In 1959, the American Honda Motor was founded and soon began using the slogan, You meet the nicest people on a Honda, to offset the stereotype of motorcyclists during that period. Though the small bikes were dismissed by the dominant American and British manufacturers of the time, the inexpensive imports brought new riders into motorcycling and changed the industry forever in the United States.
Ever the racing enthusiast, Honda began entering his companys motorcycles in domestic Japanese races during the 1950s. In the mid-1950s, Honda declared that his company would someday win world championship events--a declaration that seemed unrealistic at the time.
In June 1959, the Honda racing team brought their first motorbike to compete in the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy race, then the worlds most popular motorcycle race. This was the first entry by a Japanese team. With riders Naomi Taniguchi, who finished sixth, Teisuke Tanaka, who finished eighth, and Kiyoshi Kawashima, who would later succeed Soichiro as Honda Motor president, as team manager, Honda won the manufacturers prize.
However, they were not pleased with their performance. Kawashima remembers: We were clobbered. Our horsepower was less than half that of the winner.
Learning from this experience, Soichiro and his team worked even harder to make rapid progress in their motorsports activities. Two years after their first failure, they were the sensation at the TT by capturing the first five places in both the 125ce and 250cc classes. The upstart Japanese had outclassed all their rivals. As a result of the teams stellar performance, the Honda name became well known worldwide, and its export volume rose dramatically. Soichiro seemed to have foreseen the future of Japan, which, twenty years later, was to become one of the worlds leading economies.
【2013年6月英语六级考试快速阅读练习题与解析(28)】相关文章:
★ 2013年6月英语六级考试备考深度阅读试题模拟与解析(6)
★ 2013年6月英语六级考试备考深度阅读试题模拟与解析(19)
★ 2013年6月英语六级考试备考深度阅读试题模拟与解析(12)
最新
2016-10-18
2016-10-11
2016-10-11
2016-10-08
2016-09-30
2016-09-30