60 years & 100 million x Honda Super Cub

Probably most of you have not noticed, but the most sold motorcycle is a light motorcycle, or in fact a moped, from Suzuka: the Honda Super Cub. Since the introduction in 1958 up to now (2018) more than 100 million pieces have left the factories.
After Soichiro Honda in 1946 started with the prduction of clip-on engines, with the simple type name A, a lot of successors of the A followed, ending with the last clip-on engine (a 98 cc engine) named Cub F. Also in Japan the interest of the public shifted towards light motorcycles, the kind called Moped by the Germans.
With a group of developers Honda came to Europe to look how the market developped over there. Takao Fujisawa saw that the youth here moved around mainly on mopeds like NSU Quickly, Kreidlers, Puch and Zündapp Combinette, also due to the easy use with a low step on, and the sheet metal chassis (which were cheaper to produce than the traditional tube frames). Back in Japan a project with the code name Super M (from Merchandising) was started. The scooter principle with its too small wheels was not suited for the Japanese market, and therefore the choice was made for 10 inch wheels, a light engine of 50 cc without electric starter and with a low compression, which made that it could also be used with lesser quality fuel (low octane number). The driver was protected against splashing water and engine oil by a plastic shielding around the engine.
As name Super Cub was chosen, referring to the last clip-on engines but with the prefix Super, that was generally used in the 50-ies. So this became the first moped with standard protection of the driver against the weather, a closed chain guard and direction indicators.
In these years it was common use to sell motorcycles through importers, but Honda choose to open its own dealerships worldwide. This made that already in 1962 the own import could be started in the Netherlands.
We could fill this complete newsletter with the development of the Super Cub, but what counts is what is available for us as philatelists. On the occasion of the jubilee Japan Post has issued a few nice compilations.
Earlier we already mentioned the stamp sheet issued in 2008, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary:

In 2018 the approach was a bit more ambitious and 2 compilation boxes about this motorcycle were issued.
The first contains 6 pins and a special sheet personalised stamps with images of the Super Cub throughout the years. On the box the special jubilee logo from Honda and a word of thanks in various languages.

Front of the 1st jubilee box

Contents of the 1st jubilee box, on the left the sheet personalised stamps

A Super Cub pin

The second box is a bit thicker, as this one had to accomodate a real metal scale model of the Cub. The perosnalised stamp sheet differs from the first, but contains a few of the same images.

Front of the 2nd jubilee box

Contents of the 2nd jubilee box, on the left the sheet personalised stamps

The Super Cub scale model from the box

The success of the Honda Super Cub has lead to a lot of clones of this model so we may conclude that this model has changed the motorcycle world.
Much information given here originates from Wikipedia.

Hans de Kloet

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