<VV> Another 50th Anniversary -- slightly Corvair related

[Robert Marlow]

While General Motors was preparing to launch the Corvair 50 years ago, 
one of the seeds of GM’s downfall was being planted.

On June 11, 1959, 50 years ago, Honda Motor Company of Japan established 
its first overseas subsidiary, American Honda Motor Co., Inc., in a 
small Los Angeles storefront. A photo of that storefront, with a Honda 
motorcycle sitting in the back of a Chevrolet pickup, can be seen on 
Honda’s web site.

Honda’s first product offering in the U.S. was the Honda 50 motorcycle, 
a “step-through” design which married the features of a scooter and a 
motorcycle. The Honda 50 established a toehold in the American market, 
but Honda really took root with the 1962 introduction of their 
advertising tagline, “You meet the nicest people on a Honda.” It was a 
campaign designed to counter the rowdy image that motorcyclists had at 
the time – and it worked. Honda helped spur a dramatic growth in 
motorcycle sales in the U.S., and Honda became the best-selling brand in 
America.

Of course what also worked was leadership in the technology of internal 
combustion engines. American Honda was established only eleven years 
after Honda Motor Company’s inception as a small motorcycle manufacturer 
in Japan, and it has been noted that founder Soichiro Honda was at heart 
an engine designer, not a vehicle producer. The vehicles, at first 
motorcycles and later automobiles, developed around the engines.

Honda was a household name in the United States – as a motorcycle 
manufacturer – when the N600 automobile made its American debut as a 
1970 model, just after the Corvair was discontinued. The N600 and its 
sibling, the Z600, were never taken very seriously, but the 1973 Civic 
was. The Civic was Honda’s first car truly suitable for U.S. roads.

I was driving a Corvair – which I still own -- in 1974 when I decided 
that it was time to buy my first showroom-new car. I used that logic to 
take a test-drive in every car available, domestic and foreign, 
including a Civic. I test-drove the Civic only because I was 
test-driving everything, but I never expected to like it. I liked it. I 
bought it.

The introduction of the Civic began Honda’s transition in America from 
maker of cute motorcycles to maker of serious automobiles. The timing 
was perfect, too. America faced the first oil crisis in 1973 and soon 
the Civic was ranked number one on the Environmental Protection Agency’s 
first list of America’s most fuel-efficient cars.

In 1976 Honda stunned everyone with the introduction of the first 
Accord. Priced at $3,995.00, the introductory advertising stated that 
the word “value” now had reason to live. And I forsook my faithful 
Civic, which I had driven through 23 states, to be fourth in line for a 
new Accord at my local dealer.

Today, Honda operates ten U.S. manufacturing plants with two new plants 
under construction, along with 14 R&D facilities and more than 12 
regional sales, parts and service, and finance offices around the 
country. Honda employs more than 27,000 people in the U.S., and in 2007 
sold 1,551,542 vehicles in the U.S. – nearly equal to the entire 
ten-year production run of Corvairs, in one year.

The first Honda 50 motorcycle, the first Civic and the first Accord each 
had a “personality” that is missing in the current offerings, but they 
had the same swiss-watch reliability that endears Honda products to 
customers today. My preference for cars with a personality (which plays 
in to my affinity for Corvairs) is why today I drive a PT Cruiser. But 
my local Chrysler dealer, along with the neighboring Chevrolet dealer, 
is gone. When it is time to replace the Cruiser, the only new-car dealer 
remaining in my town sells Hondas.

There are many, many reasons for General Motors’ having gone into 
bankruptcy recently. But one of them is the success of Honda, which was 
literally just getting started in the United States at the same time 
that Corvairs were about to appear, 50 years ago.

--Bob