Takeo Fujisawa Inducted Into Automotive Hall of Fame

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Takeo Fujisawa (1910-1988) has been inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame. (Honda/)

Takeo Fujisawa (1910-1988), partner of Soichiro Honda in shaping and building Honda Motor Company through its first 24 years, has today been inducted into Detroit’s Automotive Hall of Fame. He joins Honda himself, who was in 1989 the first Japanese automotive executive to be so honored.

Fujisawa became Honda’s business manager in October of 1949—a crisis time when the company “…could go bust any day now” from lack of capital in Japan’s post-World War II depression. His career up to that moment had been extremely varied, exposing him to many different people and ideas. He and Honda were very different, but their abilities and perceptions were complementary. Through the desperate work of keeping the company’s doors open, the two men found they could trust each other.

Like Toyota, they were saved by the “special procurements boom” created by the Korean War, which began in June 1950. Receiving a big order for auxiliary engines, Honda Motor was saved.

Fujisawa saw there was no security in fighting one crisis after another, but it was impossible to calmly plan Honda’s future while “putting out fires” and staving off creditors. He created a separate space for himself—his “tea arbor”—where he could from time to time calm down, read, and think. No telephone. No shouting. Long-range planning of product and expansion took place here.

Honda Motor’s first product had been two-stroke clip-on engines for bicycles; you can see them in the Honda Collection Hall at Motegi. Next came Dream Type-D, a 98cc two-stroke motorbike. When Fujisawa and his wife objected that its sound and smoke were unattractive, Honda insisted he could engineer around them.

Finally Fujisawa had to insist, and such was the mutual trust between these two men that Honda was able to accept this. The result was the 146cc four-stroke overhead-valve Model E, then the Cub, and in 1958, the bestselling road vehicle of all time, Super Cub, of which more than 100 million have been sold.

Takeo Fujisawa (left) and Soichiro Honda. (Honda/)

One day Fujisawa sent a senior managing director to America, despite market research revealing “zero demand” for motorbikes there. Fujisawa told him, “The future fate of [the] motorcycle is there.” Fujisawa, knowing Americans had disposable income, believed demand could be created. Americans soon “met the nicest people on a Honda” and the US motorcycle market doubled in volume from 1965 to 1970. When I visited Harley-Davidson in 1966, I was told, “Everything Honda has done in the market has helped our sales.”

Fujisawa understood that one Soichiro Honda was not enough. “Unless we produce not one but a number of Soichiro Hondas, we cannot operate a manufacturing company with peace of mind.” Ideas must be the driving force.

Implementing this decision would take 15 years, but the result was Honda R&D, a place where engineers could experiment without fearing failure. Children do this naturally; we call it play. When Bell Labs operated this way, the transistor was created.

Takeo Fujisawa retired in 1973. (Honda/)

A later crisis developed when Honda insisted that air-cooled autos must be the future—the Honda 1300. Fujisawa saw costs rising and confidence falling among Honda engineers. Failure became a possibility. Fujisawa offered Honda a choice: Remain president and tolerate development of water-cooled engines, or work only as an engineer. Air-cooled development was stopped and R&D switched to emissions control. The introduction of Honda’s CVCC combustion process in late 1972 established Honda as an automotive innovator of first rank.

Fujisawa retired in 1973, leaving a legacy of management through wide-ranging knowledge and analysis.

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