The Most Popular Vehicle in the World: Super Cub

To many Americans’ surprise, the most popular vehicle in the world is not a car at all—it is the Honda Super Cub.

The Honda Super Cub is a small, undertone motorcycle with varying displacements ranging from 49 to 124 CCs. It has enjoyed one of the longest production runs of any vehicle, being in continuous production since 1958. In 2017, over 100 million of these have been produced by Honda and earned the title of the most produced vehicle in history. Even its entry into the U.S. market has had lasting effects, as its slogan name was “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” and has lived on for years.

In 1956, Honda’s Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa toured post-war west Germany and witnessed the popularity of mopeds and lightweight motorcycles. The two were partners in Honda: Honda being the engineer and production manager with an eye for the race track, and Fujisawa being the business and finance man. Fujisawa had been thinking about a long-term expansion strategy, and didn’t want to just cash in on the recent economic boom in Japan—he wanted to develop a small, high-performance motorcycle. Fujisawa noted that the traditional motorcycle didn’t fit the purchase pattern of a normal person, which was strapping a clip-on engine to a bicycle, then buying a scooter, then a bubble car, and then a small car.

The scooter-type bike nearly fit the bill, but it was too complex for developing countries to maintain, and its small tires performed poorly on unmaintained or damaged road surfaces. Fujisawa baited Honda with difficult requirements on the design of the motorcycle, such as being able to ride with one hand while carrying a tray of Soba noodles, or power it with a 50cc engine and make a cover to hide the engine and wires in side. Honda was interested, and began developing the Super Cub on their return to Japan. The following year, Honda displayed a mockup to Fujisawa. Fujisawa declared sales would be 30,000 per month—nearly half of the entire motorcycle market of Japan. His goal was to export motorcycles on a scale yet unseen in post-war Japan. In 1959, American Honda Motor Company was established and a sales network in Germany, Belgium and the U.K. in 1962, and then France in 1964.

To make the Super Cub, Honda built a new 10 Million Yen factory in Suzuka to produce 50,000 Super Cubs per month with two shifts. The factory was modeled after the VW Beetle production line in Germany. Many voiced concern over the investment in the factory, notably Edward Turner of BSA that said it was an “extremely dangerous” investment because the U.S. motorcycle market was already saturated. In 1960, the plant was complete and the largest motorcycle factory in the world, and also modeled Honda’s production facilities for the future.The Super Cub introduced features to the motorcycle market that were never before seen, like plastic bodywork, and stamped monocoque chassis. The original model used a OHV pushrod air-cooled 49cc engine that produced 4.5 hp at 9,500 rpm for a max speed of 43 mph under favorable conditions. The super low-compression ratio meant the engine could consume low quality and low octane fuel that was commonly available all over the world, and could be easily kick started. The three-speed sequential shifting gearbox was manually shifted, but clutchless. It used a centrifugal clutch along with a clutch plate that was salved to the shift lever. While not intuitive to learn, once the rider got used to it, it “took the terror out of motorcycling” for novice riders.

It is hard to argue that the Super Cub isn’t one of the most influential vehicles ever produced and changed regions by itself. Areas like Vietnam are dominated by motorcycles, namely the Super Cub due to their low cost and reliability. The Super Cub was, and still is, the staple of low-cost motorcycles across the world and single-handedly influenced the globalization of the Honda name and its legacy of reliability.