friend Fujisawa Takeo stood up again. This guy's name is Wu Fu. He is actually full of business ideas and is also a genius. He finally convinced Ichiro to accept a water-cooled engine, which allowed Honda to embark on the road of water cooling.

Of course, Ichiro has become a little old man at this time. However, after resigning in 1974, this little old man was not idle. He went to Honda factories all over the world to shake hands with Honda workers, and even when he was 60 or 70 years old, he went to glider and ride in a hot air balloon. As the same saying goes, I am full of curiosity about everything and want to try it. I am not afraid of anything. In August 1991, Ichiro landed safely and went to another world to start his adventure.

Mada Jun said: A stone will not shine anywhere, even if you energize it, but gold will shine wherever it is, even if you cover it with a cloth. People like Soichiro Honda will do amazing things no matter which industry they are in. For those who like cars, we are lucky because Soichiro Honda has entered the automotive field and continues to surprise us. Some people would leave their names in small fonts on the historical scrolls of cars, but Soichiro used a large brush to write a huge name in cursive with a wave of his hand. If one sentence could be written on his tombstone, it might be as follows: A TT, an F1, and a technology madman.

The article comes from the Hon Dazhi public account

This article comes from the author of Autohome’s Chejia account and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.