While 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of Ford's Model T, a machine that mobilized America, it also marks the 50th anniversary of the Honda Super Cub, the scooter that accomplished a similar task across Asia.
Introduced in 1958 as the C100, the Cub was Honda's attempt at an affordable means of urban transportation - and with a 4-hp, four-stroke 50cc one cylinder, often coupled to a semi-automatic gear box, it quickly developed a cult following.
Over the past fifty years, Honda has built over 60 million examples of the Super Cub and its derivatives (in contrast, Volkswagen manufactured only 21.5 million copies of the original Beetle across sixty-five years) and continues to sell the bike today.
Remarkably, outside of modern fuel injection systems, today's Super Cub differs little from the original. Production of the bike occurs in fifteen different countries, and Honda has just finished prepping a new assembly line for the Super Cub in Kumamoto, Japan.