I drive a Honda and I love it. Outside of that ’67 Chrysler convertible (Sawzall edition) a friend and I made, it’s probably the best car I’ve ever owned. Back when that Chrysler first came off the assembly line, Honda sold only motorcycles in the U.S.
Photograph from Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
The company opened its first American showroom with seven workers at a former photo-processing lab at 4077 W. Pico Boulevard in 1959. The spiffy little bikes were an immediate success and dealers began carrying the line of inexpensive, zippy motorcycles. Boosted by a big advertising campaign and popping up all over pop culture throughout the 1960s, the cycles ultimately became the best-selling motorized vehicle of all time, selling over 100 million bikes.
Photograph courtesy Honda
American Honda quickly became a corporate citizen of Los Angeles, donating bikes for charity, and making the largest gift from a foreign company to the fledgling Music Center in 1964.
Photograph by Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
When Honda introduced a two-door sedan called the 600 in the spring of 1969, it was two feet shorter (and 600 pounds lighter) than a Volkswagen Beetle and got 42 miles per gallon. Four years later, amid an oil embargo and gas shortages, gas-sipping cars were suddenly in vogue.
Photograph by Valley Times Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
To celebrate the company’s 60th anniversary, a caravan of new Honda Super Cub motorcycles recently rode from the company’s original location (now a health clinic founded by Jewel Thais-Williams of legendary disco Jewel’s Catch One) to the current headquarters in Torrance. Here’s hoping someone comes up with a groovy go-go song about that.
Photograph courtesy Honda
Photograph by Chris Nichols
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