The man who stepped on Honda's gas: Tadashi Kume

As soon as he graduated from college as an engineer, Tadashi Kume opened his "eyes" to Honda. He understood mechanics very well and was appreciated for his brilliant ideas. That's why he had a good relationship with the company's founder, Soichiro Honda, "Honda-san", and his words and suggestions were listened to carefully. In this way, he first became the president of the company, and then made Honda one of the most important automobile manufacturers in the world. His heartbeat with Honda for decades finally stopped last month (September 2022), when he was 90... But his legacy doesn't seem to fade easily...

Tadashi Kume (2 January 1931 – 11 September 2022) was a Japanese businessman who was the president and CEO of the Honda Motor Co., Ltd.

Like I said, he was actually an engineer. His main area of ​​interest was engine design. For this reason, he was developing for racing motorcycles in the motorcycle division, which was the area Honda knew best at that time. After a while, the engine of Honda's "RA302" Formula 1 car was also produced by Kume.

The automobile division was trying to make a name for itself with models with small, air-cooled engines. Kume, on the other hand, predicted that these air-cooled engines would be an obstacle to the growth of the company in the future, and that it would have difficulty meeting the emission norms, especially in the American market.

He took his place in the development team of the first generation Civic, which enabled the brand to make a big breakthrough all over the world. He also played a major role in the creation of the CVCC (the first Civic was sold under that name in the US market) engine, which could be described as "clean" at the time. But he didn't want to be content with that.

With whom he was on good terms, Honda-san was the biggest supporter of air-cooled engines. However, Kume thought the opposite and argued for the importance of the company's transition to water-cooled engines. The success of the Civic vindicated Kume, and Honda's "sink" auto division made a huge splash. However, he could not convince Mr. Honda, and he got into heated arguments with him from time to time. Finally, he started to react by reducing his working days for a while, when an interesting development occurred and Tadashi Kume was announced as the third president of Honda.

Kume, who took over the company in 1983, could easily implement his ideas... In 1984, Honda announced that it would double its production in the USA. It wasn't enough, he thought that after the Civic, a larger sedan body model should be produced for the American market, which is very important for the company. The Accord thus emerged, surpassed Toyota, which had a significant share in the USA, in 1985 and received the title of "Best Selling Car".

‘We are not competitors!’

As Kume detonated one bomb after another, adding to the company's reputation in the automobile business, even experts in the automotive industry were stunned by this development. As a matter of fact, Honda, which is considered among the "small manufacturers" in Japan like Mazda, started to play for the leadership. Because with the steps he took, he started to inspire Toyota, which he had followed in the past. As a matter of fact, Honda, which created a separate luxury brand like Acura for the American market, was also increasing the number and capacity of its production facilities there. Toyota followed suit and created the Lexus. However, despite all these developments, Tadashi Kume remained modest: “The difference in numbers is obvious. We're not even close to Toyota. We are not even strong enough to be seen as competitors, we just try to produce good products and make our customers happy.”

Despite saying so, Honda's image has also changed under Kume's administration. Beginning to be known for innovations, the company's headquarters in Tokyo was moved from Harajuku to the more expensive Aoyama area.

Officially 'blew up' the brand

However, what Kume had in mind was not limited to what he wanted to do. He believed, for example, that Honda needed a "super sports car". For this, he played an important role in the famous “NSX” project. Well, why shouldn't a brand that is so active and successful in motorsports take advantage of this and produce a super sports car... While the famous Formula 1 pilot Ayrton Senna was testing the vehicle, Kume had personally introduced it at the fair.

Kume, who made great efforts to return the brand to Formula 1, also initiated the construction of the "Twin Ring Motegi" track, which is owned by Honda and hosts many important races in Japan. It was not enough, the ASIMO robot and HondaJet projects, which made a great impression all over the world and gained an important prestige for the brand, were also initiated under the leadership of Kume.

Kume, who nearly flew the brand until 1990, was now handing over his duties to Nobuhiko Kawamoto in 1990, but he would not leave his job with Honda by being on the Advisory Board for years... Until he passed away at the age of 90...