What’s the world’s most numerous motor vehicle? Honda produced 60 million Super Cubs in the fifty years from 1958 to 2008, and with worldwide production still running at well over four million a year since 2004, the total is likely over 80 million as of the end of 2013. For comparison, Ford produced 15 million of the Model T from 1908 to 1927, Volkswagen produced 21 million Beetles from 1938 to 2003, and Toyota had made 40 million Corollas as of 2013, but in 11 distinct design generations.
The Super Cub has introduced tens of millions of people in numerous countries to motorized transportation. One of those countries is Vietnam, where the Super Cub arrived during the 1960s and continues to be a national institution as the do-everything vehicle. The streets abound with Super Cubs of all ages, hard at work every day for their owners who pilot them without nostalgia or consideration of their status. They are true living classics.
Americans have seen the Super Cub before, but not in substantial numbers since the 1960s. First imported in 1959 as the Honda 50 (Piper Aircraft owned the rights to the Super Cub name in the U.S.), it was the subject of the legendary “You meet the nicest people on a Honda” advertising campaign. Honda designed it to serve as the most basic transportation, with a four stroke 50cc single cylinder engine producing a mere 4.5 horsepower and a top speed of some 43 miles per hour. It delivered over 100 miles per gallon gas mileage along with unprecedented reliability and durability.
A horizontally mounted cylinder and pressed-steel backbone frame with a low structural member, often called an “underbone” frame, gave the Super Cub a convenient step-through configuration and a very low center of gravity that made it easy for beginners to handle. The Honda 50 faded in the U.S. market as Honda emphasized its increasingly large displacement sports machines, last selling in the U.S. in 1984 as the C70 Passport with an enlarged 72cc engine.
In Vietnam, on the other hand, the Super Cub started a dynasty of single cylinder Honda motorcycles that has ruled the country’s motor vehicle market since the 1960s. An example of the original Super Cub is on the right, its underbone frame fully visible with the bike’s leg shield removed. To its left are two examples of the Honda Dream, a 1980s evolution of the Super Cub design with an enlarged 100cc engine and a telescopic fork in place of the Super Cub’s leading link fork. On the far left are two of the Honda Wave, a further development of the Super Cub concept from 1996, with a new tubular steel underbone frame, plastic bodywork, and 100cc, 110cc, and 125cc engine options, with the 125cc version the first to be externally enlarged and incompatible with the original Super Cub engine mounts.
All three are in production simultaneously, and together they make up the vast majority of the motor vehicles in Vietnam and continue to dominate sales in what has become the fourth largest market for motorcycles in the world, with 2.69 million new motorcycles sold in 2010.
The Super Cub lineage also includes blatant copies produced in China. This Chinese-made Loncin directly copies the horizontal single cylinder engine, underbone frame, and overall layout of the Super Cub, with a telescopic fork making it similar to a Dream. Lower-priced Chinese copies of the Super Cub grew in popularity in Vietnam during the 2000s, but the genuine Honda product remains universally preferred. (Note that the owner of this Loncin felt the need to put H-O-N-D-A stickers on his front fork, in an attempt not to look like someone who could not afford a real Honda.)
Part of the reason for Honda’s ongoing domination of the market in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia is that since the late 1960s, the company has been offshoring manufacturing of its small motorcycles to the low-wage countries of their end users. Honda started producing the Super Cub in Vietnam in 1997, and in 2011, Honda expanded its manufacturing in Vietnam to three plants with a total capacity of 2.5 million motorcycles per year.
The Super Cub first arrived in Vietnam during the 1960s in the middle of the Vietnam War, and it immediately became a mark of prosperity in what was then an agrarian society. Many Super Cubs in the streets look like they date back to this era, such as these three parked across the street from Ben Thanh Market in Saigon. They are rusty, dented, casually spray painted, and missing parts all over, but they continue to serve their owners as faithful everyday transportation.
The vast majority of Super Cubs and their descendants are from the 1990s onward, after Vietnam moved away from socialism and began to experience rapid economic growth. They include these two shiny Waves parked with their uniformed owners, slightly down the street from the bikes in the previous photo. Next to them are two Waves painted in the style of sport bikes all over the world, in Repsol colors.
Super Cubs, Dreams, and Waves all are seen on the streets carrying prodigious loads. An entire family of four riding on one is nothing unusual, seen many times each minute on any busy street, with the children riding on the laps of their parents. Equally common are these motorbikes carrying cargoes that defy belief. Bags hanging from handlebars, baskets strapped to the back, boxes and buckets balanced on the seat and between the rider’s legs, huge bundles of rice bags or plants – riders in Vietnam do it all, every day.
Often, riders do not bother using straps or other tie-downs and simply rely on gravity and occasional use of their left hands to keep their cargoes secure. All normal, with not worth a moment’s attention from anyone.
A stack of water bottles taller than the rider’s head is not enough, when all of that additional space between the rider’s lap and the handlebars is also available.
Need propane for cooking or heating? A Super Cub will handle your large cylinders with ease.
Propane home delivery service? No problem for the Super Cub!
Three wheelers made from the rear halves of Super Cubs routinely accomplish feats of strength that one would believe to be impossible using only 50cc. Delivering two plate glass windows, complete with their entire frame assemblies, is a job for a full size pickup or van back in the U.S. In Vietnam, it is just another everyday job – albeit a very slow moving one, probably spent entirely in first gear – for a Super Cub three wheeler.
You are probably getting the impression that Super Cubs are like the UPS trucks of Vietnam. You would be only partly right, because the Super Cub and its derivatives are the actual UPS trucks of Vietnam. Big Brown Trucks are nowhere to be seen, but there are Small Brown Motorbikes. The top boxes of the delivery bikes give more security than the simple tie-down straps (or gravity and hands) used by most people, but never having seen anyone in Vietnam lose their cargo, I think that the top boxes make UPS’ delivery riders look like amateurs.
I would prefer to have my deliveries made by these guys. In case you can’t identify what they are carrying, it’s a full length mirror approximately six feet/two meters tall. Carrying this awkward and un-aerodynamic cargo clearly was of no great concern, as I could see them smiling and casually chatting at stoplights. Other favorite outlandish cargoes spotted but not photographed were a four wheeled hotel luggage cart (the passenger sits on the frame loops, easy!), stepladders, and a pole at least 8 feet long in a solo rider’s left hand, making him look like he was heading to a Super Cub Joust tournament.
Keeping Super Cubs running is an easy task given their reliability and ease of repair, and numerous well-equipped garages see to it. Major work being easy on these simple machines, though, the sidewalk often suffices as a workshop for most jobs. This sidewalk repair shop appeared to be permanently in business at a busy street corner, with pedestrians constantly walking through it. The Wave on the right, next to the blue chair, had its engine completely disassembled, cylinder and crankcase broken down into parts on the sidewalk for a complete engine rebuild.
Vietnam’s rising prosperity under its increasingly free market economic system has allowed some Vietnamese riders to go beyond the old Super Cub and its derivatives. Bigger-displacement Japanese machines are sometimes seen, such as these three Honda sport bikes wearing many of the usual accessories seen on such machines in the developed world, including carbon fiber exhaust cans and remote reservoir shock absorbers. A few Ducatis appear on the streets, with the normally diminutive Monster actually looking monstrously large amid the Super Cubs, and Vietnam’s first Harley-Davidson dealership opened in late 2013. The Super Cub and its descendants will continue to abound in Vietnam for many decades to come, though.
Many years from now, the Super Cub may achieve the status of a coveted classic in Vietnam as a newly affluent generation, driving BMWs and minivans, stops using them as everyday transportation but decides to collect the machines of their youth. Honda regards the Super Cub as one of its foundational products, part of the soul of the company, so much so that it made an electric EV-Cub one of its featured concept vehicles in 2009.
In Western countries where its time as a mainstream vehicle was short, it has been widely acclaimed, featured in the Guggenheim Museum’s Art of the Motorcycle exhibit and declared the greatest motorcycle of all time in the Discovery Channel’s The Greatest Ever series. In Vietnam, where the Super Cub and its derivatives have been the main motor vehicle for several decades and have had great economic and cultural impact, the Super Cub’s place in history and in people’s memories is assured. With the Super Cub already in production for 55 years, the design will be a senior citizen in human years by then, with many people in Vietnam in their family’s third generation of Super Cub ownership. It is a remarkable chapter in the story of motor vehicles that is still being written.
Wow…these photos challenge many Americans’ obsession with the alleged safety and utility of SUVs and pickups.
That being said, I’m not getting rid of the 20-year-old beater truck I keep for runs to Lowe’s, the dump, and for days when the snow is piled too high for the Mustang’s ground clearance. 🙂
No, its not an obsession with safety. Over the past forty years we’ve turned into a nation scared to get out of our own beds without armor, padding, and liability lawyers. We’ve turned into a nation of cringing cowards.
+ 1
I remember vividly my first ride on one of these proto-bikes. Parochial school, 1965, and my second grade teacher used hers to take turns bringing a lucky student to the local ice cream parlor on their birthday.
Needless to say, this was not a Biking Nun. She was a lay teacher, and based on the FACT that she was young, brunette and absolutely gorgeous, I’d have to agree with the description.
My first sight of them was the summer of 1964 (I was 14) when a girl about 5-6 years older than me bought one and hid it at her uncle’s (our next door neighbor) because her parents would have gone berserk if they knew she’d bought a motorcycle. Came around every weekend to go riding that summer, shortly after it disappeared. Rumor had it that dad found out, came over, chewed his brother out, and sold the bike out from under her. Well, she was under 21 . . . .
These pictures really drive home the average American’s obsession with vehicles that are, quite frankly, too large for the daily commuting. While I’ve ridden a motorcycle on the daily commute in rotation with whatever car I’ve got at the time, it was my three year ownership of a Jinan Qingqi 150cc scooter that really opened my eyes regarding what’s needed (and desirable) for commuting.
As long as you’re talking top speeds of under 55mph (and, quite frankly, how often do you do 55 in rush hour traffic on city streets?) a scooter puts everything else to shame. Easy to mount/dismount, the CVT transmission makes controls minimal (two brake levers, one throttle, handlebar switches for lights and a kill switch), incredibly good at cutting thru traffic, very fast off the line at a light; a scooter puts a motorcycle to shame for the daily commute. What it does to a CUV daily shows how bloated a vehicle those are.
Oh, and my daily commute is 20 miles each way, thus the 150cc model. Never could see the little 50’s, as their effective range in my eyes is about five miles, and that’s bicycling distance for me.
After three years almost flawless service (yes, the Chinese do build quality vehicles) I sold the scooter during a period of layoff, and am back on my two motorcycles for daily transportation. However, I keep looking at the Honda PCX150 we’ve got sitting on the showroom floor, and watching my budget. Hopefully, this spring . . . .
While working at a university in Daegu, Korea, for several years, I had a side job right across town and there was no way I was going to make it there in a car as the traffic was bad. Instead I had a Hyosung Sense 50 cc scooter. In Korea, no licence or insurance was required. I’d ride on sidewalks, the wrong way on a one way, you name it, anything went. The step design was great as it was wide and perfectly flat. I put a huge wire basket on the back, too. With the both of these, I could use my Sense to very efficiently transport three dozen bottles of beer. These were no namby-pamby bottles like here, but 640 ml monster! That’s a lot of beer, but I carried whole grocery loads on the thing. It cost me peanuts in run and if I lived in a climate like that again, I would have one in a second. It was just like a second set of legs, so much so I basically gave up walking anywhere and gained a whole bunch of weight, combined with the beer, of course….
Careful there Syke. Not fair for you to decide if my vehicle is right-sized for my family. None of your business!
You’ve still got a PCX150 on the floor? Please tell me you’re not in the West.
Honda House of Richmond, VA. It’s red.
Oh good. I really don’t want to ride a PCX150 across country. You’ve saved me a lot of money 🙂
I occasionally visit Richmond from where I live in northern Virginia. Next time that I do, I will try to visit Honda House!
Richmond seems to have become quite a center of motorcycling in recent years, being the city of the Ural importer and of at least one noteworthy custom café racer builder.
We’ve always had a wonderful motorcycle community down here. It had a lot to do with my moving down here in 1998. Ural importer? I think you’re talking Velocity motorcycles. Take the Boulevard exit off I-95, go about eight blocks, turn right, one block. Eric’s wonderful people.
You have captured the reason why the Super Cub and its derivatives rule the streets in Vietnam and will continue to do so for many years. Small motorcycles and scooters thread their way through city traffic easily in Vietnam, while cars there constantly have to stop and wait for large enough holes in traffic to open up for them in a mass of motorbike and scooter traffic. It helps that mass motorcycle use was there first, so that generally accepted behavior there has car drivers obliged to avoid the motorcycles rather than the other way around.
The Super Cub has the important advantage of using a semiautomatic gearbox with no clutch lever, leaving one of the rider’s hands free, much like on a scooter with a CVT. The use of a semiautomatic with only a foot pedal control was the result of the original design taking into account the needs of noodle vendors in Japan, who during the 1950s were accustomed to carrying a tray of noodles in one hand while making their deliveries by bicycle!
Speed does matter, and the very low speeds that predominate in Vietnam are a factor in the ongoing mass use of 50cc Super Cubs. In the city, riders spend most of their time at a leisurely 20-25 kilometers per hour, less than 15 miles per hour, speeds that you would not have to be Usain Bolt to outrun on foot. You would not want to go faster, because in a country with very few traffic lights and no stop signs, and no one obeying the few rules of the road anyway (riding the wrong way down one way and even two way streets, riding on sidewalks, and ignoring red lights are completely accepted there), you never know when another vehicle will cut across your path. At those speeds, a 50cc Super Cub or 100cc Dream is humming along smoothly like a sewing machine, and more engine displacement is pointless. The few Harley-Davidsons, Ducatis, and large displacement Japanese bikes seen there are good for making loud noises and announcing that you are a foreigner or a richer than average Vietnamese, but they have no advantages as transportation. Their weight and extra bulk actually make them worse, since they are clumsier at winding through Saigon’s congested traffic.
I have often commuted by motorcycle, and I have always preferred it as a vehicle for my typical solo commute or for short trips to the store for small items. I actually seriously considered buying a classic 50cc or 70cc Super Cub/Passport for this purpose last year, and a Nighthawk 250, the favorite of every beginner motorcycle course motorpool, would be more than adequate as well. Coincidentally, a version of the Nighthawk 250 with a large two-up seat, hardbags, and a siren and lights, is the standard police vehicle in Saigon, where it looks like a very big motorcycle compared to the Super Cubs.
The great Peter Egan has written some fabulous stories about the Super Cub, and James May drove a Super Cub during the equally fabulous Top Gear Vietnam Special, watch it if you haven’t already.
I’ve ridden a Trail 50 extensively but unfortunately never a Super Cub. I think the main reason you can commute on a Super Cub year round in Vietnam is that it never snows there.
I agree with Syke that 150cc is probably the minimum required to keep up with North American traffic and not be flattened by Enormous SUV’s. Those little 20mph electric scooter things give me the willies!!
I have seen the Top Gear Vietnam episode, but did not know about Peter Egan’s writings about the Super Cub. Peter Egan is always a good read, so I will have to track down his Super Cub articles.
Regarding conditions in Vietnam that make the Super Cub an ideal vehicle, not just a barely adequate one, see my lengthy response to Syke above.
I rode a Honda 50 quite a few times in the mid 70s. A friend’s dad owned one and also a Honda 90. The family would trailer them to some vacation property in northern Michigan, and my friend and I would ride them all over creation. It is the only motorcycle that I have significant handlebar time on.
I remember it as being extremely smooth and civilized, and a lot of fun to ride. Actually, something like this would be a perfect commuter bike for me now.
I did not know that these were called Super Cub elsewhere. When I saw the headline, I thou thought that we would be discussing a classic small plane.
Once a common sight on UK roads and factory bike sheds(when the UK had factories).I’ve never ridden one as I would look like a performing bear on a tiddler!
You can still buy a Taiwanese knockoff in the States. It’s called the Sym Symba 100, and it sells for around $2400. being from Taiwan, they have a stronger reputation than bikes from the mainland.
http://alliancepowersports.com/models/Symba.html
You meet the nicest people….
There were many MUCH nicer looking young women on Super Cubs in Vietnam, where sitting sidesaddle while wearing a miniskirt (or the very long traditional dress) seems to be a skill learned at a very early age, but I didn’t photograph any, not wanting to appear to be a pervy foreigner. Instead I focused on photographing old men with bizarre cargoes, which is probably far weirder. 🙂
Of course, the Cub aka 50 makes an apperance in the Honda “Impossible Dream” ad
Honda 50 scooters were popular here never heard of this underbone thing they were sold as stepthrus here Ive ridden one, slow and reliable but I’m bigger than the average aisian
You might be surprised at how big people in Vietnam are these days. Generally, anyone over 30 grew up in poverty and is short, but those below 30 grew up much better fed, and most are as tall as the average American. The same thing happened in Korea a quarter of a century ago. At 5 feet 9 inches, I am no taller than average in Korea these days and ran into many young Vietnamese taller than I am.
The word ‘underbone’ describes the construction of modern stepthroughs, like the Honda Wave, new Super Cub 110, etc, with a tube frame hidden under a plastic external bodywork, to differentiate them from the original Cub’s pressed steel frame. (a ‘conventional’ frame in countries where all motorbike were built that way!)
The word is often misunderstood by westerners to mean any kind of stepthrough frame.
Axctually these resemble the CT90 used by the Aussie post office for letter deliveries and fitted with a dual range transmission were a farming favourite backinthedays
This bike has been on my bucket list forever. Within the last year I’ve started looking through Craigslist ads again looking to see how doable it would be to find one here. Turns out it’s not a big problem, so sooner or later…
Great article Robert, and fantastic pictures. Climate aside in many areas, it would be interesting to see OUR society using these as the normal mode of transportation. People would live where they work, I think we would get along better as no-one is cocooned within a steel cage, and everything might be a bit more relaxed.
Thanks for that article, it made a long day more manageable!
Somewhere I have a photo of myself as a toddler in the 60s, sitting on Dad’s new Honda 50 with my helmet on, waiting for him to take me for a ride. That little red machine was the subject of much derision by my Triumph and Indian-riding uncles, but for me it kicked off a lifelong love of motorcycles.
The uncles eventually moved on to Harleys (naturally) but I stayed with Honda for decades, until I got my current ZX-6R Ninja. Although that I’m living in a congested city, I’m constantly thinking of downsizing.
When I was growing up in most northern Japan we would wait about 6mo. after PaPa san got new model & hit up MaMa san for the oldie left in the 39inch space between houses. Fire them babies up, remove everything non ecential then practically ride them into the ground with one final jump off a tall pier into the ocean. Suspension sucked for our purposes but it helped that we weighed like 65lbs. I’m Extremely hard on everything & everybody in my 55years & to date they were the hardest to kill.
My dad had the c70 version for years. Gas was expensive in the u.k and we were poor so the car rarely got used, dad using the Honda for every trip where the whole family didn’t need to go.
My main memories of it were it’s unfailing reliability. Dad knew nothing about engines and never laid a spanner on it, but it just kept motoring on, it’s extreme economy- it could go the two miles from dads work to our house just running on the fuel in the pipe before you needed to turn on the fuel tap- and that it was utterly terrifying on motorways. Dad fitted a full height front screen. This knocked the top speed from 50mph down to 45.
A great article .
My very first Motocycle was a 1960 Honda Cub, the 50CC C100 , the ‘Super Cub’ had a 55CC engine .
These were push rod engines with cast iron heads, as mentioned, almost impossible to kill though I and most other teenaged riders tried mightily and daily .
After over 50 years of riding I too have come full circle and ride my Tiddlers more than I do my full size BMW air cooled twin .
The more traffic there is, the more sense a Tiddler makes .
-Nate