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# Motorcycles

2026-10-17

100 Products That Changed the World · #24: Honda Super Cub

Born in Tokyo in 1958, with over 110 million units built — surpassing the Ford Model T, the Volkswagen Beetle, and the Toyota Corolla to become the most-produced motor vehicle in human history. Engineered around a legendary product brief ('A soba noodle delivery boy must be able to ride it one-handed while balancing a tray of bowls, and a woman in a skirt must be able to step through with dignity'), Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa invented the automatic centrifugal clutch, the step-through frame, and the plastic leg shield — turning a biker's toy into Asia's everyday legs. Ranked #24 among the 100 products that changed the world, with an overall score of 91.65 (displayed as 92) — durability 97, scale 95, experience 92, business 90, originality 88, impact 88.

2026-10-01

Soichiro Honda: a motorcycle for people who didn't ride motorcycles, 100 million times over

In October 2017 cumulative production of the Honda Super Cub series reached 100 million, a world record for a single motorcycle series. One line from its brief is famous: a soba delivery boy should be able to ride it with one hand while carrying a stack of noodle trays in the other. The man who built it was Soichiro Honda, a blacksmith's son who started as a garage apprentice at 15 and spent his life on the making, never the selling. No. 19 of the 100 product managers who changed the world, six dimensions 93/92/92/90/95/90.