Food for thought.

IMAGINE  if Honda had not imported the step through 50 into North America, if you can.

For many of us ahem, 'older' motorcyclists, regardless of what we are riding today, we started our careers on small displacement Japanese bikes.  Most of us didn't just go out and buy a Norton Dominator or a Rocket Three as our first bike.  Even if you are older than I am, your first bike may have been a used BSA Bantam, which was nothing but an unreliable post war copy of the German DKW.

But, when the Honda corporation decided to export their basic transportation single cylinder step through across the big pond, it was a game changer.  Not at first mind you!



I recall the elder Sibthorpe, the founder of BOW CYCLE and Motor Company, telling me stories of the  rep bringing by the little Honda.  There was nothing like it at the time.  He was talked into taking ONE... to test the market of course.

It sold and fairly quickly too.  So he brought in another, then another and then another and soon they came by the truck load.  Who was buying these tiddlers bikes with pistons the size of a shot glass?  I can tell you it wasn't the hard core guys that lived on Castrol oil!

HONDA was the first to tap into a market where the "Nicest People" weren't riding motorcycles.  After all this was prosperous Canada/USA not war ravaged Japan!  Lo and behold HONDA MOTOR's began selling the classic fifty to very nice people.  It was the second car or the kids ride to College, or Mom's ride to the grocery store.

If Soichiro Honda, the founder of the company had not gambled its future on the tiny little CUB as it was known, I would guess that there would be many fewer motorcyclists on the road in N.A. today.

Ultimately the HONDA CUB in it's many incarnations would become the number one manufactured motor vehicle of all time!  Yes and I mean including the Model T, VW Beetle and the FORD Mustang! (put together) It has proven to be utterly reliable and even Charley Boorman chucking one off a three story (or was it 4?) building didn't kill it.  Of course the wheels were square!

It is the most prolific and most copied motorcycle of all time.  All you have to do is look at the burgeoning Chinese market where you will see dozens of copies of the ubiquitous little bike being made in the millions. 

 
I myself didn't start my career riding a CUB, no I did not.  I did however begin my riding life aboard a Honda S 90 (S for Sport or SUPER)  That bike with it's four cycle horizontal single cylinder engine and four speed transmission was a direct descendant of the little 50!

Everybody I know on the planet knows I am a fan of small displacement motorcycles, I still have many bikes that are under 500 cc in my stable and have always believed in the less is more as opposed to the 'No substitute for cubic inches' theory.

I myself have two models of the little step through in my own garage.

Doc