From a young age, Honda's founder, Soichiro Honda had an excellent interest in automobiles. He worked as a mechanic at a Japanese tuning store, Art Shokai, the place he tuned cars and entered them in races. A self-taught engineer, he later labored on a piston design which he hoped to promote to Toyota. The primary drafts of his design were rejected, and Soichiro worked painstakingly to excellent the design, even going back to school and pawning his spouse's jewelry for collateral. Eventually, he gained a contract with Toyota and built a factory to construct pistons for them, which was destroyed in an earthquake. Resulting from a gasoline scarcity during World Conflict II, Honda was unable to use his automobile, and his novel idea of attaching a small engine to his bicycle attracted a lot curiosity. He then established the Honda Technical Analysis Institute in Hamamatsu, Japan, to develop and produce small 2-cycle motorcycle engines. Calling upon 18,000 bicycle shop owners across Japan to participate in revitalizing a nation torn apart by warfare, Soichiro received enough capital to engineer his first motorcycle, the Honda Cub. This marked the start of Honda Motor Firm, which would grow a short while later to be the world's largest manufacturer of bikes by 1964.

The primary manufacturing automobile from Honda was the T360 mini decide-up truck, which went on sale in August 1963. Powered by a small 356 cc straight-four gasoline engine, it was categorized below the cheaper Kei car tax bracket. The primary manufacturing car from Honda was the S500 sports car, which adopted the T360 into manufacturing in October 1963. Its chain driven rear wheels level to Honda's bike origins