Founder Of Honda Motors Dies

TOKYO - Soichiro Honda, an innovative mechanic whose motorcycle engine company became a leading global enterprise, died of liver failure today at a Tokyo hospital. He was 84.

Honda Motor Co., which he founded in 1946, now is Japan's No. 3 car manufacturer. In the United States, where it began production in 1982, it ranks fourth, after the big three - General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp.

Honda had been top adviser to the company since he retired as president at age 67 in 1973.

Born in 1906 the son of a blacksmith in Hamamatsu, in central Japan, Honda started as a mechanic. He founded a piston ring manufacturer while attending school and then started his present company, originally called Honda Technical Research Institute. It became Honda Motor Co. two years later.

Originally, the company attached recycled engines to bicycles, a popular mode of transportation in the hard years that followed World War II.

His first motorcycle was introduced in 1949.

It wasn't until 1957 that Honda entered the four-wheel vehicle market, nearly 30 years after Toyota and Nissan, Japan's top two automakers. But Honda was about three years ahead of them in opening production in the United States.

Honda's successful Civic model came out in 1972, along with the CVCC engine, the first to meet U.S. anti-pollution standards without a catalytic converter.

Analysts credit Honda's successes to innovative management and an almost obsessive commitment to quality.

Honda is survived by his wife, Sachi, two daughters - Keiko Ogata and Chikako Carter - and a son, Hirotoshi.