Go, little Honda; the Super Cub helped build an automotive empire-and is still going strong after 40 years

Automotive Industries, July, 1998 by Lindsay Brooke

The Super Cub helped build an automative empire -- and is still going strong after 40 years.

"It's not a big motorcycle, just a groovy little motorbike," chirped the Hondelles on their early '60s pop song, Little Honda. Back then, only a dictatorial parent could deny their teenager the harmless joy of Honda's Super Cub -- the most significant motorcycle of the post World War II era, and a vehicle that stands equal to Ford's Model T and the VW Beetle in its contribution to personal transportation.

If you disagree that any two-wheeler should be given the same status as the auto industry's twin icons, consider the numbers. Honda has built over 26.5 million Super Cubs since the model's debut in August 1958. That's 11.5 million more than Henry's T and a few million above the old beetle. And the model represents over one-fourth of Honda's total motorcycle output since the company's 1948 founding.

Like the VW, the Super Cub is still in production today, at numerous plants through design and stamped-steel chasis, which make the bike so user-friendly. While American college students were zipping to class on Super Cubs in the 1960s, millions around the world used the machine as their primary transportation tool. In value-conscious Asia, they still do.

For car people, particularly Detroiters weaned on "bigger is better," to discuss the 50cc Super Cub's design attributes is to speak a foreign language. It's lone 40mm piston is barely the size of a shot glass,a nd its tiny pair of overhead valves resemble roofing nails. With its horizontal cylinder and 3-speed gearbox cast integrally with the crankcase, the entire powerplant will nearly fit within the valley of a large V-8. It makes all of five horsepower, returns 100 mpg, and is barely audible in operation. Its robustness is legendary.

When the Super Cub was launched, most Westerners knew Japan more for its transistor radios than its vehicles. The Cub cost less than $300, a fact which many believed was due to the myth of "cheap Japanese labor." In truth, Honda made a steady profit on the Super Cub because of efficient manufacturing techniques. Soichiro Honda had seen European motorcycle plants, and he realized early that for his company to grow, he had to blend the best in product and manufacturing engineering. His plan soon allowed Honda to sell amazingly complex, high performance bikes (and later, cars) at affordable prices. By the time Honda won its first of many Grand Prix road racing world championships in 1962, the company employed over 500 engineers and technicians in the R&D department. Their pay-checks, and much of the company's working capital, were fueled by Super Cub profits.

When Honda entered the U.S. in 1959, it was keenly aware that Americans associated motorcycles with noise and reckless behavior. The company's brilliant ad campaign -- "You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda" -- deliberately associated the Cub and other Honda machines with good clean fun. This strategy convinced a generation of Americans who might never had ridden a motorcycle -- or spent so much money on a Japanese product -- to try a small Honda.

"By doing this, Honda changed motorcycling, and gradually established enviable brand loyalty," observes Don Brown, a motorcycle industry analyst in Irvine, Calif. He notes that many of the folks who started out on Cubs in the '60s are riding $15,000 Gold Wings and driving Acuras today.

Sort of like combining the philosophies of Alfred Sloan and Henry Ford -- with a lot more grooviness, of course.