LAST PAGE AMERICAN HONDA’S GROUND ZERO

Pico Blvd. in LA, where it all started for Honda Motor Company in America

Back in March of 2019, before all the COVID craziness, American Honda got extra creative with the media launch of its then-new Super Cub C125 by returning to the exact place Soichiro Honda’s fledgling company first set down roots in America back in 1959 — specifically, 4077 Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles.

Drive by there today and AH’s original home is the most innocuous little place you can imagine…an acupuncture and herbology shop, actually, and very small. Heck, there were only eight employees in those early days.

But for a couple days in March of 2019 it was transformed — sorta — into the tiny little storefront it was back in ’59, with temporary vintage signage and even a custom Honda Ridgeline pickup — painted just like the Chevy

Ranchero some of those first eight Honda employees used to transport bikes back in the day — parked out front with a new Super Cub in the bed.

I grew up with Hondas (my first two bikes were a ’71 SL70 and ’73 XR75), so standing in the shadow of the reworked façade that recalled a time when Honda was basically an unknown Asian quantity straining to hawk a handful of unique-looking and -named motorcycles at established motorcycle shops, sporting goods outlets and hardware stores, was powerfully eerie.

It’s true that Soichiro Honda was a bit of a tyrant, a hard-working, hard-drinking, self-made engineer that pushed his employees to the limits and someone who’d never fit with today’s snowflake-’n’-cancel cul- ture. But he was a true legend, with motorcycles and with autos, and the mark he made on the motoring world will never fade.

I met the man only once, back in 1990, but standing there on that day, I almost felt like I had gotten to say hello again.

Mitch Boehm