Soichiro Honda – The Man Who Dreamed Engines
Soichiro Honda was born on November 17, 1906 to Geihi Honda - a skilled blacksmith and his wife Mika - an accomplished weaver, in a small village of Komyo, in the Tenryu province of Mamamatsu. Childhood may not be privileged but well balanced with mix of discipline and experiential learning imparted by his father. Young Soichiro always had a thing for mechanics and engines and longed to do more than assisting father at his bicycle shop. He was 16 when he saw an advertisement of Art Shokai Automobile workshop in Tokyo. The workshop was renowned for the finest repair services of automobiles in the city. It wasn’t a vacancy advertisement yet Soichiro wrote to the management for apprenticeship. He received a positive reply and within a week the dreamer left for Tokyo. This was the kind of single-minded dedication of Soichiro Honda that led him to his dream to build automobiles in later years.