Today Japanese manufacturing giant Honda are known for cars, twist & go plastic scooters, and motorcycles – one of which has just powered MotoGP ride Marc Marquez to another championship winning season.
But back in 1954 the fledgling company produced its first scooter, Juno K-Type.
At the time the Japanese scooter industry was dominated by Fuji Heavy Industries with its Rabbit (FHI famous today for their Subaru cars) and Shin Mitsubishi Heavy Industries with its Silver Pigeon (again, SMHI today more well know for their cars).
The Honda Juno featured a 220cc 4-stroke, 3-speed engine with a self-starter, a large windscreen, direction indicators and FRP (fibre reinforced plastic) body panels.
Considered an over-engineered project with less than 6,000 examples produced, the development of the Juno did however pave the way for the use of FRP on a later, more successful scooter-type vehicle for Honda; the Cub.
If you’re one of our European readers, then you can see a Honda Juno in the flesh – and it is a very impressive scooter for its time – at the Museo Scooter & Lambretta near Milan in Italy.