We at JNC love the Honda Super Cub. Honda recently passed the incredibly impressive milestone of having sold 100 million units since the Super Cub’s debut in 1958. That’s the same sales figures as the Volkswagen Beetle, Toyota Corolla, and Ford F-series pickup, combined. To celebrate the occasion, as well as the upcoming 60th anniversary of the Super Cub next year, Honda has released two videos that are basically love letters to the iconic bike.
The first one, called “Cub with Me,” shows exactly why the Super Cub has enjoyed so many sales. Versatile and durable, it has permeated every facet of Japanese life. Whether student, farmer, or courier, rural, urban, or coastal, you can’t live in Japan without crossing paths with a Super Cub.
Another video shows how the Super Cub is made. Since 1991, Japanese market models have been built at the Kumamoto factory in Kyushu, Japan. A surprising portion of the assembly is still done by gloved hands. Of course, not all 100 million have emerged from this plant. The Super Cub has been built in 20 countries on five continents.
Honda has also created a special website for the celebration of the SuperCub. It describes the Super Cub as unique to Honda, Japan, and the world, representing “unchanged values” in a world that is rapidly advancing. On it, they are collecting photos from Super Cub riders who upload a photo to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #カブ1億台 (Cub 100 million). The images will eventually be put into a mosaic. There’s also an extensive background on how the 60th anniversary logo was designed, a timeline of Super Cub models, and a gallery of all the Super Cub badges through the years.
Just an amazing sales figure. Congratulations Honda on such a successful motorcycle for 60 years!
Oh… and the videos are really cool!
The Super Cub really is the ultimate example of a product where, as long as Honda keeps making them, people keep buying them. It’s such a central part of Honda’s image, I don’t think the Cub will ever go away. I’m calling it now, we’ll eventually see an electric Honda Cub once petrol starts being squeezed out of the market.
The thing I don’t understand: Honda is selling 100 and 150cc models with developed emission control for European countries (they’re about to go on sale again in the UK). People are buying lots of scooters in the big cities here in the US, and these things would eat them alive, and fit in with the range of scooters American Honda already sell here. I’d buy one in a hot second !