New in the Honda Collection Hall this year: the 1954 Dream Type E. The first Honda raced outside of Japan. image by jules ryder

One of the best things about going to the Japanese GP every year is
the chance to visit the Honda Collection Hall, better known as Honda's museum. It's a double-fronted three-story building, the top floors are occupied by permanent exhibitions of everything Honda has built and raced but the ground floor is different, it changes. This year there was a great display of an astonishing variety of 50cc Cubs, but just as you enter the foyer on the righthand side was a bike I'd never seen before, in fact I'd only ever seen one photo of it—in the book Mister Honda.

This is the first Honda to race outside of Japan, the 1954 Dream Type E that was sent to Brazil in 1954 to compete in races celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of Sao Paulo. Mikio Omura finished thirteenth and by all accounts Soichiro Honda was shocked by the discrepancy of performance between his bike and the opposition. One month after the Sao Paulo races he made that famous declaration announcing Honda would compete in the Isle of Man TT.