Every successful and famous person dreamed at the beginning. Here, I present a story of one Japanese guy, Souichirou Honda, who is the founder of Honda Automobile Corporation.

He founded a small car shop in 1948; it was three years after the Second World War. Therefore, there was nothing in Japan, especially in big cities because of massive bombing. He had a big dream; it was to be number one in the motorcycle field. His number one meant not only in motorcycle market, but also speed. At first he discovered a powerful engine from the USA military, and put it on an ordinary bicycle. It became a motorcycle!! He gave it to his wife as a special present. He tried to make new motorcycles and cars in several ways. He concentrated on creating new engines. However most ordinary cars didn't work with the new engines; therefore, he made a lot of mistakes, perhaps more than a hundred times. He said, "We can't do anything if we are afraid of making mistakes. Ninety-nine percent of our mistakes will lead us to success."

In 1954, he went to Europe to see Island of Man T.T Racing, which is very famous motorcycle world competition in England. At that time, England, Germany, and Italy were leading the motorcycle market. After that, he decided to participate in the T.T race, but his coworkers were afraid to invest big money into T.T race. Because their latest motorcycles were hard to sell, and their investments were failing at that time. However, he believed that they needed to have a dream especially when they were in trouble. In 1957, Honda participated the Island of Man T.T Race for the first time. Nobody knew about Honda; furthermore, nobody believed the Japanese could make motorcycles. Team Honda was very disappointed when they realized they had higher lap times than other European teams. Souichirou encouraged them by saying, "I don't care about this year's results. What I need is our racing data. What I want you to do is just run the full race." Although Honda wouldn't win many years, they tested new motorcycles many times based on the data of T.T Race. Finally, Honda won at the Grand Prix in 1961. In addition, Honda took part in F1 race from 1964, and got 5 prizes in 1966. This was the first time that one team received 5 prizes at the same time.

Souichirou Honda turned over the presidency in 1973. He must have been satisfied as he said, "What a good life I spent". In 1988, he was awarded a position in the "Automotive Hall Fame" in the USA. He is still the only Japanese member of the Automotive Hall of Fame. In 1991, he died at the age of 87. His tomb is close to Mt. Fuji and the Fuji speedway. He sleeps forever with his love of speedy sounds. His passion for cars and motorcycles still are present at today's Honda. Compared to other Japanese car companies, only a person who really really loves cars or motorcycles can work for Honda.

We just read about a person who never threw away his dream. In fact it took 13 years for his dreams to come true. When I was a little child, my dream was living in foreign countries. I have partially realized my childhood dream now, because I came here to Canada. I am looking for my next dream now. Let's have a dream and never throw it away. If we try our best, our own dreams will come true!!!

November 13, 2000