  was a japanese engineer and industrialist. "honda soichiro." encyclopÃ¦dia britannica. encyclopÃ¦dia britannica online library edition. encyclopÃ¦dia britannica, inc., 2011. web. 21 july 2011. .  in 1948, he established honda and oversaw its expansion from a wooden shack manufacturing bicycle motors to a multinational automobile and motorcycle manufacturer. == early years == honda was born in tenryÅ«, shizuoka, a small village under mount fuji near hamamatsu on november 17, 1906. he spent his early childhood helping his father, gihei, a blacksmith, with his bicycle repair business. at the time his mother, mika, was a weaver. honda was not interested in traditional education, his school handed grade reports to the children, but required that it will be returned stamped with the family seal, to make sure that a parent had seen it. soichiro created a stamp to forge his family seal out of a used rubber bicycle pedal cover. the fraud was soon discovered when honda started to make forged stamps for other children. honda did not realize that the stamp had to be mirror-imaged. his family name æ¬ç° was symmetrical when written vertically, so it did not cause a problem, but some of other children's family names were not. even as a toddler honda had been thrilled by the first car that was ever seen in his village and often used to say in later life that he could never forget the smell of oil it gave off. http://world.honda.com/history/limitlessdreams/joyofmanufacturing/text/01.html soichiro once borrowed one of his father's bicycles to see a demonstration of an airplane made by pilot art smith, which cemented his love for machinery and invention.{{cite web|last=tremayne|first=david|title=soichiro honda: the man behind a legend|url=http://www.grandprix.com/ft/ftdt017.html|work=gran
1906_births 1991_deaths Automotive_pioneers Dud_Perkins_Award_winners Formula_One_people Honda_people Japanese_automotive_engineers Japanese_businesspeople Japanese_founders_of_automobile_manufacturers Japanese_motorcycle_designers Japanese_motorsport_people Motorcycle_Hall_of_Fame_inductees People_from_Hamamatsu