Masaaki Sato's career as a business journalist enabled him to see firsthand much of the evolution, struggles and fascinating men who built Honda, the youngest of Japan's automotive giants. Sato does a masterful job of weaving together the ambitions and conflicts between the strong personalities of the Honda Founders with the economic, industrial and political upheavals that tipped global automotive power in Japan's favor and vaulted Honda into Japan's Big Three despite the obstacles thrown in its way.

From the top Japanese auto-industry journalist comes this inimitably informed account of Honda Motor Company's birth out of the ashes of World War II and subsequent rise. As gripping as it is enlightening on far more than just its main subject, Sato's unbiased reckoning won.him Japan's premier nonfiction award. Available in English for the first time with a new chapter exclusive to this edition and prefaced by Paul Ingrassia, The Honda Myth is indispensable reading for industry insiders, business leaders, and car enthusiasts.

The first Japanese automaker to open a factory in the U.S., Honda grew its North American share in the 1970's with the introduction of the first environmentally friendly car, the Civic. Just as the manufacturer's combination of engineering excellence, racing dominance, and risk-taking was driving it into the international spotlight, however, its trademark free-spiritedness was threatening to take a backseat to bureaucracy and complacency.

Foreword by Paul Ingrassia

Prologue

Chapter One: Headhunting

Chapter Two: One Part, Two Players

Chapter Three: A Double Suicide

Chapter Four: Solidarity of the Ordinary

Chapter Five: The Weight of the Dons

Chapter Six: The Law of Transience

Chapter Seven: Lord of the Kids

Epilogue

Afterword

Update: In the Troughs of Consolidation