Honda models

Honda: engineering with a human-centred streak

Honda Motor Co. was founded in Hamamatsu, Japan, on 24 September 1948, after Soichiro Honda’s small technical research institute had begun building auxiliary bicycle engines. Its first complete motorcycle, the Dream D-Type, followed in 1949. The partnership between Honda, the engineer and restless inventor, and Takeo Fujisawa, who shaped the young company’s commercial direction, became central to its early growth.

Motorcycles remained foundational, but Honda did not stay in one field. It entered Japan’s automobile market in 1963 with the compact T360 truck and S500 sports car, having already built Suzuka Circuit and declared its racing ambitions. The Civic, introduced in 1972, then gave Honda a car with genuinely international reach. Cars, motorcycles, racing, power equipment and later aviation all grew from the same company, giving the Honda name a broader engineering identity than that of a conventional carmaker.

A design principle that endured

The strongest thread through Honda’s car history is its M/M idea: “Man Maximum, Machine Minimum.” Honda traces the principle to the N360 of 1967 and defines it as maximising room for people while minimising the space demanded by mechanical components. It informed the Civic, Accord, City and Fit, and remains a basic approach to Honda vehicle design rather than a claim attached to one model.

That human-centred approach has persisted while Honda’s range has moved through front-wheel drive, low-emission engines, hybrids and battery-electric development. The products have changed; the preference for finding engineering answers within a tightly considered package has remained recognisably Honda.

Honda on DriveSize

The 2025 Honda HR-V and 2023 Honda CR-V offer two current DriveSize views of Honda’s crossover family. Their individual guides keep the model year and version explicit, while this page supplies the wider company story behind the badge.