Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa established Honda Motor Company in 1949. At the time, the Japanese automobile industry was nearly nonexistent. Japan produced less than 32,000 cars and trucks in 1950 whereas the United States manufactured 8 million. Honda’s first product was the D-Type motorcycle. It would take three decades for Honda to start manufacturing their motorcycles in the United States. Shige Yoshida, vice president of Honda of America Manufacturing in Marysville, Ohio, on December 1981. On April 7, 1977, Japanese and American business leaders and Ohio government officials gathered in the fields of Allen Township near Marysville to break ground on Honda’s $25-million motorcycle assembly factory. The first motorcycles rolled off the assembly line on Sept. 10, 1979. Left to right: Al Kinzer (Manger of personnel and associate relations), Nario Kauamura (Engineering project manager), Bob Muth (Manufacturing manager), and Shige Yoshida (Executive vice president). American Honda Motor Company's motorcycle assembly plant in Marysville, Ohio opened in 1979. The following year, the State of Ohio sold a 260-acre parcel of land to Honda to expand their manufacturing operations and build their first automobile plant in the United States. The land was part of the state’s expansive Transportation Research Center, a research and testing facility established in 1962. Employees work on Accords at the American Honda Motor Company's automobile assembly plant in Marysville, Ohio. The plant opened in November 1982. On Nov. 1, 1982, the new Honda plant completed the first Accord manufactured in the United States. The approximately 2,000 newly hired associates brought the plant up to full capacity, producing 135,000 vehicles by 1984. In 1987, the Ohio Senate voted nearly unanimously to sell Honda the 7,500-acre Transportation Research Center near East Liberty, Ohio, where the company opened a second automobile assembly plant. Tadashi Kume, CEO of Honda Motor Company, shakes hands with Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste during a press conference announcing new Honda plants in Ohio on September 17, 1987. Ohio welcomed Honda as a source of job growth. American consumer demand for smaller and more fuel-efficient cars was growing in light of the oil crisis of the 1970s and growing environmental consciousness. The Honda Civic was the first vehicle to market that met the emissions standards of the 1970 U.S. Clean Air Act. Soichiro Honda (Honda, Sōichirō, 1906-1991), Japanese founder of Honda Motor Company. Honda and his wife Sachi Isobe visited Columbus, Ohio where he accepted an honorary doctorate degree from Ohio State University on June 8, 1979. However, the arrival of Honda in Ohio was not without growing pains. Some Ohioans opposed the tax breaks used to incentivize Honda’s development since critical infrastructure like wastewater treatment, freight rail, and expanded road access all required state support. In the Midwest, the success of the largely nonunionized Japanese car makers as American competitors laid off employees reignited World War II-era anti-Japanese sentiment. Some protested Honda’s development in Ohio outside the Marysville facility on June 29, 1983, favoring vehicles from American manufacturers. The Japanese American Citizens League remanded Ohio Gov. James Rhodes in 1977 for using pejoratives for Japanese people in public statements about Honda, even though he was working to bring the company to Ohio. Vincent Chin’s violent murder by two white autoworkers in Detroit is an especially tragic example of the racism Japanese and other Asian communities in America faced at the time. Despite challenges, Japanese Honda employees and their families settled into central Ohio. Initially, most families lived in Dublin and Worthington, growing suburbs with newly built housing stock. By 1985, more than 100 Japanese families resided in those communities. Honda even funded a family center to help newly arrived families settle into their American lives with the help of Koichiro Shinagawa, nicknamed “Coach”. More than 5,000 people attended the second Honda Friendship Festival hosted at Mad River Mountain Resort in 1981. Friendship Festival was one of many efforts Honda made to build a positive reputation with local communities. In 2025, Honda employed 4,600 associates at the Marysville plant and could produce 220,000 vehicles annually. It continues to make the Accord and has added the Accord Hybrid, Acura TLK and Acura Integra to its product line. Maria Lee is a Librarian with Columbus Metropolitan Library. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: How Honda came to Ohio: Motorcycles, cars and a ride not always smooth