Как ИЗ РУИН появились автомобили, изменившие мир.

Disclaimer. There will be jokes in this video. Sometimes even funny. But sometimes - peculiar. Please, enjoy! Oh, good day to you, friends. Today, we will plunge into the amazing and unique history of the Japanese car industry. Japan is the only country in the world that, for a very short time, experienced the hell of devastation, and then, it was revived like a phoenix, and became a country with the most successful and developed car industry. And we all know that the Japanese live on a teeny-tiny island, comparing with sizes of our country. And because of correct allocation of resources and management of those resources, they are one of the most leading economies of the world. But few people know, exactly what the Japanese had to go through to climb up on the very top. And today, in this video, you and I will take on a virtual, but still a real journey. And in the process, we'll find out: How did it happen that, of the industrial society on the brink of the twentieth century, Japan became one of the most appealing markets for the leading countries? How the huge zaibatsu clans created their vehicles? How the element that destroyed several cities and claimed thousands of lives let the Americans to capture the car market? How the Japanese committed war crimes destroying all living things on the captured territories, and what it had to do with cars? How tenancy and resiliency of several desperate people turned the tide of the world car history? And how little Japanese hatch backs and trucks affected the world even more than two atomic bombs that turned Hiroshima and Nagasaki into nuclear ash? Japan. From the Abyss to the Grandeur And so you could actually stick everything together, so you could really make sense of it all, this video will contain more historical context about Japan than we had in Detroit. Our culture doesn't know anything about Japan, really. Nobody would tell us about it anything anywhere. Sakura is somewhere blooming. Or is it the name of vodka? Or is vodka called sake? Or is it something Chinese? Ah, who cares, they're still all the same - here's our typical perception of any Asians. And so, we all died and become resurrected with all production, in order to make from a huge amount of information a popularized, plain and interesting video. Not once in this video, I would tell a word "like", "subscribe", "repost". Except of this phrase. I think, those words are here inappropriate because we, our team put into this video our souls. All for you. With very much love to my audience. Enjoy the video. Divine Integration Oh! Here you are. Hi. Hiding on the lawn? Snooping at me again? Eating something, eh? Is it tasty? Bon appetite, I know it's tasty. Well, if you don't mind, I'll join you. Well, come here anyway. Sit down. I'll tell you a story. You know, I've always been thinking how to manage my time correctly. I've been analyzing if I could really do anything faster. Or if I was able not to do something. For example, when I'm washing, and doing three things at once - washing my head, brushing my teeth and peeing, if you'll excuse me, the manager inside me is happy how efficient time is spending in the moment: three processes at once. This isn't the right exercise, but nevertheless. Or take my university. Five years of study to be a concept engineer of industrial and civil construction. But did I have to? Well, now I know that the steel rods have some creep limit. But I could live without it. Today, we live in a different world. We have a lot of opportunities to plunge into any sphere without pain and suffering, with fun. For example - the GeekBrains. It's an educational portal from Mail-dot-ru, if you don't know. They organize a free workshop, "Programming Basics", for all who's interested in programming, who wants to enhance their skills in that area, and who can't decide if they should to devote their life to programming, and so on. I don't tell you that university isn't worth your attention. But five years? And the creep limit of a steel rod? Yes, in the university, I've met many great people with whom I'm in a close relationship still. As many as one. And the GeekBrains also have one great person. An instructor who would lead that free workshop. They've been more than five years in web-development and fifteen hundred trained students. If anything, it's a lot. Or, in the university, there were lectures of structural mechanics. Like a theoretical mechanics, but you wear a cap. And if you didn't get it - and you didn't get it - and you ask a question, well, our teacher would tell you as an answer, "Are you stupid?" The question is pointed, I get it, but when even the checkwoman asked me that, it would really hurt. And the workshop of GeekBrains goes online, and you will be able to ask all the questions you need. But with good, informative and correct answers. Also, during that free workshop, you would gain an overview about program design with real and working examples; you would know if you're interested in programming; and if you do, you would find out of trends in programming, what languages are used for any IT products; and how do you choose the right trend and language for yourself. Also you should know, after the GeekBrains, a student would surely complete an internship or even receive a job in one of the leading partner companies according to the course. And that workshop fits for everyone. Professionals and novices. And I think, not using such possibilities in the modern world is a bit strange. Now finish your meal. I almost finished my coffee. Go to the link in bio. Register at the workshop. And go ahead for knowledge, for education. Don't waste your time. Chapter One. Japan in the Late Nineteenth - Early Twentieth Century Japan is a peculiar country. An entirely different culture, an entirely different world. That's why, in this video, we would be constantly navigating between the car world and the normal human world. Otherwise, we won't be able to gather a whole picture. And I'm looking forward how the Toyota Club, how the Honda Club, how all the guys behind the righthand wheel will say, "Come on! Volkswagen lover! Are you coming to our turf, aren't you? You just dare to fail one teeny fact, we will make your wheel righthand very soon! But I realized that. I prepared beforehand, and in this video, I will be controlled and fixed by the lead detective agent of Far East, - Stasyao-san. - Konichiwa, samurai. It's generally thought that the Japanese car industry began after war. At the moment when Toyota bore Land Cruiser, and Honda rushed into the motorsports like hell. Sakichi Toyoda! Soichiro Honda, our fathers! No. However colorful they told us about it in documentaries of Top Gear and Discovery that the Japanese cars wonderfully emerged from the nuclear ashes, it's not right. Even before the war, the Japanese had vehicles. After all, they didn't wage the war on bikes. That's why we will forgo the temptation to begin our narrative with these dramatic scenes, and we'll jump to the different landscape. To the mid-nineteenth century. One smart guy, this guy, Henry Ford, once said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." And that phrase strikes off the position where the Japanese started. Let's look at the picture of Japan in the nineteenth century; or rather, the picture of Dai Nippon Teikoku - forgive me, the lefthand one, for that, samurais. Dai Nippon Teikoku is the official name of the Great Japan Empire. Today, the Japanese call their country Nippon-koku. In the nineteenth century, Dai Nippon Teikoku was a strictly closed feudal country. All the power was in the hands of shoguns. There were like princes or dukes. There was an emperor, but his power was nominal. And according to the political order, Japan fell behind the whole progressive world at that time. There was a very strict division for estates, castes and clans. If you were fortunate to be in a wealthy family, you'd be well dressed, with a Japanese umbrella, sitting and enjoying the view of rice-fields. If you were a part of a poor family, you'd be digging around on those fields. That's all. All the Japanese life at that time. What else do you want to be happy, Broad Eyes? And it's no marvel because Japan was closed for foreigners and any interaction with the outer world since the mid-seventeenth century. Since the year sixteen-thirty four, when shogunate was established, all the borders were closed. Think about it. During two hundred years, it was unreal to move in or move out of the country. The country didn't have any interaction with the outer world. There was a trade but it was so small, that it didn't matter anything in terms of a country. Once a year, some Dutchmen traded two sacks of something for two sacks of something else, and it had no serious influence. Why didn't they start believing in the flat Earth? I can't imagine that. Why, is it round or what? All the tuna would fall down! Since seventeen-ninety-seven, the Americans who were a thing tried to improve some relations - any relations with Japan, and sent for them diplomatic missions and trading expeditions. That was in 1837, and in 1846, in 1849 - but they were turned around all the time. The main shogun couldn't talk with foreigners, his status didn't allow it. Well, the great ruler - and some lesser American mortals. That's why guys were always talking with his ministers. They were like, "Yes! It's a very interesting proposal, but we have to discuss it with shogun. They walked away, and that ended with nothing, the result was no answer. By the year eighteen-fifty, the Americans had it enough, and they decided to chose a simple way. They sent a message, like, guys, either we begin to trade, or we take offense and begin a war with you. They prepared a fleet headed by Matthew Perry. And they did a very smart thing upon arrival. They anchored in the bay of Edo - that is Tokyo today. And they began to coordinate with blank shots of signal guns. To say that the Japanese shitted themselves at that moment - is an understatement. First, no one in the country had seen steam ships before. And because of the black smoke from pipes, they called that mission the Black Ships of Perry. Second, the government knew the Americans were coming with serious intentions, and all that fuss near Tokyo confirmed those intentions very well. Tokugawa Ieyoshi, the ruling shogun, was on his way to the death door, and he couldn't decide anything, and the Japanese asked for a year of referral. The Americans agreed and went to China. But twenty days later, shogun really died, and his successor came into his own - a son, whose health was even more fragile than his father's, who couldn't make any decisions at all. At that point, the head of the government was this dude. Abe Masahiro. And he decided to go against all the power, against traditions, and to gather all hands meeting. with all the state governments, with shogunate, and all public authorities. The meeting had to decide where Japan had to go. To keep being isolated and preserve traditions - or to open borders and implode into the modern world. They couldn't agree altogether. They couldn't make any decision, too. Matthew made things harder: he realized immediately that the shogun had died, and he came to the Tokyo border to maneuver on his ships, and he threatened to make a landing without the positive solution. In the end, Abe, the head of the government just told everyone to go to hell and signed the Convention of Kanagawa. On behalf of Japan. And so, in eighteen fifty-four, the world began to discover Japan. I must say, that alongside that process, in a month after Perry came to Tokyo for the first time, our expedition from the Russian Empire, under command of Yevfimiy Vasilyevich Putyatin... Putyatin's a crab! ...also came to Japan to establish diplomatic relations. The dynamic was the same. Modern ships came to show the might of neighbors and superiority over the Japanese in technologies. Long negotiations, blackmail, reasoning - and roughly the same result. In half a year after the Convention of Kanagawa was already signed, there was the Treaty of Shimoda. About friendship and trade between Japan and Russia. Aside of trade treaties, that document established borders between the two states: the Japanese had the right for a part of the Kuril Islands - Shikotan, Iturup, Kunashir, Habomai - and Sakhalin was an unshared, demilitarized area. And you could ask, what do have cars to do with all of that? But exactly in that moment, the focus of the whole country changed. The Japanese saw how much they were falling behind in technologies from all of their neighbors. The local population examined the ships with a very high interest. And there is information that Russian people showed them how the steam engine worked and how it was designed. When the population lives in a strong and strict regime of a powerful country, no one complains because it's clear why they suffer for: for greatness. But now, in a year, all the Japan realized at once that the advantage belonged to the other side. And why did they have to keep norms and traditions - that was not clear. Of course, there was a lot of questions to the regime inside the country but such a demonstration of technological advance of the other countries, and the trade, afterwards, with those developed countries acted as a catalyst when, in eighteen-sixty-nine, there was a take-over. It's called the Meiji Restoration in Japan. The main point was, they overthrew the shogunate regime, and there was a restoration, a renovation of the full-fledged, absolute regime of the emperor. The most important thing for us - the Meiji Restoration was a period of reforms. Here's the keynotes. First, all the state cases were to be decided according with public opinion. Before that, they absolutely didn't care what people could think. Second, all the people had to devote themselves heartily to the prosperity of the nation. All the country focused upon taking all the modern technologies and implode them inside their country to the manufacture and economy. Third, it would be allowed to fulfill your own ambitions and to expand your operations. Before, as I've already said, if you're a peasant - that was all. You were a peasant, no matter how talented and inventive you were. Fourth, knowledge would be adopted from all over the world. Traditions and distinct identity, so important for Japan, went into the background. They didn't go to hell to be forgotten but they decided to reconstruct the country, like the USA, accurately imploding all the norms, traditions, et cetera. I tell you now, the Japanese would make it. But not at once. That was the context of the country and foundation that, in the early twentieth century, would host the first signs of the future Japanese vehicle empire. Chapter Two. First Attempts and First Cars One of the very serious problems I faced while writing this script was the literal lack of personalities. They were there! That's okay. It was hard to find information. Because in the US, the cult of personality allows you to find any yard-keeper. If someone invented any nail or any screw-nut, they would yell about it, surely, at every corner. Not the Japanese. This prosaic self-admiration doesn't matter. And people who made an invaluable contribution to the history of car industry would leave us with a name. - Not quite always. - Happiness loves silence. Fun fact: the very first car that arrived to Japan was a French one. Some unidentified French vendor came in 1898 with Panhard et Levassor. and drove around in Tokyo. We were watching it with such big eyes! By the way, it was only twelve years after the Germans Maybach and Daimler created the combustion engine for a vehicle. And that simple fact shows us how prospective and interesting was Japan as a market for the world. There was a room for construction of roads, for manufactures, for trade, and that room was just impossibly vast. And of course, the country began to develop at a cosmic pace; and although shipbuilding and trade were the main engines for progress, the Japanese became interested with vehicles quite intensely because for an ordinary person, something self-moving on wheels was simply something beyond fantasy. In nineteen-oh-one, there was the first American car dealer opened in Japan. Not someone from the Big Three but the Locomobile Company of America Agency. The company that was producing steam engines. They didn't have manufactures in Japan, only headquarters, and as expected, there was no serious business, at all. Steam-powered ships are cheap, effective, and safe. And steam-powered cars are a nuisance, expensive and unproper. By the way, that company didn't see the gas-powered cars as the necessary way of their development, and at first, it was very crappy, and in nineteen-twenty-two, it was sold to Durant Motors. Durant Motors was the small company of Durant he founded when he returned to the board of GM. If you don't understand anything, you should watch the video about Detroit. Be that as it may, that was the first official appearance of cars in Japan. Of course, no one wanted to buy them, but they examined them carefully. After one year, in 1902, Komanosuke Uchiyama created the first prototype of a Japanese car. Uchiyama was an ordinary engineer of a bicycle company. And everything we know about this man, is his age of twenty-one when he created the prototype. Uchiyama made only a car frame and a body. And the engine for the vehicle was brought from America by his dude, Shintaro Yoshida. who worked at the same bicycle company. And that was its name. It goes without saying that version was not very viable, just a self-moving waggon to crawl through your neighborhood. But think about it, imagine: the first vehicle people saw in Japan appeared only four years back. And the first official dealer opened a year ago, and the Japanese were able to produce such prototype in own hand. The next thing, another engineer, Torao Yamaba, created the first fully designed omnibus with the steam engine in Japan. And there is some confusion here I didn't make sense of at once. There are two people, one - Torao Yamaba, and two - Torakusu Yamaha. And Torakusu Yamaha was that guy who created the company Nippon Gakki that was renamed as Yamaha. But in English and as reductions they look practically the same, T. Yamaba and T. Yamaha, you could find anywhere the information that the first prototype was made by Yamaha. But it's not right. When the prototype was made, Yamaha was fifty-three years old. And here's the photo. And the engineer Torao Yamaba, a young dude. But that was a steam-powered vehicle. And in 1907, Uchiyama who made the first prototype in principle, created the full-fledged Japanese car, and the engine in them was Japanese, too. That car would be called "takiri", that is translated as rumbling, farting, rattling - as you want it. Would you guess why it was called like that? Right you are, because it was rattling like a Bread Loaf with ninety kilometers per hour driving on a soil road. You're lying! Bread loaves don't get ninety kilometers per hour. - How could bread move? - Creaking and roaring was heard all over the city, and every living human person was terrified, but that was the first, fully Japanese vehicle. I remind you once more: everything we know about the man who created it is his age - twenty one. An engineer in the bicycle company. - That's all. - Be - si-lent. But all of that was homemade. But who's gonna make the first stock vehicle? Toyota? Daihatsu? Maybe, Mazda? No. We're gonna get there. But before we began to talk about serial manufacture of autos, you need to know something else. After the Japan had opened its borders, the development of the country simply flew into space. Here are some facts for you. First: since eighteen-eighty-two till eighteen-ninety, the trackage - the length of the railroads - grew tenfold, and builded a single network. During four years, since eighteen-ninety-four till eighteen-ninety-eight, the amount of capital invested into industry grew three-fold. In the beginning of eighteen-ninety, the amount of workers involved in the industry was three hundred and fifty thousands. In nineteen-oh-nine, there were already seven hundred thousand people. And in nineteen-fourteen - one million. Of course, by such rate of growth, there were regular crises of overproduction or just economy crises, but they didn't have any significant impact of the development rate of the country. Japan was still developing by a very quick pace. Everyone realized long ago that Japan was a prospective market in need of investment and building out there new manufactures. Everyone except car companies. And Japan was of no interest for car manufacturers before the event that happened out there on the first September 1923. The Great Kanto earthquake. Three hundred and fifty six shakes with magnitude of eight and three practically destroyed Tokyo and Yokohama. The earthquake changed the condition of the ocean floor in the area of Sagami Bay, that caused a twelve-meter-tsunami that washed through the coastal area very carefully. The very first shakes destroyed twenty percent of houses in Yokohama, about the same amount was in Tokyo. Fires started all around and spread out very quickly because of wind. The majority of buildings was wooden back then. Trains were going off the rails on the Yokohama - Tokyo railroad, and warehouses with fuel were burning in ports. Guess how much was the death toll? It was an earthquake! Many people got injured, perhaps? But maybe, not many people were killed. Official numbers: one hundred and forty two thousands were killed. Forty thousands were gone missing, likely also killed. Eleven cities were practically completely wiped off from the face of the earth, And there was four million people injured, who lost their homes, et cetera. All of that was together with the period of an economy crisis. And because people were in principle in a stressful condition at that moment, as soon as the earthquake began, the rumors were spreading about the ethnical sabotage of Koreans; allegedly, the Koreans were poisoning Japanese wells with drinking water. As you see, the Japanese didn't like the Koreans back then. Why are they like the Koreans!? At the moment, when everything was burning after the earthquake, the Kanto Massacre began. It's a region. As the result, additional six till ten thousand people were killed, mostly Koreans. Anyway, just like that, Tokyo turned to the real living hell. Later, everything blew over. The Japanese society and government explained that was some punishment for their frivolous life and abandoning traditions. And the emperor urged all his subjects to renounce luxury and vicious habits, and to return the normal, healthy spirit of the nation. Remember some staples? The government took advantage of the situation, strengthened the monarchy regime and quickly and easy suppressed any unrest in the society. But the cities had to be rebuilt. And one of them was the capital! An urgent need in cars appeared to bring service to people in destroyed regions. And as there were no local manufactures, they ordered from Ford eight hundred car frames of the Ford Model T to remake them as busses. Ford noticed that matter. He estimated numbers and realized that Japan is prospective; and two years after the earthquake, in nineteen-twenty-five, he opened his own manufacture. And then he was caught up by GM and Chrysler. Very quickly and promptly, the Americans established their monopoly on cars in the country. On the one hand, they brought all the market to heel; on the other hand, the Japanese got the chance to learn the cutting-edge manufactures, manufacturing processes, quality control technologies over suppliers, and processes of sale system deployment in a new country. For seven years, the Americans made the domestic Japanese vehicles inside the country to be absolutely non-demanded; by nineteen-thirty the American Three produced nineteen and a half thousand cars. While the Japanese produced only four hundred and fifty-eight cars. Of course, the government encouraged the producing of cars. For example, the grants of nineteen-eighteen; the government encouraged the producing of dual-purpose cars with them, for military and civilian needs. Thanks to those grants, these cars were born - Wolseley A-nine and the truck Wolseley CP. Although those were British cars, they were licensed and could be deemed for Japanese produced. But the production capacity was still tiney. The government was strongly not comfortable with such state of things, and in nineteen-thirty, the ministry of industry and commerce made an announcement: The government had to assume necessary protectionist measures for the healthy development of the car industry. Speaking human, it's like "let's kick the Americans away to hell". Why were they like that? The Americans. In nineteen-thirty-one, there was a committee organized, on development of domestic car industry; and it was very quickly that they created such a thing - a standard for any vehicle models by the Ministry of Commerce and iIndustry. The standard showed all the parameters and requirements for trucks that weighed up till two tons. And that was the first attempt of the state. to create vehicles in Japan, and the most bright example of... of this regulations is this car that is called Isuzu. In nineteen-thirty two, three companies - DAT, Tokyo Gas Engineering and Ishikawajima Automobile Manufacturing created that miracle in a threesome, according to regulations. And a half a year later, the three of them created an association that would be called Tokyo Motor Co, and after that it would change its name for Isuzu Motors, and for Hino Motors. But all of that didn't work out. Because the Americans created cars, the Japanese bought them, and domestic cars were expensive, of low quality, and nobody wanted them. But that was not the main problem. The Japanese cars were non-competitive, but nobody cared about that at all. The main thing - that Japan waged wars. It waged many wars, so bloody. And how do you think, would you be able as a country to wage your wars, with the USA behind your back, that could at a whim, just like that, pull the plug and cut you off all the shipments of any equipment? That's why the Japanese, come hell or blood from their asses, needed their manufacturing of vehicles and military hardware. Anyway, the weakening yen, strain in regulations, the Japanese market tightness - as the result of all of that, the Americans, in nineteen-thirty-nine, left the country at once. They completely closed their manufactures and dealer networks. Why were they like that? Manufactures..? Since 1925 till 1935, the Americans created two hundred and nine thousands of cars. And locals, for that period, created only twelve thousand vehicles. But since nineteen-thirty seven, the efforts of all the manufactures in the country were directed for producing of vehicles and military hardware. Do you remember me telling that Japan needed it? Here's why. Chapter Four. The Asian Holocaust and Military Rampage The war. The main word for vehicles in Japan. I don't mean only the World War Two: there were many of them. I'm gonna tell you about them, but for example, let's take the World War Two. What do we know about the Japan's participation in that disaster? As for me, an average guy, before I began to research this material, my opinion was about following: the Japanese were at war somewhere, somehow, but mostly, they stayed at home, caused little hurt. Then, they were bombed as the war ended, and then, when it already wasn't absolutely necessary, damned Americans dropped on them two atomic bombs and robbed several hundreds of thousands lives of civilians. Oh yes, it was just like that. It was them. Oh, and also, pilots of their airplanes didn't want to live or they didn't know they could shoot other planes, and rammed them. All my knowledge by my twenty eight. And if you have about the same knowledge like I did have, before I made the research, you would be surprised. The Japanese have fought a lot. Like a lot. I remind you, Japan was an empire. And the only model of existing of any empire is waging constant wars, conquering new territories and winning. When the empire, at some point, stops its expanding and being victorious, it crumbles. If you disagree, look at the model of existence of all the empires. At the moment when it stops expanding, it starts to fall to many satellites and loses control over its territories. In the late eighteenth century, Japan had the highest level of military expenses on the planet Earth. Thirty six percent of their budget. They spend on the war more than the Russian Empire, Great Britain, the USA - all countries in the world. If we talk about it short, the following happened. The First Sino-Japanese War since eighteen-ninety-four till ninety-five. The Japanese begin to develop very quickly, and when your economy is developing, you need new market outlets, that's only logical. And there was - yeet! - a rebellion in Korea. The jolly China that was situated nearby sent its troops to Korea, in order to toughen their spiritual staples, but the Japanese were, like, no! We'll toughen them better! And they sent their troops. While China and Japan were bickering about who's gonna toughen the staples, Korea solved everything, calmed everyone down, and like, guys! Everything's alright! Go home! And the guys were, "What do you mean? We came here to polish narrow-eyed mugs, not to walk back and forth!" Why were they like that!? Chinese. And they began polishing. On the Korean territory. As the result, the Japanese did polish mugs of Chinese. Japan reconquered Korea that would be recognized as independent under the terms of the peace treaty but still, Japan would be looking after them. Also, Japan robbed China of Taiwan, the Pescadores, Port Arthur that would be returned to China, under the terms of peace treaties. And also, China gave a huge contribution paying for all that banquet, and they organized trade with China. Then, there was the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 till 1905. The very same small and victorious war that the Russian Empire failed, and that was the catalyst of the revolution in our country. Easily and intensely, we've got our ass beaten on the territory of Manchuria, in Port Arthur, and we gave them a piece of Sachalin. Why were they like that!? Russians. Normal guys. But here's the interesting fact for us: during both the Sino-Japanese war, and the Russo-Japanese war, Japan had a horribly serious problem of mobility of troops and deployment of units over great distances. The question of hardware was terribly biting in the ass all the military authorities. And after that conflict, Korea and a part of Manchuria were already official vassals toward Japan. Et cetera. The Japanese increased their demagogy as they could. During the World War One Japan took away a part of German colonies in the Pacific, German territories in Shandong, trade routes and a bunch of everything. Japan was the country that made almost the most amount of profit off that conflict among the other countries-participants. As the result of all that fuss, the overall wealth of Japan increased by one fourth. There was the war! There were expenses, but no! The Japanese made pretty money off it. The invasion of Manchuria in nineteen-thirty-one, the murderous Second Sino-Japanese War in thirty-seven, that went into theater of the World War Two, and all that hell ended in nineteen-forty-five. The reasons of the war are clear. The economy grew strong very quickly. During the overthrow of the shogunate, China was very seriously weakened by its domestic warfare, and the Japanese simply had to attack. They simply had to increase their influence, and the imperial model couldn't stand any other behavior. The logic was the same like before the shogunate was overthrown. People was ready to be patient to any bullshit and to work for any purposes with maximum commitment, if it was necessary for the greatness and for victories. If there wouldn't be any victories, why would they suffer and labor? But it wasn't the amount of territories now belonging to the Japanese Empire that was scary, but the way it get it for itself. Let's take the Second Sino-Japanese and the World War Two. Here's the territory Japan was fighting on. By various estimates, the Japanese actions killed from three till fourteen million civilians. In short-list of entertainment, there were such things as mass murders, conducting experiments on people, hunger, extracted labor, and using of biological and chemical weapons in China. And also sudoku, sudoku! There is a number the Tokyo Trial insists upon, and the Japanese admit that. The death-rate of prisoners of war. Twenty-seven and one tenth percent. That is, the official count says, every fourth was killed. But! Look at the territory Japan recaptured from China. And guess, what number of Chinese war prisoners was released after the war was ended? I remind you, in China, there lives just a bazillion of people. Any guesses? Your assumptions? No. Also no. Fifty six. Not thousands, not hundreds. Fifty-six people. Released from the Japanese capture after the war. Why were they like that? War prisoners. They don't ask for food, lie in the earth. In nineteen-forty three, the Japanese fleet received an order: all the prisoners they had - had to be executed, and no new prisoners. Here's the list of official war crimes of the Japanese. First: attack on neutral countries. The Hague Convention forbids to begin hostilities with neutral countries without fair and square warning or motivated declaration of war. In such a way, Japan attacked the USA, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Mass murders of civilian population. All in all, by various estimates, from three till ten million people were killed - exactly among the civilians. The most historians agree on the number of six million. An example of atrocities - the Nanking Massacre of nineteen-thirty-seven and nineteen-thirty-eight. On the thirteenth of December nineteen-thirty-seven, the Japanese invade Nanking, the capital of the Chinese Republic, and during six weeks, they've been murdering and raping the civilians. The Japanese admit two hundred thousand killed. The USA and Europe counted half a million people. Well, historians generally agree on three hundred - three hundred and fifty thousand civilian people. Third: executions without a trial. On the sixth of August nineteen-thirty-seven, the emperor said, "There is no such term as prisoners of war for us." And he cancelled it. In order not to limit actions of his troops with some kind of international law. No women, no children, no elderly people, no disabled - no one was spared. And my favorite! Conducting experiments on people! Meet the unit seven hundred and thirty one. The single-purpose military unit that was doing research in the area of biological weapon. In our modern terms, those guys made very interesting challenges. Determination of amount of time a person could live in boiling water. How much time a person could live without food, without water, being electrocuted, frost-bitten, vivisected. That is, when a body is incised. And also, those guys studied the autopsy of the living, bringing out the artificial plague, infecting people with that plague. Just a fun fact. In April twenty-eighteen, Japanese archives were opened, and beside the famous guys who participated in all that fuss, they found one man who fully escaped the punishment. Here is that man, his name is Ryoichi Naito. He was a leader of the unit seven hundred and thirty-one, he completely escaped any punishment, and the funniest thing in all that is that he was later the founder of the pharmaceutical corporation The Green Cross. He knows how to heal. And you can relax because he knows by default how a person looks inside. There are also such harmless things in the list like cannibalism, using of chemical weapon, creating of comfort stations - those are brothels with women, prisoners of war - sex slaves. Just imagine what was happening there. Oh, those were golden times! And basically, for those recreational events the Japanese needed hardware. Ever angrier. Ever bigger. Chapter Five. Did Japan Have Cars before the War? Of course, it had. And now, when we have the context of what was happening, we can continue with them; we stopped at the first prototypes that were build by self-learners, quick and dirty. Any ideas about the first stock vehicle? M? Please, meet Yataro Iwasaki. And you're like, what? What!? What about Sakichi Toyoda? He tailors some rags, I tell you. We'll go back to him. But now - Yataro Iwasaki. Yataro was born in eighteen-thirty-five, he's that old; he died in eighteen-eighty-five, but the main thing is, in eighteen seventy, he managed to found a company named Mitsubishi. If you don't know it, Mitsubishi means not only air conditioners and horrible cross-overs. It's a giant conglomerate. One of zaibatsu. The term "zaibatsu" in Japan defines some clans that are of paramount significance. In Europe and in the US, such things are called cartels, syndicates, or something like those. If you want, you could drag by the head and ears that zaibatsu is the very same horrible Japanese mob. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there were four zaibatsu in Japan. Yasuda - that was a huge money bag because they had the largest bank among all zaibatsu. Sumitomo - before the period of war, they were the main copper miners in the country, After the war, they fell apart forming a lot of little companies, but they still exist today. Mitsui Group - that clan has been existed since the twelfth century, and in the nineteenth century, that was the government bank. These are unreally big and strong dudes that still exist so far. After the war, they were surely weakened, but still, and before the war, that was a really huge jumbo. They administered military procurement for the government, imported cotton into the country and built absolutely all infrastructure on all the conquered territories. And the last one, the youngest of all, but no less influential zaibatsu - Mitsubishi. And let's handle it once and for all. The right word is "Mitsubisi". Not Mitsubizi, not Mitsubishi, not Mitsubitchi. No. Mitsubisi. Who wants to fight me on that matter, I left in bio a link to the work of Yevgeny Polivanov, a linguist and orientalist that developed the system of transfer of Japanese hieroglyphs to the Cyrillic. Cyrillic is Russian letters if you don't know. You should study it first, and then fight me in the comments. Spoiler! The system says, it's Mitsubisi. By transfer from Japanese to Cyrillic, getting the ending "- shi" is absolutely impossible. That's why "sushi" is also wrong, it has to be "susi". But no one cares. Everyone says "sushi" and "Mitsubishi". Say it how you want, but Mitsubisi is right. And so, Yataro! A simple guy from a dump. Well, not so simple, he was born in a samurai family, but it was bankrupt. If he was born a peasant, he couldn't have left the field in the nineteenth century. Anyhow, he managed to go to Edo - the modern Tokyo, - to get education, and in a quick period of time, he assumed a rank in the influential Yamauchi clan. Its influence had spread all over the country, and when shogunate was overthrown, Yataro held the position of manager of export and import of all the clan. The clan had its trade network across the country. Well, "Пятёрочка" in Russian. Fleet, plus manufactures. And all the import and export of the clan was managed by Yataro. And suddenly, well, yeet! - shogunate crumbled, power crumbled, clans dissipated. It was the full regime change in the country, and Yataro knew things got hairy, made a fuss in time, and nicked one of the trade branches for himself named Tsukumo. Well, if truth be told, he didn't nicked it but leased from the state. But I'm a person who was born in the nineties, and I like the word "nicked" more. Anyway, over three years, Yataro got his act together, and in eighteen-seventy that branch was renamed as Mitsubishi. The company began its incredible growth because of the state protectorate; and as the borders opened, the trade appeared, everyone was in need of cole, and Mitsubishi mined it. And the main Mitsubishi's function was producing, repairing, maintaining, and insurance of ships. Everything is stable. They made buckets that could be only thrown into the ocean, before and now. And logically, when all the country heads for industrialization, not engaging with car development and not trying to create something was really stupid. Because all the engineering minds at that moment dreamt to have a hand in creating of ICE or some waggon. Although, Yataro didn't live to see the first car by Mitsubishi or the event with Panard-Levassor; as I said, he died in eighteen-eighty-five. and the first vehicle, the first vehicle in the country, Mitsubishi created under his nephew, Koyata Iwasaki. That car was the famous Mitsubishi Model A. And it was born by the shipbuilding subdivision of Mitsubishi. They provided a workshop in the yard, coated it with the best materials, put the best engineers into it, and they began to make a car that was initially meant for driving members of the government. Actually, Mitsubishi Model A is Fiat Tipo. It's not my favorite junk word "kinda", in Russian - "типа". It was the model. Fiat Tipo Three. Maybe, I'm an ambassador of Fiat but I'm hiding. "Типа". The success was incredible! The car remained in the hand assembling line for four years, it was being assembled fully manually. And since nineteen-seventeen till twenty-one, they produced twenty-two cars. That was great! Five and a half vehicle a year. That's astonishing! - Those guys were working like Stakhanovites! - What is Stakhanovite? And no one cared for passenger cars at all. Remember, I said about those grants the government put in in 1918? That encouraged the dual-purpose cars, civilian and military? And that category was quite a match for trucks and busses. In the year 1918, according to that document, Mitsubishi showed its truck T-One. And funny thing, the government said, "Right! We shall check what you whipped up! If that thing is even secure! We shall check it out so everything was normal and acceptable!" And they made it drive a hundred kilometers. And it made it. Well, a hundred kilometers, and they said, "It's secure! That thing can drive, so you can have your grants, attaboys!" Jokes aside, T-One was a very effective truck, and all the trucks that were made by Mitsubishi, were very effective and secure. And in general, Mitsubishi trucks were the main means of rebuilding Tokyo and Yokohama after the Kanto earthquake. In nineteen-thirty-one, Mitsubishi produced its first diesel, four-fifty-D. And that was kinda a mark of pride of the whole Mitsubishi Club well. ho! Mitsubishi, the first in Japan, made their diesels, that's why my Pajero surely has a good engine! In nineteen-thirty-two, Mitsubishi produced its B-Forty Six, the largest bus in all the world. For real, back in nineteen-thirty-two, there were no larger busses than that. In 1934, they showed the first prototype of the four-wheeled passenger car PX-Thirty Three. Another year later, they produced the first diesel bus in the country. Another year later - the first diesel truck. Another year later, they showed to the public their concept of the first four-wheeled diesel truck. But vehicles were actually just one of their division, and not so very large, I must say. In the thirties, Mitsubishi was the second-largest conglomerate in Japan. Beside their ships, their shipbuilding, insurances and so on, they also made military hardware, and their main division was aviation. They were building both planes and engines for them - all the way through. For example, the most popular ones were fighters A-five-M, A-six-M, bombers G-three-M, G-four-M, Ki-twenty one, and so on. AGC. Do you know that producer of glass for vehicles? That's Mitsubishi, too; in nineteen-oh-seven, they opened the glass division. Electrical equipment has been also Mitsubishi's product since God knows when. Air conditioners, paper, photo paper, even freaking Nikon is also Mitsubishi. If now, in the twenty-first century, we could draw all the records of all the Mitsubishi divisions to balance, we'll have ten percent of Japanese GDP. Well, kinda, Mitsubishi aren't fricking weak guys. Concurrently, in nineteen-eleven, three people, Kenjiro Den, Rokuro Aoyama and Meitaro Takeuchi, decided to found their own car company that would be named Kwaishinsha Motor. You'd be surprised how much I rehearsed saying that name. Kwaishninsha. Kwaish-ninsha. Kwaishinsha. Kwaishnisha Motor! Did I say it right? Kwaishinsha. Kwaishinsha! Kwaisinsha. Fuck! Kwaishinsha! You! Not-Russian! Or how does it sound correctly? Kenjiro Den, for example, was at that point a minister in the government. Three of them gathered, invested a bunch of money, and said, "We want a car!" As the result of all that fuss, in nineteen-fourteen, they received that! DAT. The name consisted from three letters of investors' names. And Toyota and Honda Clubs are like, We got you no-ow, huh! First you said, that Mitsubishi made the first stock vehicle in nineteen-seventeen, and now DAT in nineteen-fourteen! - Bitch! - Yes, that's right! Mitsubishi made the first stock vehicle, they produced some amount of the same cars, at least. Although, with the fully manual assembly, you couldn't know if they were the same, but nevertheless! Something was called somewhat the same. But that DAT was produced in a single copy. A few years later, also in a single copy, they made DAT-Forty-One. And the first one seemed to be called DAT-Thirty-One. Also, it was called DAT-One, DAT-Car, DAT-Go - well, I think it just didn't have any name. they just built something, and like... Here it is! Later, there was also a couple of preproduction samples, but the year nineteen-eighteen began, the government support, and they said, "Okay, we shall produce trucks." But that company is interesting for us since nineteen-twenty-six, when they merged with the company... Jitsuo Jidosha Seizo Kaisho! Sorry, I couldn't do it by myself. But that company was producing auto rickshaw and tricycles. And their most popular vehicle looked like that and was called Gorham. After the merge with the tricycle producer, the guys realized they could produce not only large vehicles. And the Japanese government in nineteen-thirty was like, everything before half a liter - not an engine! How much better is Camry three-and-five - well, that's a vehicle! And with lights from BMW-seven - it's just a rocket! I think, absolutely every sentence can be added with "how much better is Camry three-and-five!" and that would be funny. Kinda, I visited a gay club. I didn't like it. How much better is Camry three-and-five! It's just a rocket! And so, the government decided that, with such engines, cars were not so different from horses, and they said, people could drive without licenses - at all. They couldn't gather speed and wouldn't get killed, that was their logic. DAT couldn't miss that chance, and their engineering division began to think actively, and marketers said, "So... Well, if we have here normal automobiles, like Daddy-mobile, the little ones are gonna be Son-mobile. And if Daddy-mobile is DAT, Son-mobile would be Datson. Naming. Very ruthless and fricking rough. It was not Datsun, but Datson. Like, son of DAT. Well, that was the real justification. They changed for Datsun after a while when they decided that "son" wasn't right, there should be "sun". Rising sun in Japan. Ouch! Dai Nippon Teikoku! Sorry! And the first Datsun car was that Datsun Type Ten. The name was prophetic. Because they produced ten of them. There was Datsun Type Eleven, with just a breathtaking issue of one hundred and fifty vehicles. At that moment, in nineteen-thirty-three, the government was like, "Well, guys! Well, well, let's be honest, those engines with seven hundred and fifty are a shame. What engine is that, actually? Let's also let people drive them without licenses. Without licenses, without civil rights, without any rights, that would be some driving embarrassment. For those who are too serious, a note. It's joke! In such a way, the government made easier for people to get a car and increased the motorization. Adding to that context, in nineteen-thirty-five, DAT and... Jitsuo Jidosha Seizo Kaisho! ...took over another company that was called Nihon Sanyo. Anti-monopolists said, let them Sanyo! Concurrently, the new factory in Yokohama was founded, with a modern assembly line, and all of that stuff altogether was named Nissan. Fucking red sun! As soon as the factory launched, the first car that got out of the assembly line was this one. Datsun Type Fourteen. In fact, that was the rebuilt Austin Seven. And for the first time, that car carried the symbol of Datsun. A rabbit. Either it symbolized the swiftness and speed of the car, or that they were gonna fuck everyone - not clear. And the amount of copies of that car was very significant. That was over the period when Japan was waging wars. There were three thousand and eight hundred cars. And the most important thing is, Datsun Type Fourteen was the first exported passenger car from Japan. Fifty two of them were exported. And the mind of directors accepted the construction: if you want your car to be sought-after in other countries, do as is common by them. Well, they did copy Austin Seven. By nineteen-thirty-seven, over two years, the factory in Yokohama made ten thousand cars. All of them were different models. And when the Second Sino-Japanese War began, producing of passenger cars was restricted, and of course, Nissan began to produce only military things. For the military, Datsun-Nissan made the following: pick-ups Datsun Thriteen-T, Fourteen-T, Seventeen-T; the dropside passenger truck Nissan-Eighty; the bus Nissan-Ninety; the dropside truck Nissan One hundred-and-eighty; and Nissan Type Ninety-Seven. Fun fact: all the trucks that were produced by the Datsun brand were used on the home front. On the frontlines, there was only Nissan's production. Exactly because of that, after the war, only Datsuns were sent to the American market. The Americans didn't want to buy Nissan. They had association with military actions, just like with Volkswagen Beetle. And Datsun wasn't familiar to them. Because of that, all the cars Nissan exported to the USA were Datsuns at the first. Alongside with all of that, with all that stir, there was a man in eighteen-ninety-one; and his name was Sakichi Toyoda... Sakichi! Father! Father, forgive us for Toyota Camry three-and-five, it's wrong! Devil's work! Punish us with VAG, forgive us, father! And what amount of jokes do we have here about Camry three-and-five? The same as the time it could go without full repair. Endless! Anyway, Sakichi was sitting and watching his mother who was a weaver. He watched how she weaved cloth manually. He wanted to make her life easier. When he was twenty four, in eighteen-ninety-one he invented such a thing - a hand-operating ordinary power loom. After a year, he already had his own little factory that produced cloth. It closed after a short while. In eighteen-ninety-four, he invented the automatic model. And in ninety-seven - the electrical one. The main know-how of that thing was the following: if anything went wrong, the loom automatically stopped. That principle is called "jidoka", and is very respected by the Toyota Club. Because in the current time, it's imbedded in the assembly line of the Toyota car. And if anything goes wrong in the assembly line of Toyota... Of course, it's impossible, no way at all, Toyota has no mistakes! But if suddenly, something goes wrong, the assembly line stops immediately. The main credit of Sakichi is that he invented some gadgets in looms to increase production efficiency. He invented an automatical spooling machine. He invented the mechanism to change sewing spools when yarn was out. He was the first to invent a circular loom, and so on. He registered eighty-five patents altogether, He was the most productive inventor of his time. If we consider Sakichi as a businessman, well, frankly speaking, he was a not very good enterpriser because when he invented his looms, he was noticed by Mitsui Group, and decided to bankroll him. Sakichi stupidly agreed, and his first company was founded, Ito Shoten Co. That company was producing those looms. Sakichi held the position of engineer-in-chief. He worked there for a year. Later, the business closed, Sakichi left and made his company Toyoda Shokai Co. That company didn't produce looms but actually invented some gadgets for looms. After that, there was Toyoda Loom Works that opened in nineteen-oh-seven, but frankly speaking, Sakichi didn't succeed in business much, and in nineteen-ten, he left for the USA, in order to watch other businesses, how they worked, and to look for other looms of big garment manufactures. Over a year, Sakichi explored all the manufactures in the US, then, in nineteen-eleven, he went for England, to Manchester, that was really the center of all the garment industry in all over the world. And he realized that his looms were really the best. Like Camry three-and-five! As he returned to Japan, he founded a new company at once, Toyoda Spinning and Weaving Co. He took only his relatives to his company. He borrowed money from them, and he allowed them to manage the whole company, in order to devote himself to inventions. And the result of all the engineering and inventory activity of Sakichi was that thing - the Toyoda Type G loom. That was the first in the world, fully-autonomous, electrical loom with non-stop motion. In order to invent that thing, Sakichi spent thirty years. By the way, behind his back, workers always called those looms devilish. First, they rattled very loud, and second, they worked perfectly non-stop, you didn't even need to touch them. That's why they thought that loom to be controlled by the devil. Thankfully, they didn't burn anyone. No one. Very quickly, that loom became famous all over the world, everyone demanded it. But in nineteen-twenty-nine, Toyoda sold all the patent rights to manufacture those looms to the Platt brothers' company. We know a bunch of legends about that deal, like Platt tried to get rid of the competition, and Toyoda was growing fast and took over the market. But actually, Toyoda took a clever course of action: those guys sold their rights then just in time because the Aishu Loom Company invented a better loom. And while those looms were still worthy of something, while they were still competitive, at that moment, on the tick, they sold their rights. Together with the father, his son worked - Kiichiro Toyoda. By the way, the company was ruled by this guy. Risaburo Toyoda, Sakichi's son-in-law. In nineteen-twenty, Kiichiro graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and he was also not a fool. Like his father, he'd invented something all the time, and he'd worked with him all his life. Back in nineteen-ten, while Sakichi was travelling across the USA and the Great Britain, he realized that the future lied with cars, and either way, they should head for that direction. He constantly and eagerly encouraged Kiichiro to study car manufacturing. Here we have a very popular myth that Sakichi took absolutely all the money they made from the sale of looms, gave it to Kiichiro and said, "Here, my son, take this and make some vehicles. We'd put absolutely all the chips on red, and if it works, that's okay, and if not, then all the wealth of Toyoda family will go to hell." Neither the first, nor the second isn't true. First, let's get things straight about the money for the deal. Under those terms, Toyoda got a hundred thousand pounds. or a million yen - for the right to manufacture those looms, but first: they got it in pieces. On the day of contract signing - twenty-five thousands, and then, every year, by twenty-five. That means, they could have gotten their money for the deal in four years. Second, taxes. The government was, like, "You get income. You pay sixteen percent of income tax on the nail." Income tax! Guys were, like, "Hey, wait! We haven't gotten the whole sum!" And IRS was like, "Suck a dick! A hundred thousand in your contract? Give us sixteen percent, sixteen thousand pounds right here, on the nail." They went to court! Appeals, those endless trials, and a couple dozens of them! And while that mayhem was going on, Toyoda managed to get all of its money and quietly paid those damned sixteen percent off the deal. Third, the first payment of 25 thousand pounds was given to the employees of Toyoda company. And you could guess that Toyoda sold not a company but merely rights. Even then, in the USA, Japan and China, the patent right to manufacture those looms remained with Toyoda. Platt bought the rights for the rest of the world aside of three countries. Do you remember that guy, Risaburo Toyoda, the son-in-law? He was responsible for the decision if Toyoda would appropriate automotive manufacture. because the company was run by him. In nineteen-thirty, Sakichi died from pneumonia, and Risaburo could safely tell Kiichiro to get screwed, telling him, "The garment manufacture is more important, we need to develop that direction, we have our own pain in the ass - get lost!" But because Risaburo respected Sakichi and shared his views all the way that the future belongs to the cars, he agreed to finance Kiichiro and his activity with vehicles and to give him the net profit from the current operational profit of Toyoda Loom Works. All the possible resources, all the income was put to the development and also, the factory was giving space for labs and assembly department. September the first, nineteen-thirty three is considered the date of official founding of automobile Toyoda department. Well, okay! What did guys do first? First, all the clearheaded engineers were sent to the USA to study all the modern methods of casting. Second - you shouldn't invent all from scratch! Why did they have to? Guys bought one Chevrolet, one Chrysler Airflow, and a Ford truck of nineteen-thirty-four. When all of that stuff came to them, they began to dissemble it to see how it worked. Guys decided to copy the engine from Chevrolet, everything else for a passenger car - from Chrysler Airflow, and they decided to copy the Ford truck as a whole. In the end, in nineteen-thirty-four, the very first Toyoda engine appeared. Model A. The in-line six for three and four liters that was the full copy of the Chevrolet engine, Stovebolt two hundred and seven. Of course, they took the in-line six for a reason. The engine was mainly required to be able to be installed both in a truck, and in a passenger car. Despite that demand in the thirties was only on trucks, Toyoda always wanted to make passenger cars, too. That's why this engine had to be installed in some passenger car, if possible. But originally, Kiichiro as a normal guy wanted to make V-Eight. Gave and left! And he wanted to make a copy of V-Eight of Ford, but when he figured out the cost of design and launch of that engine on the assembly line, he realized, "Okay, so be it. We'll stick with V-Six." The Stovebolt engine of the first generation was created in nineteen-twenty-nine, that was also an in-line six, but its volume was a bit different, three and two. And the construction of that engine was a bit more difficult than the construction of an axe. The only difference was, an axe couldn't move, and Stovebolt could. And the compression rate was five to one. Five to one! How's that for you, SkyActiv Club? With that compression rate, you could really put any horse shit in it, it could work on it, nevertheless. And in nineteen-thirty-four, there was the uprated Stovebolt two hundred and seven, already for three and four liters and engine capacity of royal sixty HP. Three and four, uprated, sixty HP. And that uprated, powerful, sports version was stolen by Japanese. The copying was so exact, that pistons, valves, cranks were fully replaceable with the American engine. Here are two funny facts. First, the Japanese stole the engine, put it on the assembly line, began to produce it, and only after four years, they bought the official Chevrolet license. Why were they like that!? Proprietors. I couldn't find the way how specifically Chevrolet made Toyoda buy their license, but it's unlikely that Toyoda's conscience woke and they were like, "Mmm, guys, it's not a Christian way that we stole the engine and didn't pay Chevrolet for it." Cross my heart, we didn't steal! Second! Do you remember I told you in "Detroit" that the Americans absolutely didn't make much of improvement of their vehicles? Everything they did was to add a meter of additional steel, and that was all. And perhaps, you don't imagine how they wouldn't give a shit. How long Stovebolt two hundred and seven spent on the assembly line? I remind you, it appeared in nineteen-twenty-nine. Any ideas? No. Also no. Till the year nineteen-ninety. For sixty one year, that engine was on the line. Some human beings wouldn't live that long! The compression rate five and one! Sixty-one year! The Japanese put it off the assembly line in 1956, it spent there 22 years. While everything was kinda bad in Japan, deep shit and so on; Chevrolet was successful, but - sixty-one year. And the Japanese, without resources, changed the engine after twenty years. While one department dissembled and copied the engine, the other department dissembled and copied bodies, car frames and transmissions from Chrysler and Ford. In the end, in nineteen-thirty-five, there was Toyota! Guys already changed the name for the right, Christian one. Toyota Model A the passenger car, and the truck Toyota G-One. But officially, Toyota became a separate company only in two years. In nineteen-thirty-seven, it separated from Toyoda Loom Works and became a self-sustained, separate motor company. One way or another, the first steps were successful. In nineteen-thirty-six, Toyota showed its cars on an auto show, and it was the first car producer that got a public contract to manufacture trucks. In the same 1936, they finished building a new factory in a small town Koromo. In nineteen-fifty-nine, it was called Toyota City. Toyota City! Suck your dick and look pretty! A year later, in nineteen-thirty-seven, they received the first public contract for three thousand trucks. They got a license a couple years ago, but that meant they could do something. But there was no volume, and the first order came in nineteen-thirty-seven, and it cost one hundred thousand pounds. For the same sum, Toyoda sold their rights to Platt. By the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese and the World War Two, there were already formed three main producers in Japan: Nissan, Toyota and Mitsubishi. Of course, there were more of them, but that's still ahead. A leading part just before the war was played by three. Basically, Mitsubishi delivered tanks. Type Ninety-Seven, a.k.a. Te-Ke. Type Ninety-Eight So-Da, armored motor car based on Type Ninety-Seven. In different modifications: cable-layer, firing vehicle for observation balloons, and for artillery observers. And of course, Type Ninety-Five, that tank was called Ha-Go - the main Japanese tank in the World War Two. On the contrary, Toyota basically delivered trucks to the frontlines. I must say, with each year, control and participation of government in the car industry was increasing. But that was happening not like you'd imagine, like government would interfere, understand nothing and only bother. No. They had a dialogue, and exactly in the thirties, the main principle of interaction of the government and the branch had formed that would have allowed Japan to become a leader in the future. In nineteen-forty-one, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour... A perfect name of a place for me: har-bour. What a burry fucker. There was a prohibition for export of oil, and gas, and any other fuel from the USA to Japan. That's why it was prohibited to use gas in households and enterprises, and when it was possible, transport was switched to coal. Yes, my young spectators, a car can work on coal, actually. It could work on anything. Google the gas producer vehicle. And any shit that can burn, can be consumed by a gas producer vehicle. Oh, shit!? It could work on Koreans, too? But the Americans had been chased away from the Japanese market in 1935, and it worked. I remind you: since nineteen-twenty-five till thirty-five, the Americans made two hundred and ten thousand cars, and the Japanese - twelve thousands. But since nineteen-thirty till nineteen-forty, the Japanese produced two hundred and eighty four and a half thousand cars. Including trucks, busses and everything. Each year, since nineteen-thirty-seven till forty-one, the car industry had been growing by two hundred and seventy percent a year. But still, those were tidbits because they didn't cover military needs. The demand was really good but there were no materials, raw staff and output. For example, Toyota produced jeeps without doors, with wooden seats, with one headlight. The Japanese car producers had always lived in the red, but really, years before the war were fatty and funny in comparison to what would have waited Japan after the war. Chapter Six. Ruins August the sixth, nineteen-forty-five. Bombing of Hiroshima. August the ninth, nineteen-forty-five - bombing of Nagasaki. I was a little surprised that it had happened not on the same day - but still, I'm a moron. Here's that point in history where everyone starts their narrative. Only now, after an hour, even more, of this video, we got to the position where everyone starts to talk about the Japanese car industry. As if all the previous context didn't exist! As if there was no knowledge base gathered, even if stolen in a way. As if there were no manufactures, as if there was no huge amount of engineers who were busy with designing and creating of military and civilian hardware. And as if there was no memory and feeling that only yesterday, Japan was a great country that was giving tone to the whole Asia. The rug gathered the room together. Listen, those bombings were carpet ones. By the way, there could have been no nuclear strike. The Japanese had it coming. On July the twenty-sixth, 1945, allies in counter-Japanese coalition, the Great Britain, the USA and China, laid down conditions of Japan's capitulation in a document that was called the Potsdam Declaration. If Japan were to refuse, they threatened it with swift and complete obliteration. - Do you know that they answered? - Oh, get the fu!.. I can't tell you if those were the exact words but something like that. And for their insolvency - or stupidity, - the Japanese got themselves nuclear bombs. By the way, I, personally, don't understand what they held onto, why they didn't accept the terms. Because by that time, everything was already screwed and everything was lost, and it was absolutely clear that they should have given up. But the Japanese have their special, cast-iron will, and maybe for that they gave four hundred and fifty thousand lives. All the historical subjects about the Japanese car industry begin with scorched desert and lack of resources, as if Japan had absolutely nothing. What about experience? Or people? Or their wish to be the first? The wish to be first is especially important, but everyone forgets it. And in order for the country to focus and to begin working for its future even more impactfully, that feeling was really important. If you'll excuse me, it's fucking important. Yes, they were still isolated, with sanctions, without resources, but from such a deep shit, the country could be brought only with something immaterial. Only with ideas and the wish to incarnate them. And Japan had that important, immaterial thing. And I think, that mattered the most. Okay, let's imagine the full picture of the war's end for Japan. Anaaal! Like that! Yesterday, Japan had owned a half of China, Micronesia, Indonesia, it had been fighting with the USA over the control over Australia. Only yesterday! And on September the second, nineteen-forty-five, they signed the surrender document of Japan, and that day is considered to be the end of the World War Two. Not May the ninth but September the second. It's easy to remember: the next day, Shufutinsky turns the calendar. By the way, after that date Japan hasn't been participated in any armed conflicts, until today. "Until today" - it sounds like, kinda... - As if today was the day. - As if they would like, "Fuck yourselves!" Here's the official text of the Potsdam Declaration. and the following terms are of interest to us: First, "The elimination of the authority and influence of those who have deceived and misled the people of Japan. A new order of peace, security and justice will be impossible until irresponsible militarism is driven from the world." Second, "Until there is convincing proof that Japan's war-making power is destroyed, points in Japanese territory shall be occupied." Third, "Japanese sovereignty shall be limited to the islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Shikoku..." Shit-koku islands!? "...and such minor islands as we determine." Technically, they had to return all the conquered lands. Fourth, "Japan shall be permitted to maintain such industries as will sustain her economy and permit the exaction of just reparations in kind..." We have to work! The safe word is Hiroshima! "...but not those which would enable her to re-arm for war." And fifth! "The occupying forces of the Allies shall be withdrawn from Japan as soon as these objectives have been accomplished and there has been established in accordance with the freely expressed will of the Japanese people a peacefully inclined and responsible government." Hiroshima! Hiroshima! Long story short - no resources, manufactures were half demolished, production of military hardware was prohibited, huge debts because of war costs and reparations, no money, no food - some deep shit! - Anal! - There was no reason to wait for help. No one wanted for Japan to regain power and return its positions. Japan was seen as an enemy and a threat, No one was going to help it. That deep anal hole looked like that in numbers: at the beginning of nineteen-forty six, the volume of output was fourteen percent from before the war. And real wages of workers were thirteen percent from before the war. All the producing sector was reduced tenfold. Second, hyperinflation. Since 1945 till 1947, the amount of paper money in the country increased fourfold. Third, ten million of unemployed people in the country. In nineteen-forty-five, the whole population was seventy-five million. If we cut off elder people, children and women, then we'll see that every second man was unemployed. And every first one who had a job got by thirteen percent less than before the war. All the premises of the future happy life, on hand. And although it sounds ironically that Japan was destroyed by war and mostly by the USA, it will also be saved by a war and by the USA. Do you remember I told you about the Japanese occupation of Korea? At the final stage of the World War Two, when the Japanese were roughed up from every direction, Korea was intervened by USSR troops from the north and by USA troops from the south. All of them came allegedly to drive the Japanese out and to free the Koreans. They divided the country by the parallel thirty eight, and they were, like, the USA had the south, the USSR had the north. The division was conditional and temporary. Allegedly, that was the original plan. But after the capitulation of Japan, the USSR and the USA organized in Korea their independent governments. Each of them declared their regime to be right. And their main task was eradication of the wrong regime and submission of the territory. And here we have: in the red corner, there are North Korea, the USSR and China, and in the blue corner - South Korea, the USA and Great Britain. What could possibly go wrong!? We're fucking the Asians together! Of course, there was some fucking big-time beat-down. That was called the Korean War. And that war as an episode is assigned to the Cold War, the opposition of the USSR and the USA. Why is it interesting for us? The USA had to wage war, to deliver ammunition and to repair hardware, and there was Japan lying on the way. It was a very convenient foothold to organize the home front. The conflict kindled into the open war only in nineteen-fifty, and on the territory of Japan, beforehand, before the war, the USA had carried out some reforms and changes with government and finances. They had every right to do it because Japan was occupied by the USA. If we have to be very brief in listing those changes, there were four of them. First, since nineteen-forty-six till forty-nine, the land reform. Before the war, the Japanese peasants were working the land, and landlords owned it. After the war, that shit was eliminated, and after four years, the number of landowners increased from one point nine millions till three point eight. All of that promoted the appearing of a normal product market. Second, dissolution of zaibatsu. Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda - those guys were dissolved; although Mitsubishi exists till today, and it's a big-time conglomerate, it had much more power before the war. The dissolution was needed in order to free the market for small companies, and that was also the continued strategy so that no more mighty clans would appear in Japan, with too much power in their hands. Third, nineteen-forty-six, the labour reform. Eight-hour working day, salaries, insurance, pensions, all of that. And fourth, the most important, the new Constitution that was enacted on May the third nineteen-forty-seven. There were two main things in it. First, the limitation of the Emperor's authority, essentially - the constitutional parliamentary monarchy, Like in Great Britain. Like, there is a queen but more as a meme than someone with power. Some memes! LOL! Second, in the ninth article of the Japanese Constitution, the following stands: "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes." As we can see from the current history, the Japanese honor their Constitution and don't correct it just like that. After implementing those things that formed the foundation, the USA proceeded with a plan of economical stabilization of Japan. And it was the job of this man, Joseph Dodge. The chairman of the Detroit Bank. What the fucking irony was that! The banker who worked in Detroit, the city of vehicles, with his own hand restored Japan's economy, laid the foundation of the future car industry that would fricking destroy Detroit, fricking destroy the Detroit Bank, and everything that man had done. We're not gonna drill down his plan 'cause it's boring, with numbers, and it doesn't matter. And also, because you're dumb! You both. This is interesting for the car industry: the Americans didn't bring out Japanese manufactures as reparations as it was in Germany, for example. And at the moment when the economy chilled out, and all those changes brought result, they put a whole bunch of money into car orders. Since nineteen-fifty till nineteen-fifty three, the sum invested into the car industry was two and a half billion dollars. In nineteen-fifty-one, they signed the Treaty of San Francisco that, technically, acknowledged Japan as a normal country, with its own government, as a sovereign nation. Technically, the Americans and their allies ruined all Japan, all its economy, all its power, all its inside systems. Then, they reorganized all of that by the rules they thought to be right. And thus, they laid the foundation that would see the blossom both of the car industry, and the process engineering industry, and all Japan. The Americans would end up costing, but the tale only gets more interesting. Chapter Seven. Recovering of car producers Toyota was feeling really bad, but on September the twenty-fifth, 1945, just after the capitulation of Japan, Toyota was allowed to produce trucks for occupational authorities. But really, that manufacture didn't really matter in the whole picture because the volume was tiny. At that moment, Toyota's main activity was repairing of Willys', Plymouths of Chrysler and other hardware. But Toyota did still want to produce vehicles. And in nineteen-forty-seven, there was a car prototype SA. Does it ring a bell? Well, and if I show you a picture of a Volkswagen Beetle? And again, the SA prototype? We just had "ein" designer! But, as with Volkswagen, the prototype didn't matter anything. There were no orders. Since nineteen-forty-six till forty-eight, Toyota produced only seventy five SA cars, and fifteen thousand trucks were ready by that time. In nineteen-forty-nine, they cancelled the prohibition to make cars for personal use, but that also didn't help in any way. There were no orders, everything was bad. Of course, under those terms, they had to cut salaries and fire people. And at that moment, there was the first and the only strike of workers on a Toyota factory. The union began to protest against reducing of salaries and stopped working. Under the video about Detroit, in comments, some Doctors of Political Science, Economics and Behavior Psychology wrote that I'm a mental slug, fascist, libertard, and I should go and do some work on the factory if I had the impertinence to be ironic over UAW choices. I remind you what the UAW great minds were doing: boycotting manufactures by constant strikes, prohibiting to fire people, prohibiting to implement new technologies and to do something for operational excellence, reducing the amount of working hours, and my favorite - fucking up Japanese cars with hammers in order to show who's the daddy. As the result, all the factories were closed, the city was in ruins, the crime was off the charts. And now, my highly respected Doctors of Political Science and Economics, let's see at the actions of Toyota. There were two ways. Either to close, or to try to man up and act roughly and blankly. And judging from the fact that Toyota Camry still exists, Toyota's top stuff in the fifties did have some balls. Cohoneeees! Just like that. The first thing they did after the strike was another, even more cutback of spending. Twenty percent of factory employees were fired. Oh, get the fu... In a single day they fired one and a half thousand workers from the whole amount of eight thousands. Twenty percent of staff went out of there in one day. I remind you! The UAW didn't allow to fire anyone in any way! Even if you were a ham-handed fucker that was producing only flaw, constantly drinking and skipping work, you were a fucking asset, and you couldn't be fired, in no case. But here, at Toyota, every fifth employee went for a lap. For quite a decent haul. About forever. And they were hardly the most hard-working, effective and sought-after people. Most likely, the similar ham-handed dudes were fired. Well, something tells me, they got rid of the most ineffective and unnecessary guys. That "something" is called logic! They got some loans for technology development, for commissioning of new technologies, for improvement of manufactures and for designing of new models. Twenty four banks invested in Toyota, but they did that indirectly, through the Bank of Japan. Like, the Bank of Japan gave the money that it took from many banks. All of those resources were directed to creating of new labs, to new manufactures, to salaries for the best and the brightest. The UAW invested only in fucking hammers! And in those stickers of the car bumpers. Well, why not? Merch! That's a real deal! For some reason, Toyota decided that fucking up Chevrolets was not the best decision; it would be best to take up business. Third, to create a strong and safe system of sales all over the country. Before that, Toyota was getting by government orders, and they did their sales by a leftover principle. And fourth, to relieve Kiichiro Toyoda from his position. Toyota's father, the founder of the company, was asked to vacate the premises. The same thing was offered to several members of the senior staff. Two years after that event, Kiichiro died of a stroke and never had to see the blossom of his company. And three months after Kiichiro, Risaburo Toyoda died. The man who had supported Sakichi Toyoda's idea and given Kiichiro the money for creating the company. Risaburo and Kiichiro didn't outlast three years in order to see the blossom of their company. In the year nineteen-fifty-five, Toyota became the biggest manufacturer in Japan. And that was the result only of their rightful, very rough and exact actions. On a personal note, I could only virtually bow to Kiichiro. For his will. To leave his life's work behind, the work you spent on every day, every hour of your youth and maturity, at that point when you realized that you couldn't make it, that's worth a lot. Kiichiro had enough intelligence, will and courage to admit the need of changes, knowing that those changes would have an impact on him. And to leave. To vacate the premises. No one from the American companies didn't do it. I remind you, my dear, esteemed Doctors of Economics, - the UAW activity's results were only strikes, hammers, beaten Corollas and one killed Chinese. Good job, boys! But the result of Toyota's top staff actions was a vehicle. A vehicle that is famous on every continent and in every corner of the Earth. A vehicle that has been produced with millions of copies. A vehicle that drives military men, terrorists, athlets, politicians, businessmen. A vehicle that everyone drives. That is well-known and respected. A vehicle that in the next year, twenty-twenty-one, would be seventy years old. That vehicle is called Land Cruiser. And if you suppose that hammers, stickers and lack of intelligence are better, go to guys with Cruisers, they'll explain it quickly. The vehicle. The legend. And the story behind it is also legendary. While the USA were having fun in Korea, the control over Japan's militarization reduced. First, they had other things to do. Second, the US knew that it would be good to get some support from Japan. They still couldn't produce military hardware and weapons. But the US reduced their control in truck manufacturing. And as soon as Japan's government realized they could do something, they quickly ordered a thousand all-wheel drive vehicles for the NPR, the National Police Reserve. Everyone began to stir. Mitsubishi got an license for manufacturing Willis the jeep. Nissan quickly copied Willis, reformed it a bit and launched this thing. Patrol. And in nineteen-fifty-one, after five months of development, Toyota showed this vehicle. The BJ jeep. But both Patrol and BJ were preproduction prototypes, and no one spoke of any line assembly. And Mitsubishi had its license, that's why the government trended towards them. But Toyota needed that order as much as air to breathe, and they decided to prove that their car was better in all respects. Don't forget, the development took only five months. The test pilot Ichiro Taira was put in the driving seat, and, under control of the Police Reserve committee, he went up to the mountains twice. In all the documentaries, in all the movies, even James May would tell you about only one, but there were two of them. The first one was the Samurai Way to the Shinto Temple on Mount Atago. The second was the climb on the pilgrim route up to the sixth station on Mount Fuji. And particularly that, second climb brought Toyota both the order and the worldwide fame of BJ. Because before that, such a height in two and a half thousand meters was conquered by no one. Not Willis, not Patrol, no one could do it. After the climb, Toyota got an order for three hundred cars for the NPR. And a tractor! The key difference between BJ and Willis lied - A, in the engine. Willis had a two-point-two for sixty HP and one hundred and forty two newton-meters. And BJ had a three-point-four for eighty-six HP and two hundred and fifteen newton-meters. The torque decides, the torque is daddy! Any jeeper could confirm it. And partly because of that, Toyota could climb where no one could. But it wasn't as though it was their original plan. They didn't have another engine, they put the one laying around the workshop. The other difference is the usage. Willis was designed in a way that it had to be greased, maintained, gun-greased after each serious wade. And BJ just drove. Five versions on one platform were designed at once: a communications van, a cable plow, a fire truck and two pickup trucks. The preproduction took two years, and the first BJ left the assembly line in nineteen-fifty-three. Here's one very funny story. BJ left the assembly line,, and Jeep said, Hey! This is our word-o! That is our name, we invented it, actually! And that's why you have to change your name right away! Or welcome to the court. To the American, the most humane, impartial court. And even James May in his documentary about all-wheel-drive cars proudly quotes Hanji Umehara, Director of Technology of the BJ project. "We wanted the name of our vehicle to sound dignified. The British have Land Rover. And we have Land Cruiser." And James May was like, Yes! Good job! They came up with a rich name that became a legend. But wouldn't anyone mind the fact that Studebaker already had the Land Cruiser model in 1934? Oh, really? Toyota that was persecuted by an American concern for obnoxiously using their own trademark once again assumes another trademark. Toyota got lucky, that's all, - that in nineteen-fifty-three, Studebaker had other things to worry about. Somewhere around that year, they were in process of merging with Packard, and faking all of their financial records. I was talking about it in "Detroit". And so, Land Cruiser Club - sorry, your name is a little bit secondary. The legendary name "Land Cruiser" is a Studebaker's piece of shit, actually. And it's not because I like VAG and dye my bangs. Oh no, it is! It is! The most important thing was Toyota going the right way. They believed in modernization, they wanted their car to be better. They could, like Americans, keep it on the assembly line for ten years, then add to it some new fashionable wing, and then crank it out without fuss. They had their orders! Like, "Everything's fine! It's better than Willis. That's why we're provided for five hundred years ahead." And the second generation, Land Cruiser Twenty, that was born in nineteen-fifty-five, only two years later after BJ launch, was already much more humane to people. I remind you - Willis that was mostly copied as BJ, was a little car without a roof, with a bench inside, and instead of a door, there was a rope hanging that you would grab when you would fall out of that vehicle. Do I have to tell you that climate control and stereo system were bad? Under the hood of the Twenty, there was a new Type F engine that was by twenty percent more powerful than the previous one. And it's actually one of the most reliable engines in the world, in general. Toyota was already Toyota. And it's main thing has always been an ultimate thing. It's been just driving. Not whining. Not begging. Just driving. Toyota, Toyota, it's so safe, it's so good! Already back then, in nineteen-fifty-seven, thirty-eight percent of the vehicle export from Japan belonged to Land Cruiser. The Americans liked Cruiser very much. They could eat burgers and ice cream inside without staining your hands with grease. Cruiser very quickly appeared on all the continents. It was used both for military and for civilian needs, and also, it was delivering some stuff to inaccessible places of the planet. But fundamentally, the real Land Cruiser, in my wrong and subjective opinion, was the Forty. It was just as greatly as Toyota Camry Forty. Toyota loves the number forty. Cruiser - forty. Camry - forty. The average length of penis in millimeters in Toyota Club - also forty. Honestly, I think all those jokes about... about Camry Club - that's enough, really. Officially, they are done with in this video. And I have only started! The Cruiser Forty was born in nineteen-sixty and stayed on the assembly line for twenty-six years. That number only makes us understand that the car was very successful. Previous versions were only simple prototypes before the first, real Cruiser, and that particular vehicle gave Toyota the second life. And it gave people the opportunity to drive to places where you shouldn't even walk into. That was still a paramilitary and square off-roader, without any sound insulation of any kind at all. But then, it existed in each and every version. You could come up with any shit on wheels, and Land Cruiser Forty surely had that version. And also, it had some unreal off-road potential on board. Especially die-hard fans still drive the Forties up till now. It was reliable just as Camry Forty and cheap. And everyone needed that vehicle. In nineteen-sixty-five, the production reached fifty thousand cars. After three years, it was one hundred thousands. After four more years, in seventy-two, two hundred thousands. In nineteen seventy-nine, there was a little restyling - and 800 thousand produced vehicles. There was a million in nineteen-eighty. Here's another fun fact. One of the most receptive markets for off-roaders in the world is Australia, And Land Rover owned ninety percent of the off-roader market in that country. Before the moment when Land Cruiser appeared. You guess, what share did Land Rover hold after Cruiser had appeared? Seventy? Sixty? Maybe, fifty percent? Two. Two percent were left for Land Rover after the appearance of Land Cruiser. Land Rover!? Oh, get the fu... There's a saying in Australia. If you wanna go to the outback, take Land Rover. If you wanna go back, take Land Cruiser. Of course, Toyota's approach to perfection of everything was applied not only to cars but also manufacture. Here's one young and curly fella shows a funny statistics of the year nineteen-seventy-eight. At that moment, in Italy, they produced six vehicles for one worker a year. In Detroit, they produced fourteen-point-nine vehicles for one worker a year. And in Toyota - forty-three. In nineteen-seventy-eight. Did America and Detroit have some kind of chances to compete with those parameters? But a hammer and a broken Corolla were a fucking argument, yeah! A bumper sticker increased performance from fourteen-point-nine till thirty eight cars for a worker a year. And a killed Chinese in a bar... - It's just a rocket! - But we will go back to Toyota. Land Cruiser is really good, but it couldn't turn the tide on its own. The Japanese had to invent something unique, especial, that before them didn't exist. Chapter Eight. Truly Japanese Cars Let's go back to the period of the overall Japanese anal pain. To the forties. Anaaal! Just like that! If we reduce the difference between the Japanese and American car industry till one sentence, then here it is. The American government supported and protected unions and workers. The Japanese government supported and protected the sector. American politicians and union leaders scored political points with their slogans during performances before the crowd. And the Japanese, meanwhile... You work your ass off! With this little Japanese hands! Wooork... The government and the sector had always been in a dialogue. They'd always heard of each other's problems and tried to find a right, good decision for both parties. Okay, the late forties. Weapons and military hardware were prohibited. Economy was in shit, no raw stuff, no fuel, and the brightest engineering minds were poking turds with sticks just for the devil of it. Plus, the economy needed blood and movement - the faster people could move, the faster wares could be delivered, the faster all the processes in the society could happen - the faster the economy could be restored. This phrase is especially painful to speak during self-isolation. Especially, the part about moving faster. If you're watching this video in twenty-twenty-one, was it cool staying home in twenty-twenty? Eating pizza, doing nothing, and thinking you'd be soon doing something useful! Oh, tomorrow I would be doing very much good, I promise you that! And actually, you'd get blisters on your dick. Where does quarantine come in? Hiroshima! Hiroshima! And so! Someone very smart, and, as things go in Japan, nameless ю in the government had a thought, "Well, crap, why do we have to do big full-size vehicles when you could design little ones, compacted, very cheap tiny cars that, actually, more people could really afford and could do more useful things with them? In particular, those cars would be applicable support for small business that could deliver wares faster, deliver raw materials and so on. And thus, there was a concept "Kei Jidosha". It translates as "a little vehicle". At government level! July the eighth, 1949, the government laid down demands for all the car manufacturers. Those demands were following. First, geometric dimensions of the car: no more than one meter wide and no more than two meters high. And no more than two-point-eight meters long. And the maximum engine capacity under those regulations was one hundred and fifty cubic centimeters. And the car had to cost no more than one hundred and fifty thousand yen. The car manufacturer that would be able to produce a car under those regulations was promised to get state support. Those cars wouldn't be subject to taxes, and the state would help launch the production. Of course, everyone quickly began to chart, think, draw and design. All the best engineers of the country have been using their brains, and after a year, they came to the government altogether and said, "No way. We can't make anything under those regulations, it's impossible." And the government said, "Well, okay! Here are new regulations, we've heard and understood you." In the new regulations, they increased a bit geometrical sizes, and allowed the engine till three hundred cubic centimeters. In nineteen-fifty-one, they reconsidered those regulations once more, and it was three hundred and sixty cubic centimeters, and geometrical sizes were the following. And in the year nineteen-fifty five, the first kei car saw the light. It was made by one famous company that had been producing looms and cotton since nineteen-oh-nine. This wasn't Toyota, guys. And its loom manufacture was pretty successful - before the war, the looms of that company were much better than British and Dutch ones. Of course, during the war, weaving industry was bad, and no one was busy with it. And after the war, in nineteen-fifty-one, that sector experienced a full-blown crisis, and the top staff realized that their activity had to be changed. They had to do something. When all the country set a course for transport manufacture and mobility increasing, those guys also decided to participate. And in nineteen-fifty-five, as I just said, this car appeared. Suzuki Suzulight. Yes, guys, Suzuki also came out of cotton and looms, as well as Toyota. Why Suzulight was interesting? It had a front drive - that was an unreal innovation at that time, - an independent suspension on all axes, and a rail type steering box. Its sale numbers weren't great, but Suzuki didn't care about it really, because several years before that, in nineteen-fifty-two, some, also nameless engineer of Suzuki figured out how to fasten an engine to a bike. The engine capacity was thirty six cubics. Less than a shot, just so you know. It was clear why pedals were left. Well, legs were more powerful than the engine. But actually, jokes aside, pedals were left in order to get away and to help the bike to go up the hill a little. That device was called Power Free, and it happened to be wildly sought-after. The government noticed that thing, gave them money for designing of the new ones, and in nineteen-fifty-three, there was the Diamond Free model. Its engine had sixty cubic centimeters. Big block came up, you guys. That motorbike - it could be already called a motorbike - instantly won the race Mount Hill Fuji Climb in Japan. And from that mark, the triumphant parade of Suzuki in motorcycle sport began. By that moment, they were already producing eight thousand motorbikes a year, and for me, of course, Suzuki is a motorcycle brand first. Despite, you know, the car department being large, too, all the main victories and achievements of Suzuki lied in motorcycle sport. But either way, the first kei car was made in Suzuki. Of course, they couldn't do it without borrowing: they peeked many ideas from Lloyd Four Hundred, from Citroën Two CV, from Renault Four CV, and so on. And the original output was a tiny bit less than the production output of Ford Model T. Three or four vehicles in a month. They tried to absorb the market, but jokes aside, Suzuki is a very bright example of how the Japanese could work. The year nineteen-fifty-nine. Suzuki was feeling good and making motorbikes in meaningful numbers. Everything was good. September the twenty-sixth, 1959, all the Japan was blasted by some horrible shit known as typhoon Vera. That nuclear kibosh wiped off half the country and the Suzuki factory. Completely. Up to a screw. On September the twenty fifth, you have a factory. On September the twenty sixth, you don't have a factory. Good morning, loser! And Suzuki, like all Japan, were traditional: "Well, what should we do? We build a new one!" And in course of a year, they rebuilt the factory with a new assembly line, and completely launched the production. After another year, they designed a small truck named Carry that became very popular because of the typhoon Vera, indirectly, because everyone needed to rebuild. And after another year, just casually, they won Grand Prix. They won the first place. With their motorcycle. Once again! From scratch! The factory's built in a year, the truck's designed in a year that is still being produced and is a successful model of Suzuki. In the next year, they won Grand-Prix. The Americans, in the sixties, would have organized a strike with all their hearts, designed some lonely air cowl over those three years, and that would be all. And the Japanese rustled as they could. Carry is still being produced, the eleventh generation on the assembly line. Those were the sixties. We rustled as we could. Here's another fun thing. There was a concern, Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd; since nineteen-seventeen, it was in aircraft industry, railway engineering and shipbuilding. That was a pretty big concern sponsored by the Mitsui clan, and its main and the most famous department was aircraft department. Nakajima. They produced a hell of a lot of airplanes before the war and during the war. As all the military concerns in the country, they felt very bad after the war, and of course, they couldn't take any notice of that contest, and their engineering department participated. That's what they showed. Take a closer look again, doesn't it ring any bell? - Volkswagen Beetle, of course! - Well, whaaat is wrong with it? It's very "praktisch" to wear out blueprints of elders. Only it is called not Volkswagen Beetle. But Subaru Three Hundred and Sixty. The first Subaru stock vehicle. There was also a prototype, P-One, but it didn't make production. And that kei car was the first Subaru automobile. And by the way, this fact can put a period to the eternal dispute, what's better - Quattro or the all-wheel-drive of Subaru. Your first car is a Japan-snatched Volkswagen Beetle. Too bad! - Once more, it's not because I like VAG. - It's because of that! But we have to do justice! The Three Hundred and Sixty was one of the most popular kei cars of the first generation. Between nineteen-fifty-eight and seventy-one, they produced three hundred and ninety-two thousands. VAG is always great. VAG is always hot. Oh, get the fu... But the real king of kei cars was the company that since nineteen-sixty till nineteen-eighty-five, for twenty-five years, produced ten millions of vehicles. Just shocking volumes at that period. And that was one of the oldest companies in Japan that produced engines. And it was called Hatsudoki Seizo Co. What Co., would you ask? Hatsudoki Seizo Co.! It was founded in nineteen-oh-seven and was busy producing engines for industry - well, like, for mining industry, for some assembly lines, for energy industry and so on. In the twenties, in a common burst of car designing, they made a couple of prototypes, but those weren't very interesting, and they went to tinker with their engines till the thirties. And in nineteen-thirty, they produced this model, HA. A truck slash moped slash who knows what. And it became very popular. Those guys focused on creating of those three-wheelers, and the peak of this story was Midget. That thingy stayed on the assembly line between nineteen-fifty-seven and seventy-two, and they produced three hundred and forty thousands of them altogether. And since it was a super coked out who knows what, that number was really, really big. Do you remember tuk-tuks that are driving across all the India and Sri-Lanka? That thing is called Bajaj out there, and it's being produced by the Midget license. Do you know why you haven't heard anything about Hatsudoki? Because in nineteen-fifty-one, they renamed as Daihatsu. Daihatsu was one of the first Japanese companies that began to export its production, and for example, in the Boing company, in their warehouses, Midgets were driving. And all the top staff was satisfied with them because they were cheap, little, nimble, and they did all the functions. But Midget wasn't a kei car. As I said a few minutes ago, Daihatsu were the kings of kei kars. And in nineteen-sixty, they produced this thing. Hi-Jet. And with that model, they hit the jackpot. Because typhoon had harmed the country a while ago, and just a little kei truck like this was the very thing the country needed at that point. The demand for micro vans was off the charts. Plus, the government support. Plus, on its base, they made a fricking pile of different modifications. Do you remember kei car regulations? That limited geometrical sizes of the cars? Well, with that muzzle, the first generation didn't use all the space of the vehicle not quite rationally, at all. That's why, for the second generation, they designed a little truck without a muzzle. And look closer! Doesn't it ring a bell? Right you are, Volkswagen Type Two! A.k.a. T-One. That appeared thirteen years before. And Daihatsu didn't even explain away - "Well, yes! We stole VAG." - VAG again. - Somebody, shut him up already! I will beat him up! And you ask again why I like VAG - because VAG is a real vehicle! And all the rest is change ringing. And all the rest is change ringing. By the way, Daihatsu didn't buy any patents. They spoke openly that they stole Volkswagen, but Volkswagen had other problems than handling them. In the sixties, they conquered America. Hi-Jet is one of the most successful Daihatsu vehicles. Of course, there was a lot of different models, but Hi-Jet was the brightest. And in nineteen-sixty-seven, Daihatsu would be an official part of Toyota. Toyota Club, hello, in your midst, you have a Volkswagen. You fucked everyone off with Volkswagen. Do tell that the new Supra is BMW. But that was just great. Industrial growth! Japan got up off its knees! But do you feel it? Everything was toothless. Everything was milk-and-water. Kinda, done it? Done it! Invented something, produced something, conquered something. - There was a lack of some spark. - Anaaal! And thank goodness, that among all of those self-conscious, humble, known to nobody Japanese there was one a bat-shit crazy man. A real rock 'n' roller of the vehicle world. The time has come to meet Soichiro Honda. Chapter Nine. The Bat-Shit Crazy Genius Soichiro was a breath of fresh air in the whole history of the Japanese car industry. While learning his story, you'd at once run against a bunch of contradictions, stories, some events that altogether show him to be definitely an extraordinary person. Of course, all the creators of the Japanese car industry were extraordinary. I don't argue with that, but I've told you about the lack of soul. Everything you read and study seems to be written not about people but some robots. But Soichiro, he was like brilliant, crazy doofus, in the most respectful meaning of the word. He was born in a village not far from a region named Hamamatsu, in a family of a simple smith. Thank balls, at that time, there were no estates, no clans, no all of that, and Soichiro was able to make his way in life due to his talents. Well, the first and the main thing he did for his success - he lived. For example, five of his sisters and brothers didn't copy to the task. Yes, a hundred years ago, thirty percent of child mortality wasn't a surprise. Women got pregnant more often, and they didn't attach to kids at once. A shitty joke? Agreed. Here's a good one. The owners of Peugeot, Opel and a Chinese come to their bar, and say, "As usual." And get a beating. Okay, Soichiro! While being a kid, he didn't recognize any authorities and theoretical knowledge. That's why, he quickly pulled a plug on school and school education. His small Asian dick. His father was busy repairing bicycles, and of course, his house was littered with details, spare parts, anything related with bicycles. When he was fifteen years old, he found in his father's magazine a vacancy: the auto-service Art Shokai, resided in Tokyo, wanted a mechanic's helper. And as Soichiro wasn't interested in anything except technologies, he was like, "Perfect! That's what I need." And he went. On foot. Just with his teeny-tiny Japanese legs. To Tokyo. That'd be okay if not two hundred and sixty kilometers. You're too lazy to go shopping, but he walked two hundred and sixty kilometers. Of course, someone could have given him a ride on their waggons and everything, but along the most of the route, he just walked. Soichiro Lomonosov, my ass. Even if you construct a path in Yandex Maps from Hamamatsu to Tokyo, and check the box "on foot", Yandex Maps will say, "Try something else." You can try Google. Why didn't anyone also tell him to try something else? When he got to Tokyo, the dialogue was the following. "Hello, I'm here through the ad!" "Oh great! What do you do?" "Nothing, I'm only fifteen." "That's what we need!" He was taken. You should not joke about pedophilia! Pedophilia is the matter you should tend to seriously. Well, I'm obviously just messing around. He wrote a letter to them beforehand, and they answered, like, "Yes, okay, we take you in." and only after that, he went. And so, they took him into to sweep floors, to bring food to mechanics - the standard set: bring, serve, keep out of the way. I must say the idea of a job in the early twentieth century was a bit different, especially for such apprentices. All that his employer gave him was, like, "You sleep here; we will feed you." And he gave him a small amount of money for pocket expenses. There was no term "salary". Well, they took a kid to work for food, actually, so that he could gain experience over time and later, in a long run, in a couple of years, he could be a mechanic and to be paid with normal money. But everyone realized quickly that the kid was smart. That was especially obvious for the owner of Art Shokai, Yuzo Sakakibara. Who kinda began to teach him personally. Oh, you still should not joke about pedophilia! He taught him everything he knew himself - welding, forging, customer communications, and the vehicle-service, naturally. Here's a legend. In nineteen-twenty-three, during the Kanto earthquake, when Tokyo was burning, Art Shokai also caught on fire, and Honda, singlehandedly, drove three cars out of the fire. That said, he hadn't been at the wheel before, and in all Honda's biographies, they portray that as a step of courage and valour! Like, look, he kinda risked his life for vehicles. Of course, he would do that! He spent two years of his life for those vehicles! He would have surely gotten them out from the fire! After the earthquake, Soichiro became a mechanic, and it was amazing because he was seventeen years old. And the clients were very surprised when they called a mechanic, and got a seventeen-year-old. But that didn't bother Soichiro - 'cause when he showed the result of his work, and he could really start any engine, - the clients relaxed. The most important thing happened in this service - in nineteen-twenty-three, the owner, Yuzo, made a decision that they would take part in races. He took his younger brother, Honda and a few apprentices, and together, they started to invent their own sport vehicles. The first one was Art Daimler that had the engine by Daimler. And the second one is of the most interest for us. It's Curtiss. He had the engine from American Curtiss Biplane A-One. Its nickname was Jenny. Kinda, putting a plane engine into a self-moving waggon? "A great idea, I believe, we must do this right now and take part in races!" On November, the twenty-third, in the year nineteen-twenty-four, team Curtiss won the fifth championship of Japan. They won the first place. The pilot of the car was Sakakibara Junior. And Honda was the chief tech guy. That means, he was with him in the vehicle. At that time, there were always two men in a race car - a pilot and a tech guy. And after that victory, Honda blew his top 'cause of races. Since that moment and 'till the moment he died, the only thing that would be interesting for Honda were races. All his inventions, all his manufactures, everything that man was doing would be, one way or another, devoted to races, for participation in them, and for proving to everyone, like, "look who's daddy!" It was only a coincidence, that during that pursuit, he created a great company at the same time. But the main motivation was to show everyone who the daddy was. The victory brought fame to Art Shokai. And in the next five years, it was developing and opening branches all over the country. In nineteen-twenty-eight, Art Shokai opened a branch in Hamamatsu, Honda's home town, and he happily left for it to lead that branch. While the branch was under the full charge of Honda, he could do everything he wanted, Very quickly, along with auto repair, they took on tuning. They turned ordinary cars to fire trucks, widened bodies of busses so that more people could get in, and the most important - Honda had time for inventions. Just at once, he invented and patented metal wire spokes for wheels. They were wooden back then and - oh God, how surprising! - they could lose their shape and wear out because of water, dirt, dust and other shit. You had to change them a bit less often than DSG and turbo for VAG. Also, Soichiro was the first man in Japan that invented the hoist. Back then, while maintaining and repairing cars, you had to crawl underneath them, and so on. And Soichiro said, "It's not worthy for a man to crawl underneath the vehicle, the vehicle should hang in the sky." Here's the photo of 1935; and that hunk in sunshades and in a white suit that is leaning on a race car is Honda, and behind him, there are all the members of his staff. In the middle of the photo, here's the car modified from a usual one to a fire truck, with a water pump. And if you look closer to the right, you'll see a car hanging from a vehicle hoist. It was a very rare thing in Japan in nineteen-thirty-five. By the way, by thirty members of the staff, you could guess that the Art Shokai branch in Hamamatsu was very successful. And please note, already then Honda was standing in a snow-white working suit. All the fans, like... And if you are sane and don't understand what's the deal - on Honda's manufactures, everyone wore white clothes, always. And Honda himself always wore white work clothes. Even when they were going to give him a prize from the Emperor, and told him to wear a formal suit, He was like, "Go to hell, I'm wearing work clothes!" - "There will be no prize!" - "Alright, you've persuaded me." On every factory of Honda, all the workers wear white working clothes. That's a special test to see if it were dirty on the working place. And if someone's clothes would start to get smeared, that meant, something was wrong. One of the principles of Honda's manufacture. And the race car Honda was leaning on would play a cruel joke on him a year later. On July the seventh, nineteen-thirty-six, he entered a race with it. On Tamagawa Speedway. And near the finish, he slammed into a standing vehicle, turned over in the air, and was almost killed. But as I said, there were two people in the vehicle, A pilot and a mechanic, and Soichiro was a pilot, and his younger brother was a mechanic. Actually, Soichiro got away - well, with shoulder dislocation and slight concussion, and the young brother broke his spin in half. Soichiro lied in a hospital for a while, and on the next stage, in October, he participated again. And that was the last race in his life as a pilot. Here's the official version: Soichiro said, "It was because of my wife, She was begging me constantly, crying-whining, so that I stopped this because she really couldn't live without me." But when they asked the wife what it was, she was like, "What? Because of me!? Are you high, or what? His father just let him have it when he almost killed his brother. And he banned him from races, that's all." Kinda, men just being men. I would also have said that was my wife and not because my father fucked me with a gnarly mop. Incest is a family matter! After that, Honda realized that the shop wasn't enough. And he wanted to take up manufacture. Of piston rings, to be exact. He came to investors that invested money into his Art Shokai branch: "You guys! It's a deal!" They said, "What for? The service brings enough money, Why do we have to invest into some risk business? That won't do." In the end, Honda found a partner, Shichiro Kato, and together, they opened the company Tokai Seiki. Kato took over the post of CEO, and Soichiro locked up in the lab to invent a perfect piston ring. Anaaal! Right away, Tokai Seiki signed a contract with Toyota for supply of piston rings, and the first batch... They delivered fifty rings for a test. Guess how many Toyota took in. There was some reject rate. But not so large. Forty-nine? Forty-eight? Toyota accepted three. From fifty. For the first time, Honda was like... "Maybe, it wouldn't have hurt to study. Maybe - just maybe, eight grades of school education are not enough to invent a new piston ring. Especially, its production methods, casting and everything." In the end, after two years of studying in the technical university, he could make a perfect piston ring that could fit for Toyota. And in nineteen-thirty-nine, he leaves Art Shokai to completely concentrate on producing rings. Aside of Toyota, Honda began to work on Nakajima Aircraft, and as it was a military manufacture, he got under control of the state at once. During the war, Honda did three the most important things. First, he learnt to automate the production because of lack of people. Kinda all healthy big men went off to war. And geishas couldn't be engineers who make piston rings. Second, on request of Nippon Gakki, a.k.a. Yamaha, he also invented an automated machine that carved propellers for aircrafts. And third, he got out of the war being pretty handsome. When I learnt the next fact I'm going to tell you, I knew, that was it! Now Honda would be my favorite character of car industry, forever~ When the war ended, Honda's manufacture wasn't bomb-destroyed much, it could still function. Toyota offered four hundred and fifty thousand yen to buy all that manufacture from Honda. Honda agreed! And now you should guess what he did with those money. Did he invest in a new manufacture? Maybe, he began to invent some new things? Maybe, he set off on a journey to research other manufactures? No. He bought a tank with alcohol and got caned with his friends. A fucking tank of alcohol! Not a gas can. Not a barrel. A fucking tank! And all the following year, he was just making his village drunk. He was moonshining a home-made sake, whiskey, and plied with it all of his friends and neighbors. There was no job. Nothing to do. Tank up! The motto of self-isolation. Meanwhile, at the same time, in drunken haze, Honda invented a method of producing salt from sea water by electrolysis and supplied with salt all the village. And with alcohol. There was an evening some unidentified pal came to him with a kerosene engine from a wireless radio of the Emperor army. Back then, wireless radio worked on the kerosene engine. Yes. No less. And so, the pal came with that engine. Either their were drunk or sober, I don't know, and Honda said, "Mm, let's attach that thingy to a bicycle!" They turned a warmer to a gas tank, attached the engine, made a drive gear like a French VeloSoleX with such a roller on the front wheel. And Soichiro was like, "Oh wife! Put on your best clothes you usually put on..." "Take this thing and ride to town. Kinda, buy some bread." Well, the wife couldn't help it but obey. She put on what she usually put on and drove to the city center, and as such, all the city noticed that a woman in the clothes you usually put on was driving that funny thing. And the word spread across the neighborhood. Honda realized that the potential demand was off the charts, and he began to develop an engine, a normal drive, and to try making here something sensible. Actually, Honda's move when he sent his wife riding to the city center was a very wise decision because all the people around were seeing that there was a new waggon, easy-to-drive because a woman was driving. Plus, it wouldn't smear you because she was wearing a fancy what you usually put on. And everyone surely needed it. In nineteen-forty-six, Honda gathered a team of engineers, and they opened their Honda Technical Research Institute. They began to develop an engine and to try to attach it to a bicycle. There was no money. But employees agreed to work for food. I remind you, there were almost no jobs in the post-war Japan, but that work was something interesting, and they promised to feed you. Maybe, even tasty. And the tank wasn't emptied yet. As the result of all that fuss, in nineteen-forty-seven, Honda showed its first product - A-Type. The first moped from Honda. And it was sought-after, yes. But Honda didn't have capacity for producing. And the problem was that Soichiro on his own was a brilliant engineer, but as businessman, executive, he was really low. He had very big trouble with accounting, administrative management and sales. And though the main laurels are ascribed to Soichiro, like he was a genius who changed the vehicle world, he couldn't have done it and Honda wouldn't be Honda if in nineteen-forty-nine, they weren't joined by Takeo Fujisawa. Those two deem as the best duo in the car industry. After coming to the company, Takeo took all the administrative management, sales, finances. And at the moment when Soichiro had finally a tower of strength behind him, named Takeo, all Honda's competitors were headed for anal pains. Anaaal! Very quickly, during a couple of years, the two of them conquered the home market. In nineteen-forty-nine, when Takeo joined the company, they launched their first motorcycle, Dream Type D. Two years after Type D, there was also Type E, and in nineteen-fifty-four, there was the first scooter without hand-cranking. And inside Japan Honda actually didn't have any competition. Because they produced very reliable and very cheap motorcycles. But all of that was just a baby-talk. Honda never wanted to be like a leader of Japan. He wanted a global dominion. Well, okay! What was his plan? First, don't forget that Honda was crazy about races. There is one race, Tourist Trophy. And they are held on the Isle of Man, in Britain. This is an entertainment for some really mentally ill people. It's considered to be the most dangerous race of all the motorcycle sport, and I don't know the reason it's not shut down yet. The racers are rushing about with two or three hundred kilometers per hour on narrow streets with uphills, turns, and concrete walls on each side. Here's a couple of facts. One round is about seventeen minutes. The average velocity is two hundred and seventeen kilometers per hour. When you're driving like a boss around your neighborhood and seem to be a racer, open your trip computer, you're likely to see thirty or thirty five kilometers per hour. With Camry - forty! Here's over two hundred! The average! The record of maximum speed is three hundred and thirty one and a half kilometers per hour. And the next fact, very logical according to the previous numbers - the death toll is two hundred and fifty eight. There is also the so-called Mad Sunday - the day when each and every person could go into that round and kill themselves against the walls. Why were they like that? Motorcyclists. They fuck each other in the ass. And Honda was like, "People drive as fast as possible and die every so often? That's what we need. First, he was there a spectator in nineteen-fifty-four, and realized that bikes of the participants were far better than any bikes of Honda. On return to Japan, he acted in the very unique style of Soichiro fricking Honda. He gathered all of his staff and said, "Starting today, we are making the best bikes in the world. We have to win the championship on the Isle of Man. He got loans, tons of them. 'Cause Honda didn't have any money, it just began to be independent financially. And they had no money for developing sports bikes. Honda got loans and wrote an open letter to the press. Like, "I, Soichiro Honda, and my company screwed you all on a crankshaft, and we're gonna make the best motorcycles, and we're gonna be champions of the Isle of Man." He wrote that to all car manufacturers. I mean, bike manufacturers. "You are sad trash, and I'll show you!" An open fucking letter. Soichiro's balls were like this, I guess. Cohoneees! Just like that. As the result, bridges were burnt. You go big or you go home. Imagine the eyes of the employees when at some point, the old man said, "You guys! We're gonna tear them a new one, it's so much fun! I've got the loans, the tank is there." And in nineteen-fifty-nine, they made their debut in that race with four pilots - and with four motorcycles. The best result of four racers was Naomi Taniguchi's. He lived! In the category of one hundred and twenty-five cc, he was the sixth, but the most important thing was, all six bikes came to the finish line. At that time, that was a marvelous thing in and of itself when the manufacturer participated for the first time, and all their bikes made it to the finish line. Since that moment, the whole world began to realize that Honda was making reliable bikes. In the next year, nineteen-sixty, in the category of two hundred and fifty cc, Honda came up fourth, fifth and sixth, and in the category of one hundred and twenty-five cc - sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth. But in ninety-sixty-one, in both categories, one hundred twenty-five and two hundred and fifty, Honda won its places between the first and the fifth. Ten racers. Ten motorcycles. Ten first places. The bleachers were applauding just like that. Well, you understand my meaning. That was the greatness. Those races only, races in nineteen-sixty-nine, all the Honders have to thank for their engines to be spinning the fastest. 'Cause exactly that was the secret. Soichiro invented the engine that could handle fourteen thousands rotations per minute without breaking up during the whole race. And second, as they showed it to the whole world in motorcycle sports, in nineteen-fifty-eight, they launched such an inconspicuous bike for noodle delivery men. The original idea belonged to Fujisawa. He thought it would be probably cool to create a very simple, cheap and reliable bike that would be - first, very easy to drive. All the control gears on one handle, and then he could sell that bike to all noodle delivery men. Driving with one hand, holding noodles with another. Second! All its chains and hoses had to be completely closed so that those bikes couldn't make your clothes dirty. After Soichiro showed the prototype to Fujisawa, he was like, "A jaw-dropper! I would sell thirty thousand bikes a year without any problems, let's do it!" As was usually the case of that duo, they got a bunch of loans, they built another factory to produce that particular model, they built an assembly line modelled after the line of Volkswagen Beetle. Volkswagen, Volkswagen, Volkswagen! They spent ten billions of yen on the whole thing. At the rate of that time, that was a shit ton of money. All the analysts told them that was too expensive, the markets were overstocked, and that model would definitely not be worth of those big investments. They didn't realize who they were talking to. For the next fact, I want now to remind you about some numbers. The most popular means of transportation with combustion engine on this planet. Ford Model T - thirteen millions of produced cars. Fiat One-two-four - twenty or twenty-five millions of produced cars, plus all the variations and copies. Volkswagen Beetle - twenty-one and a half million of produced vehicles. Honda Super Cub. As of two-thousand-and-seventeen, a hundred million of produced vehicles. That's without Chinese copies. That's without licensed production. Original Honda Super Cub, twenty-seventeen, one hundred million. And the production is still going. That moped exists since nineteen-fifty-eight with little to no changes and is the most popular means of transportation on Earth. There's nothing else with a combustion engine that is produced in greater volumes than Honda Super Cub. It's just a rocket! Of course, such success couldn't happen without brilliant marketing; yes, it's clear the victory in motor racing gave the worldwide fame to the brand. Of course, the production was really great by itself, but either way, without marketing, it couldn't have worked. And look, how Honda bent down Harley Davidson on the US market - it's a different matter. When Soichiro came to the US to study the market and to find what's o'clock, he was blown away because only one percent of the US population was travelling on two wheels. And those were either the police, or bikers. Either way, those were bad boys. Not so pretty image of the target audience for small mopeds! And when Honda brought its production to the USA, a couple of years later, they launched some brilliant marketing advertizing campaign "You Meet the Nicest People on a Honda". So very quickly breaking the common concept that motorcycles were driven only by bikers, who took a shower once in a fortnight - not necessarily! - no one has ever done it. When Harley Davidson realized that they were screwing up the market at warp speed, they tried to answer with some advertizing actions - but that was useless. Well, just you look at those videos and the way how Honda was breaking the image. There are many ways to cover ground. You can be a man always in four wheels. There's nothing wrong with this. You have a lot of company. Or you can enjoy the sunny day like this. Only a good horse is hard to find. On the other hand, you may prefer the simplicity of two wheels. Of course, you put force to get up. But while replacing muscle power with horse power, you can ride a Honda. Saving your energy, enjoying the fun and the economy of two wheels. Honda is easy to ride. Even your brother-in-law will handle in a minute. And as for economy, Honda will never gulp gas. Just simply two hundred miles a gallon. And a Honda costs less than the whole set of golf clubs. It can go forty-five miles per hour all day without breakdowns. The engine practically takes care of itself. There's the automatic clutch with three speed limits. And as for safety, with Honda's brakes on both wheels, and you could stop on a dime. Here's a word play presented. In American dialect, "to stop on a dime" means a very short stop when you're riding really fast. Our nearest idiom is "to stop dead". You'll have a lot of fun riding a Honda. Of course, if you long for four wheels, how about another Honda? "If you long for four wheels", huh? Buy another Honda? They were brilliant! Well, like... It's the best advertising that I've seen in my entire life. That ad was being shown everywhere. They bought time during the Superbowl, on all the TV-channels. At some point, Honda was the sponsor of the Academy Award. Can you imagine Harley Davidson as a sponsor of the Oscar? In nineteen-sixty-one, Honda sold one hundred thousand bikes a year. In nineteen-sixty eight, it was one million bikes a year. And at that moment, they had already been the first in the world. And in the eighties, sixty percent of all the motorcycle market belonged to Honda. And in the early nineties, the volume of produced motorcycles reached the number of three million copies a year. But observant drivers could have noticed that not only Honda motorcycles are driving our public roads but also some weird and ugly waggons with four wheels. Hey, you! Round-Eyed! You call my buffet furniture? In the late fifties, when it was clear that Honda's domination on the motorcycle market was the matter of time, Soichiro was like, "I want the same thing with cars! I want the car world to be bent down!" The government told him at once, "Don't wait for our support. Because - hey. hello! We also have many car manufacturers, the market is narrow, we don't need any additional competition. Do you know what Soichiro said? Oh, get the fu... Without any support, just on their own, in nineteen-sixty-three, they launched a kei truck T-Three Hundred and Sixty. And it would seem perfectly logical if the first car produced by Honda wouldn't have been successful. But after four years, one hundred and ten thousand cars were sold. Then, it was a kei car for internal market, N-Three Hundred and Sixty. At the same time, Honda made a convertible. Yes! The red, foppish convertible. I think, it was just a gesture, like, "Look what I do! Go to hell, your fricking chumps!" Get fucked! For the Japanese government. And Soichiro wasn't interested in home market, he wanted global dominion. The key moment for spreading Honda worldwide was Civic. By that time, Japan was a full-fledged country again, it hosted the Olympic Games and many other world events. That's why the way to the outer markets was open, and it was generally clear what people wanted with a car that could be in theory a worldwide bestseller. The task was following: to make a maximum of a car with minimal sizes and minimal cost. Do you know what was their main problem in designing back then? That main problem was called Soichiro Honda. The development was a job of two engineer teams with ten people each. And they were developing separately from each other in order to present their concept and to join two concepts together so that a cool car could surely emerge. What's the joke? In basic moments, the two groups that had worked separately were united. And both of them presented a front-drive hatchback with east-west mounting and with independent rear suspension. And when Soichiro saw that, he said that he wouldn't allow it. Well, because... "Independent suspension? At the back? What for!? It has no advantages over dependent suspension, let's put the usual one." Debating with Soichiro was a bit complicated task. Just so you know, one of the members of the motorcycle racing team has a scar on his head. Because during a fierce argument, Soichiro threw a motorcycle cylinder at him. How's that for you, my beloved Doctors of Political Science and protectors of American unions? Well, the Honda union didn't show off about that matter. They didn't want a cylinder to their heads. And I think, judges in courts would also get a fucking cylinder. Honda had many cylinders, he knew how to aim. But we have to hand it to him. Soichiro, for the first time, after much debate, was like, "Okay, the independent suspension. Okay." And when those engineers saw Soichiro surrender, they said, "We want to make that vehicle without a trunk." And Soichiro, stooping to pick up a cylinder, "What d'you mean, without a trunk!?" "You see, we really want the form of the car to be fit in equilateral trapezium. We have that concept for the vehicle to have its own unique form, you see!" And Soichiro's reaction who just got insane, was something like that. "What the fucking fuck will it beee? Okay, I'm out, were is my tank?" The development lasted two years, and that was a record. No one could design a vehicle any faster. And those people who participated in creating of that car were praying for its commercial success. All of them realized - it had to be badass or they would have to face death from traumas due to motorcycle cylinders. And that was badass. Civic saw the light in nineteen-seventy-two, That was two years before Golf and four years before Fiesta. VAG is owned! Oh, get the fu...! It won the "Car of the Year" prize in Japan three times in a row. Three years in a row, Civic was considered the best vehicle in Japan. And since nineteen-seventy-six till seventy-eight, it was the most exportable vehicle. And in nineteen-seventy-three, Civic got an engine with CVCC technology. That engine was the killer of American companies. It was the killer for two reasons: first, it was the most eco-friendly and gas-saving engine of that time; and second, when the Americans saw it, they said, "We're gonna buy it. We can't do any better. We're definitely not gonna catch up with you ever." And in the midst of the oil crisis that was happening in nineteen-seventy-three, efficiency, eco-friendliness and reliability of Honda engines were undeniable advantages. Of course, as Honda was bat-shit crazy about races, they rushed into the motorsport just the same. Actually, the ways of Honda development in motorsport are a different story, but here I want to tell you about several main, important moments. First, the year nineteen-sixty-five. Two years ago, Honda had produced its first little kei car. And in nineteen-sixty-five, it won Formula One. In nineteen seventy-four, the pilot Bob Boileau built the first race car from Honda Civic. And he won six championships of United States in a row. And in nineteen-eighty-eight, with McLaren and Ayrton Senna, Honda won fifteen from sixteen races. In nineteen-eighty-nine, Alain Prost on a McLaren with Honda took the first place. And nineteen-ninety and nineteen-ninety-one also belonged to Honda and Ayrton Senna. The greatest racer from Formula One drove with Honda engine. With engine produced by the company the founder of which spent all of his young years on engines in a garage, while dreaming of a race car. And the final chord of Soichiro Honda was Accord! How did I say? You said some shit! When Accord was created, Soichiro had already resigned as the leader of the company and took part only as adviser. And the first generation of Accord, created in nineteen-seventy-six, that stayed on the line for five years, was a warm-up for appearing of a real, large monster. September the twenty second - by the way, it's my father's birthday - in the year nineteen-eighty-one, the first car was launched in the new factory in the US. And that vehicle was the Accord of the second generation. Since that day, and the next sixteen years, till nineteen-ninety-seven, Honda Accord was the most saleable vehicle in the US. In nineteen-eighty-nine, Soichiro Honda was added to the Automotive Hall of Fame of the US. Here's a quote of his speech. One day, when I was a kid, I saw a Ford Model T driving by. I chased it. And then I stopped at the oil stain that it left on the road. I was amazed by that smell. That episode changed my life and brought me to creating of cars. Soichiro Honda died on August the fifth, nineteen-ninety-one. He was eighty-one years old. He didn't pass his company to his sons, grandsons. He passed it to his employees, to his team. He always believed only in merits of specific people. Not in their regalia or lineage. The only thing Honda was interested with was the result. It's one of the brightest stars of car industry, as for me. In the world. Not Japan. Who was glowing with enthusiasm, had no mercy for himself or for others achieving his goals. The man who changed the world. Chapter Ten. The Most Illustrative Example On January the thirtieth, twenty-twenty, just a couple of months ago, one Japanese company turned a century. Initially, that company was called Toyo Cork Kogyo Co. As many others, before the war, they produced auto rikshas. During the war, they produced weapons. The most popular product was the rifle, T-Ninety-nine. In the kei car period, they made this. R-Three Hundred and Sixty. That was an average, good kei car. And the company was pretty average, too. Just before the moment as they showed that car. Familia. The fourth generation of that model has become the very quickest vehicle that reached the mark from zero till one million produced copies. That was simply some good, reliable, nice and cheap vehicle. And that was sky-high for Americans and British of that time. Because of the partial merge with that company, Ford was able to survive the agony of the seventies. Just imagine - Ford decided to buy some weird technologies and platforms from some weird Japanese company - that was really unheard-of for the fifties and the sixties. But the fact of the seventies. The name of that company is Mazda. And we know Mazda Familia as Mazda Three-two-three. The only thing I want to say of Mazda - that it was founded and is still situated in Hiroshima. Its factories saw the nuclear blast. And twenty years after that, they would sign an agreement with Ford. Everything cool Ford created after the year 1974, one way or another, was created with Mazda. The car maker that survived the nuclear blast. Perhaps, this is the key to understanding of the Japanese car industry. Theodore Roosevelt, the twenty-fifth US president, said once, "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are." Exactly that was the deal of all the Japanese car makers all of their lives. They did what they could with what they've got, where they were. Everything is ruined? Okay, let's make a couple of pots. We have to work for food for a while? But it's delicious. The country needs the smallest- and cheapest-possible cars? Okay. Let's set it up. We have to spare resources? Let's make everything efficient. Yes, the American vehicles of the fifties and of the sixties left a much brighter mark in history. because they were pompous, because they were very beautiful, and in general, they reflected the period of the common insanity on cars very vividly. But as for me, little hatch backs, kei trucks and motorcycles inspire much more respect than the whole American era. It's because making a big, pompous car with unlimited resources is a quite possible task. And making the best car in the world, the best moped or bike without anything but an idea - it's heroism, self-devotion and miracle. And for Japan, those micro-cars were a real miracle. And soon, they became just a norm for the world. The thought I want to finish with! Historical videos have one problem. I'm not a historian. More than a half of the info I've told you about today was new to me when I began to research this material. You should see, you should know what amount of materials, videos, texts and other stuff we had to examine! How many disputes there were in my head and inside our production as we were preparing the video. How many discussions if we should include this piece or not include that other piece. How should we organize that huge amount of information into one coherent and supposedly interesting video? I hope that we made it. I'm standing before camera yet, and the only thing we know is the timing of the source material. I don't know how long the final video would be. I don't know how much you would like all of our work. The only thing I know, we did the best we could. We, most definitely, surpassed ourselves creating this video. It's up to you know. The fate of this video is in your hands. We are powerless at the moment when you're watching this video. It's further existence depends on you. And we're gonna rest. A little. The next historical video awaits. Thank you. Bye. Created by - Stas Asafiev. Camera, editors - Daniil Gudkov, Pavel Avdeev, Georgiy Criyevinsh. Project manager - Sergei Semyonov. You didn't repost it? Oh, get the fu...!

Channel: Асафьев Стас

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Keywords: асафьев, стас, документальный фильм, документалка, япония, японский автопром, промышленность, автомобильная, митсубиси, митсубиши, дайхатсу, тойота, мазда, хонда, хино, исузу, ленд крузер, крузак, субару, mitsubishi, daihatsu, toyota, mazda, honda, hino, isuzu, land cruiser, packard, studebacker, volkswagen, beetle, фольксваген, студебекер, пакард, детройт, detroit, история создания, японские машины, утопия шоу, ян топлес, артур шарифов, жук

Id: OCoxzyrgRi8

Length: 162min 39sec (9759 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020