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The founder of Honda, Soichiro Honda was a mechanical engineer with a passion for motorcycle and automobile racing. Honda started his company in 1946 by building motorized bicycles with small, war-surplus engines. Honda would grow to become the worlds leading manufacturer of motorcycles and later one of the leading automakers. Following its founders lead, Honda has always been a leader in technology, especially in the area of engine development. Soichiro Honda was described as a maverick in a nation of conformists. He made it a point to wear loud suits and wildly colored shirts. An inventor by nature who often joined the work on the floors of his factories and research laboratories, Honda developed engines that transformed the motorcycle into a worldwide means of transportation. Born in 1906, Honda grew up in the town of Tenryu, Japan. The eldest son of a blacksmith who repaired bicycles, the young Soichiro had only an elementary school education when, in his teens, he left home to seek his fortune in Tokyo. An auto repair company hired him in 1922, but for a year he was forced to serve as a baby-sitter for the auto shops owner and his wife. While employed at the auto shop, however, Honda built his own racing car using an old aircraft engine and handmade parts and participated in racing. His racing career was short lived, however. He suffered serious injuries in a 1936 crash. By 1937, Honda had recovered from his injuries. He established his own company, manufacturing piston rings, but he found that he lacked a basic knowledge of casting. To obtain it, he enrolled in a technical high school, applying theories as he learned them in the classrooms to his own factory. But he did not bother to take examinations at the school. Informed that he would not be graduated, Honda commented that a diploma was worth less than a movie theater ticket. A ticket guarantees that you can get into the theater. But a diploma doesnt guarantee that you can make a living. | 
