Today it seems unlikely, but in the 1950s, Doghas been somewhat sidelined in his own country. At the time, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Trade (MITI) had big plans with Toyota, Nissan et Mitsubishi to become a global powerautomotive industrybut the idiosyncrasy of the motorcycle manufacturing had no place. Established suppliers even refused to supply parts for Honda’s first cars, and the government and banks also put obstacles in the way of the Honda company. Soichiro Hondaunskilled and eccentric.
Remarkably, today it is this same Honda that is supposed to bring Nissan and perhaps later Mitsubishi out of the doldrums. The merger plans will come to fruition in the coming months, but it is already clear that Honda will be the strong part of the new mega-company.
It’s no secret that Nissan is not doing well and the brand is quickly burning through its own financial reserves. By joining forces, Japanese automobile manufacturers intend to become one of the main global players in the field of natural gasin order to be stronger against emerging Chinese car manufacturers.
This decision puts an end to the eternal independence of Honda, which has always continued to act in the spirit of its founder Soichiro Honda (photo), died in 1988. An idiosyncratic spirit with which the company played a decisive role in the history of the automobile.
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Example for Toyota
Ironically, this is pretty much the role the Chinese want to play today.
In the 1960s, Honda focused on exports, mainly to America. With fuel-efficient and reliable cars likeAccord and the Civicshe wanted to offer an alternative to the oversized, polluting and poorly constructed coffins of the major coffin manufacturers. Detroit.
When local consumers began to feel it in their wallets with the oil crisis of the early 1970s and the rising gasoline prices that accompanied it, more and more Americans bought Honda cars and, subsequently, Toyotas. Since then, GM, Ford, Chrysler and Co only control half of the national market.
We forget a little today that Honda served as a model for Toyota, which became the largest automobile manufacturer in the world.
He was the first Japanese automaker to open a local factory in the United States, founding his luxury brand Acura before Toyota did it with Lexus and Nissan with Infiniti. It has already produced an electric car, the EV Plusin the 90s, and a hydrogen car, the FCX Clarityin the 00s. With the CR-Vshe created one of the first crossovers mobilesand Honda was also the first to have a GPS integrated, theElectro Gyrocator 1981, with cathode ray tube screen.
The idea factory
Creativity and innovation can be traced back to Soichiro Honda, who initially had to do everything alone and therefore had no choice but to come up with new ideas. A typical example is the annual ideas conference he organized with his staff. According to a concept of childish simplicity: everyone can develop an idea, whether it is useful or not.
In the last century, Honda was also a source of inspiration for the German automobile industry. The former general manager Eberhard von Kuenheim once suggested that Honda was the only other automaker BMW took inspiration from. Fire Ferdinand Piechfuture big boss of VW groupat one point even considered leaving his position as development director at Audi to become an engineer at Honda.
Alliance with Rover
Honda has only partnered with a foreign partner once, partnering with Rover at the end of the last century. The alliance will last 15 years and will in reality be one-way, the British manufacturer having based several models on platforms Honda.
In China, Honda has cooperated with local players, GAC et Dongfengsimply because it was dictated by the local government.
In the 1990s there was also a hostile takeover attempt by Mitsubishi, which at the time was doing very well and even sold more cars than Honda. But this attempt was unsuccessful, which allowed Honda to continue on its way.
Consolidation
The 21st century has brought serious setbacks for the company. The 2011 tsunami disrupted the entire production chain, and millions of defective airbags from the supplier Takata tarnished the brand’s reputation for quality around the same time.
Europeans, for their part, were buying fewer and fewer cars from the brand. The result of a series of strange product developments, with model ranges that alternated inconsistently, often with enigmatic product names and design that failed to appeal to a wide audience.
The fact that Honda has continued to go it alone, in the spirit of its founder, increasingly runs counter to the trend toward consolidation. THE VW group, Stellar, Hyundai-Kia and, for a while, Renault-Nissan demonstrated the benefits of economies of scale. In Japan too, this movement has been at work for some time: Toyota has merged with Suzuki, Subaru et Daihatsuleaving Honda and Nissan (including Mitsubishi) almost doomed to each other.
The announced merger puts an end to three-quarters of a century of independence at Honda. It is not yet known whether the company will continue to bear the name of its founder Soichiro Honda.
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