**The Story of Hirotoshi Honda: A Son's Journey**

Soichiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Company, has a son named Hirotoshi Honda who made a name for himself in the world of motorsports and entrepreneurship.

"Whatare you supposed to dowith your life when yourdad is Soichiro Honda?" Yeah, that's Soichiro Honda, founder of Honda Motor Company. Do you hang ten on the coattails of your hugely successful daddy or do you go off and make a name for yourself? Well if you're Hirotoshi Honda, you go start one of the most successful engine building, custom parts making, works motorcycle creating companies of all time.

Hirotoshi Honda's story begins with his father's legacy. In 1948, Soichiro Honda formed the Honda Motor Company and started producing motorcycles in a small, 170-square foot shack. Some might have thought that was a bad idea, given the motorcycle game at the time was highly saturated in the Far East, but his newly formed company was his baby and he wasn't gonna abandon it. His bikes soon gained popularity for their good looks, reliability, and ease of use, and soon Honda would go onto become the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer.

By 1964, Soichiro Honda was already full swing in the automobile game. During that time, he was also shaping another baby - an actual human one. His one and only son, Hirotoshi Honda. Like his father, young Hirotoshi acquired a passion for cars, motorcycles, and races, but he was never forced to follow in his father's footsteps, a place in the Honda empire wasn't gonna be given to him either.

Soichiro saw how the sons of other successful men could easily become failures in their family businesses, and he didn't want that to happen to his only child. A young and rebellious Hirotoshi didn't wanna join the family business. He wanted to travel the world, race motorcycles, and cars, and be chill.

"Mahalo, baby." But you can only do what your parents want, right? Well, it seems Hirotoshi Honda did exactly that - he made a name for himself in his own right, creating one of the most successful companies in the industry.

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Now, back to the story of Hirotoshi Honda. His journey is an inspiration to anyone who has ever felt trapped by their family legacy or societal expectations. He proved that with hard work and determination, anyone can make a name for themselves and forge their own path.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en(car tires screeching)- Whatare you supposed to dowith your life when yourdad is Soichiro Honda?Yeah, that's Soichiro Honda,founder of Honda Motor Company.Do you hang ten on thecoattails of your hugelysuccessful daddy or doyou go off and make a namefor yourself?Well if you're Hirotoshi Honda,you go start one of the mostsuccessful engine building,custom parts making,works motorcycle creatingcompanies of all time.This is everything you needto know to get up to speed onnot Meugan, not Megan, not Morgan...Mugan!(electronic music)- Big ol' thanks to Honey for sponsoringthis week's episode of Up To Speed.When I play video games,I use cheat codes to winbecause I can't stand losing to Nolan.Honey is like the cheatcode for online shopping.So Honey will automaticallyfind you a coupon code,sale, or discount on over20,000 sites, like Amazon, eBay,or Auto Parts Warehouse.Check out this sweet deal Igot on a PS4 so I don't have toplay Nolan on X-Box anymore.It's free and super easy to install.Just head over toJoinHoney.com/DonutMedia and download itfor your brah brah.Now, back to the story.The story of Mugan can beginwith the story of Honda.In 1948, Soichiro Hondaformed the Honda Motor Companyand started producingmotorcycles in a small,170-square foot shack.Some might've thought thatwas a bad idea, given themotorcycle game at thetime was highly saturatedin the Far East, but his newlyformed company was his babyand he wasn't gonna abandon it.His bikes soon gainedpopularity for their good looks,reliability, and ease of use,and soon Honda would go onto become the world's largestmotorcycle manufacturer.By 1964 was already fullswing in the automobile game.During that time, Soichirowas also shaping another baby.An actual human one.His one and only son, Hirotoshi Honda.Like his father, youngHirotoshi acquired a passionfor cars, motorcycles, andraces but he was never forcedto follow in his father'sfootsteps, a place inthe Honda empire wasn'tgonna be given to him either.Soichiro saw how the sonsof other successful mencould easily become failuresin their family businessesand he didn't want that tohappen to his only child.I wish that my father,a certain very famousBritish car host wouldn't haveforced me to be a car host.A young and rebelliousHirotoshi didn't wanna jointhe family business.He wanted to travel the world,race motorcycles, and cars,and be chill.Mahalo, baby.But you can only "mahalo,baby" for so long.Been there Bro-toshi.Hirotoshi was back inJapan finishing up collegeand working in hisdad's workshop, buildinga Honda S800 race car.(engine roars)The kinda stuff you do inyour off time at college.He had a passion fortuning the engines made inthe factories bearing hislast name and in 1973,Hirotoshi formed MugenCompany Limited of Japan.Mugen in Japanese means"unlimited" and the companywas also referred to as Mugen Power orUnlimited Power!The Mugen team set out todevelop the best race car enginescoming out of Japan.Hirotoshi hired a former Honda R&D andracing service mechanic Masao Kimura to behis chief designer and engineer.During his time with Honda,Masao build over 15 differentrace cars and motorcyclesand had over 50 race winsto his credit.Not a bad guy to have youhelp out when startingyour first engine tuningcompany, okay basically, he wasthe perfect guy for the job.(laughs)And tune engines they did.The very first race enginethey developed was the MF318,Honda's 1169cc 4-banger.The Mugen team took the Dasa68-horsepower EB1 and bumpedit up to a blistering133-horsepowers, the MF318 hada dry sump lubrication system,dual carbs, and was bored outto a maximum 1300cc's which was allowed inFormula FJ1300 racing, hence, the name.(upbeat tune)I should go back andcorrect myself a little.I said they tuned engines,that's a bit misleading.Every single part of thestock EB1 was either modifiedor completely remade in-house by Mugen.To call them simply atuner would be unfairand disrespectful, my apologies.In December 1973, Mugenentered a car with the MF318into the entry-level Formula FJ1300 Seriesand won their first race.They would go on to usethat same motor end car forthe next five years.It was that good.Their success in the FJ Seriesdid a few things for Mugen.It got daddy Hondainterested in the company.The backbone of the Mugenrace cars were Honda's motorsand at the time, theHonda factory team was ona racing hiatus.That means a break.They saw the Mugen brand as away to get back into the game.Mugen continued to work onCivic engines but in 1975they saw a market for otherrace parts and began sellingtheir first body kits.You want your Civic to looklike the Mugen one on track?No problem because you couldorder a custom, Japanese-madebody kit and spice up yourfirst-gen Civic in a jiff.(engine roars)This was unheard of at the time.While continuing to workon the MF318 and race inthe FJ1300 Series, Hirotoshihad enough capital coming into expand his efforts intoother passions of his.Motorcross, yeah!Mugen went to work on theirown custom 2-stroke dirt bike,the ME125 and the ME250.Based on the CR250 Elsinore, the ME250 wasby today's standards anall-works machine witha modified frame engineand suspension components.In September 1976 Mugen enteredtheir all-works ME250 bikein the final race of the allJapan motocross nationals,the Japanese Grand Prix, and they won.And when your 2-year oldcompany that goes out and winsa major national competitionin its first year of racingagainst the like of Yamaha,Suzuki, and your daddy's companyHonda, people start totake a notice, okay?People are like "whaaat?"Mugen was like that hotgirl in every 90's moviethat walks into a partyand everything gets allslow-motiony, Suzuki's all like,"Dang who is that?"And Yamaha's like, "Wow. Wow wow wow wow."And Honda's like, "Chillout guys, that's my son."But the ME250 was expensivecompared to its CR250 brother.So a year later doingwhat Mugen does best,they began selling engine power up kits.Mo' power baby!The kit included a newcylinder head, expansion pipe,piston, rings, gaskets,and clutch components.Between the motocrossbikes and the body kits andthe race engines, Mugenwas rolling in kabash.And in 1979 they expanded and opened uptheir own factory in Japan.But, like my greedy brotherLars, Mugen had its handsin multiple cookie jars.By 1980 Hirotoshi had his ownmotocross team and was lookingto expand into the American market.They signed up-and-comingracer Johnny O'Mara to pilotan ME125RZ in the States.Johnny wearing all-whitegear, aboard his all-whiteMugen bike, looked like frikinPrince and went on to winthe U.S. Grand Prix of theWorld GP Motocross Seriesthat year.(engine revving)It was huge for the programand cemented the Mugen brandin the States as themotocross bike to have.And what was even cooler,you could buy the same bikethat Johnny was riding.This was unheard of, eventoday there's no way thatyou can just go down to thedealership and get an all-works,factory racing motorcycle itjust doesn't "works" like that.Okay enough motorcycle stuff.You're here for cars solet's get back to Civics.(engine roaring)Just because the motocrossprogram was getting a lot ofattention, Mugen didn'twant to stray away fromthe love of their humble Civic.They were big in the Civic One Make race.Because the cost to get aCivic race-worthy was low,it was a great way to get people racing.And Mugen was sellingracing kits that transformedyour showroom floor Civic intoa Suzuka Circuit track machine.Just watch and listen tothis clip of the firstCivic One Make race.(engines roaring)(indistinct Japanese commentary)It sounds like a bunch of beesmaking out with each other.By 1984 Mugen was fullbore into selling partslike body kits, wheels, suspension.This was also the firstyear Huahugit Mugen Partsin the U.S.A.You can walk into yourlocal Honda dealershipand order custom Mugen partssent directly from Japan,which is pretty, pretty frickin cool.By 1985, 10 years before PostMalone was born, Mugen wasbuilding motors for the CRX to compete inthe SCCA GT4 Class.Mugen took the 1.5-literEW motors and got it froma stock 76-horsepower to a super ripped,testosterone-fueled 165 buff-ass horses.(engine revving)The car dominated theclass and got Americansall hot and bothered.People wanted more ofthat Mugen race stuff.But dominating the FJ1300,an SCCA, a GT4, andCivic One Make races getsboring so they expandedinto Formula car racing.The all Japan Formula3000 Championship allowedfor V8 engines.So Mugen went off and built aV8 engine and they called itthe MF308.By the way, if you've beenwondering what "MF" means,I don't know, leave acomment below if you do know.I'm gonna guess it standsfor Morgan Freeman.So the Morgan Freeman 308is a 3-liter, 32-valve,500-horsepower monster,revving up to 10,500 RPM.(engine roaring)And it was used in the series until 2005.Quick math, that's 17 years baby boy!A motor used in a racingseries for 17 years is insane.That's how good it was.Alright, we get it, Mugenyou're good at making motors.What could you possibly do next?- Uh, I think I know.- Okay, well, what?- Formula Ooh?- Yeah, you know this story,you helped write the episode.- In 1991 Mugen buildtheir first F1 race motor,the Morgan Freeman 351-8,a 3.5-liter, 40-valve, V10that put out over 700-horsepower.(engine roaring)- Mm!- At the end of 1992, Hondahad pulled out of Formula Onebut Mugen continued to supplyvarious race teams up untilthe year 2000.I might add that duringthis time, Mugen wasstill racing Civics in the JTC3Class, not against skylines.And they were winning races.The 96 and 97 championships.(engine roars)While taking what theylearned on the racetrackand supplying those custommade parts for the masses,i.e. you and me boys and girls.From exhaust to wheels toaerokits, the Mugen catalogwas deep.- Aye uh boss we're about togo home you need anything else?- Start working on some concept cars.Here's some ideas I justdrew on this cocktail napkin.Bye!- Aw man, we were almost outI shouldn't have asked himif he needed anythingelse does stuff like this.- I don't know you wanna order pizza.- Yeah but I'm usingthe company card, heh.- You may be familiar withsome of the concept carsMugan made over the years,like the 1992 Mugen NSX.An all carbon compositeversion of the production NSX.They got rid of the pop-upheadlights, which was a bad move.(upbeat music)- The Mugen NSX conceptreally paved the way for themto start making more Mugen concept cars.And they used their conceptcars to further drive salesof their custom parts.The model they created was beautiful.Take the cars you already modify for Hondain the racing game,further develop them withyour custom parts, take thoseparts and create concept carsthat will never bereleased, and have peoplebanging on your doors frickinbegging you to sell themyour spoilers, your wheels,your crankshafts, and anythingelse that made your commonHonda look and performlike a Mugen.They created so much hypewith their concept cars,they eventually started sellinglimited production numberMugen badge cars from the factory.Like this one, the 2007 HondaCivic Mugen RR, a Civic Type-Rat its core with all thespecial Mugen engineering bitsadded on.Mugen cranked out 15 more horsepower fromthe already solid225-horsepower Civic Type-R.They shed 22 pounds by wayof carbon composite bumperand grilles.Mugen made 300 of thesecars, only availablein Japan of course and fora price of nearly $50,000for a Civic.(engine roars)You think that's expensive?Well the car sold out in 10minutes and that is what makesMugen, Mugen.(tires screeching)Thanks for watching Up To Speed.I mean it from thebottom of my heart guys.If you didn't watch thisI would just be a weirdoyelling about cars to my friends.Also what's your favorite Mugen car?Let me know in the comments below.I love you.Well so anyone can drive it.The shifter can easily be movedfrom this side of the seatto that side depending onwhich one you're used to.That's just considerate.The center drive Civicis currently driven byFormula drift driver slashfriend of Donut, Dai Yoshihara.Sup dog.- James, stop tellingpeople we are friends.