Honda - More than just another Japanese car maker

 

As soon as the name Honda comes into the equation, everyone just nods along in sync for complete agreement that they make the best all-round cars in India. When I say all-round, it doesn’t refer to the shape of the vehicles. No. What it actually means is that Honda know how to make an Indian motorist smile by ticking nearly all the required idiosyncrasies.

It is easy to mix the Honda name with all the other car manufacturers who produce a bunch of cars across the world. But as is the case with all the big names, there is a lot more to the brand Honda than what we actually know. Honda has not only helped the automotive industry grow at an exponential rate, but also has had a profound impact in various other sectors which use internal combustion technology. Here is a list of things which, I’m sure, you didn’t know about Honda, or, didn’t bother to know.

• Honda’s founder, Soichiro Honda started his career with the production of piston rings in 1937. The name of the company was Tokai Seiki. By 1941, Honda cracked a contract to produce piston rings for Toyota. For people who don’t know what piston rings are, well, they are used to seal the combustion chamber in the engine.
• At the start of World War II, Toyota took 40% stake in Tokai Seiki. Mr. Honda was demoted from the post of president to senior managing director.
• Damage caused in World War II in 1945 led Mr. Honda to sell all his stakes in the company to Toyota for ‎¥ 450,000. He used the same capital to found Honda Technical Research Institute in October 1946. This is where Honda started making motorised bicycles.

That’s enough history I guess. Moving over to a bit more interesting facts.

1. The best-selling vehicle of all time is a Honda. No, it isn’t a car but a desperate looking two-wheeler. The production of the Honda Cub started in 1958 and with upgrades in one form or the other, the Cub is still in production. It has sold over 60 million units which is more than the Ford Model T, Volkswagen Beetle and Toyota Corolla sales figures put together. The Cub still sells nearly 5 million units each year in countries where small, cheap to maintain scooters remain popular.

2. Honda, I kid you not, has been the largest producer of motorcycles for the last 5 decades. As we stumbled upon the short and frankly boring lesson earlier, Honda actually established itself as an automotive giant by producing motorcycles. Mr. Honda was a bicycle builder but soon after the Second World War, he found some minutely small 50cc engines which were supposed to power radios during the War. He simply attached the engine to a bicycle and out came the first ever Honda motorcycle. By 1964, this obsession of motorized bicycles led Honda to be the world’s largest producer of motorcycles.

3. Honda introduced 3 cars simultaneously in 1962 to start the era of mass car production. These were S360, S500 and T360. Both S360 and S500 were sporty looking roadsters while the T360 was a sad looking donkey. I am sorry but what I meant to say was a hard working but a slightly sad looking mini truck. It actually looked like as if someone has sped off in front of the poor thing, leaving it in a cloud of dust.

4. Probably one of the proudest moment of Honda as a brand was when an American Rock Band named themselves as The Hondells. Here is the video of the famous track, Little Honda. In today’s world and age, it’ll leave you giggling more than banging your head on the dubstep.

5. When we think of Japan’s automotive industry, not that we do it very often, we think of names like Toyota and Suzuki first before the likes of Honda and Mitsubishi. Well, another fact that will surely leave you stunned is that Honda was the first Japanese team to enter into Formula 1 racing.

This goes way back to 1961 when the sport was dominated by the Europeans. Even the Americans were struggling to match the standards set by the "Euro munching maniacs". Honda won their first race at the Mexican Grand Prix in 1962 with Ritchie Ginther in the cockpit.

6. For this one, I want you to really put your heads down and think about it. Which engine manufacturer powers most of the boats, motorcycles, scooters, lawn mowers, portable generators, tillers, water pumps, commercial vehicles, outboard motors and Honda cars? Oh god, I gave it away on that last one didn’t I?! Yes, it is Honda. And producing numerous kinds of internal combustion engines for such a vast array of products makes Honda the world largest producer of internal combustion engines. For math lovers, in excess of 14 million such engines are produced every year by Honda.

7. Ever wondered what i-Vtec stands for? Well it somehow is the short-form for Variable Valve Timing and Electronic Lift Control. 

Now, I can explain how this technology works and how nearly every car manufacturer from Porsche to Toyota adopted the same technology in their cars but I do appreciate the fact that most of you will fall asleep if I did. So, in plain English, it is a technology that helps the engine to be fuel efficient at city speeds and transform into a snarling monster when you mash your right foot into the floor.

8. Honda was the first car manufacturer that brought a hydrogen powered green car to the masses. It was called the FCX Clarity. When I say green, it doesn’t mean it was green in colour. It had a more environmentally green thing going on for itself. It was a car that combined compressed hydrogen from the fuel-cell with oxygen in the air to produce water as the only emissions component. This meant it was a car with no harmful emissions at all. Moreover, this was the first car ever which was available for lease only. The reason being that the each car cost Honda nearly a million dollars to make. So even if you were the Sultan of Brunei, you couldn’t buy one!

9. For a cheque of $3.45 Million, you can buy the fastest Honda on the planet. It’s called the Hondajet. With a top speed of 483 mph, a cruising altitude of 43,000 feet and a range of 1358 miles, you can surely trump nearly everything flying in sumptuous comfort. Well, Mr. Sultan of Brunei, you can have one of these for sure. Sorry for the bad news earlier though!

10. ASIMO, which stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility is the robotic face of Honda. It can run, walk upstairs and come down as well (mostly without crashing), and has the potential to serve and assist disabled or elderly people. All that sounds very familiar, doesn’t it? Oh I know, the movie I-robot starring Man in Black - Will Smith. I knew that movie was way ahead of its time! Anyways, back to Japanese robot. It is also a testing ground for Honda’s Artificial Intelligence Algorithm. Even this sounds similar. Arnold Schwarzenegger? Is he finally back from the future? He can’t be because this ASIMO guy doesn’t really scare the crap of anyone. Maybe it is the reincarnation of Honda’s Founder. Who knows! Till then, watch it dance with US president Mr. Barack Obama.

Mercedes-Benz – The Best or Nothing!

What do you know about Mercedes-Benz as a car marque? The legend behind the three pointed star has a lot going for itself. Of-course, who could be bothered to dig out the history behind one of the most prestigious car makers in the world, right? Well, don’t wonder no longer as all of it has been done for you. At least some of it anyways! Right then, let’s get on with it.

1.     The three-wheeled Patent Motorwagen conceived during the black & white years of the 1880s (1886 to be precise) was regarded as the first of the ground based, internal combustion powered automobile. It was nothing like the car as we know now. With a single cylinder engine, it developed 2/3 of a horsepower. They should have called it 1 pony-power then. Just a thought!

2.     We’ve learnt the Benz connection to the marque we know today. But how did the Mercedes name crawl up before the inventor’s name himself? Well, that has a story in itself. The name came from one of the most loyal customers that Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (Karl Benz’s Company name) had back then. That customer was Emil Jellinek. He was a successful businessman and a complete speed-freak who entered several races with Diamler-built cars under the pseudonym “Mercedes” – The name of his daughter. Because of the mad businessman’s success, Dialmer also earned good reputation. It was in 1902 when the name Mercedes-Benz was registered and all the subsequent cars were sold with the same name. A perfect example of how powerful a good customer can be. Epic!

3.     How many of you know the relevance behind the Mercedes’ ‘three-pointed-star’ logo? Each point embodied mobility on land, water and in the air. But there was nearly a fourth one to represent space. But back then it was dodgy to get to the almighty world of zero gravity and endless scope of catastrophic error games. It was probably a good call by the sensible Germans to leave that dimension out.

4.     By the early 1920s, the Germans had competition from America. Ford’s Model T was making a solid case for itself with a more sensible approach. To stay in business in the slow moving economy after the First World War, the German car maker sold bicycles under its badge. Yup, bicycles! In fact, times were so desperate that even a typewriter was considered for mass production but that one never made it.

5.     Mercedes race cars never had paint on the body. At least not the early ones. Not because they forgot to put it on every time, but they had thought about it in a German manner. Nerd moment - Every country chose their racing colours with Germany opting for the colour white. However, eggheads over at the Mercedes central found that the race car they would eventually enter with in the racing league was 1 Kg heavier with the paint on. To save weight and to increase the car’s performance, they scrapped off the paint altogether leaving the shining steel silver on the show.

6.     Adolf Hitler – The Nazi Leader, was a big Mercedes fan. It was him who funded the entire program to establish two of the German car makes - Mercedes and Auto Union (Audi as we know today). The mission was simple – showcase the German technological prowess to the world. The Mercedes-Benz 770 with a bulletproof windshield (of-course) was the leader’s choice of car for his roaming about. Now, Mercedes had to account on it as they couldn’t say to no to him in any possible manner.

 

7.     Let alone the autonomous-mobiles of today, it was Mercedes who cracked the self-driving cars back in the 1980s. Backed by a funding from the European Union, Mercedes developed an autonomous S-class which drove itself from Germany to Copenhagen in Denmark in 1995 with speeds reaching as high as 175 Kmph.

8.     Stuttgart in Germany is also known as “Benztown”. No points for guessing, it was where the Patent Motorwagen was invented.

9.     In 1978, the S-Class was the first car to have ABS (Anti-lock Braking System) as standard. The technology is still being used a must-have in today’s cars.

10. The S-Class unveiled in 1981 was the first mass production car which had a driver-side airbag.

That was more like a history lesson with some facts adding that icing on the cake. I’d like to leave you all  with another jaw-dropping fact about Mercedes of today. They spend in-excess of INR 9.5 crore in R&D alone every single day!

Crazy Limousines

The 3 P's Theory - Proper Pampering Plan

At times you feel like pampering yourself. You do all kinds of stuff… Go to the parlour for a full makeover, dine out in your favourite restaurant or even go to the best hill station which cocoons you from the daily misery. All this is good. Very good. But what do you do to make that trip a little more luxurious. So luxurious that automotive giants can only dream of equipping their best of the stable of cars with. Presenting two of the craziest limos out there on American roads.

All smug with the Guinness Book of World Records title for the longest road-legal car in the world… It’s called the ‘American Dream’. That’s quite a lame name but hey if Chevrolet didn’t think twice before naming their 7-seater MPV in India as ‘Enjoy’ (which you don’t!), then why judge the limo?! On to the details then. This 26-wheeled mammoth is exactly 100 feet long and comes with features like a king-sized bed, a Jacuzzi, a swimming pool with a diving board and to top it all a helipad on the back because of-course you don’t want to put your feet on the ground while you are living your dream. No word on how it’s supposed to make a turn without entering into a different postcode.

 

Next up is something for people who wish to just fly to their destination instead of getting stuck in traffic. Boeing 727 Limo will at least make you feel that you are on your way to flying. This behemoth was built on a Mercedes bus chassis and comes loaded with a big-screen TV and a dance floor. What goes well with the dance floor? You’re right, a bar. Yup! The fake plane has got that covered. Now with so much going on, you don’t want to end up alone inside. They’ve thought of this as well. It can accommodate up to 50 people. You can start counting your friends who can accompany you to a trip. How will that trip end, or how will you get people out of it is something the manual doesn’t cover.

Which one is your favourite?