Honda rolls out first plane, a business jet based on high-heel shoe design

Honda, known for making motorcycles and cars, is showing its new sleek business jet in Japan for the first time, billing it as quiet, quick and green, Thestar.com reported.

The jet, on show at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Thursday, is the culmination of founder Soichiro Honda’s longtime dream to have a plane in Honda Motor Co.’s lineup.

Honda Aircraft Chief, Michimasa Fujino, told reporters he hopes the jet will become available within a few years in Japan, where regulation means the private jet market is almost nonexistent.

Today, it is on sale in the U.S. and Europe.

The jet, which seats six or seven, starts at $4.5 million. Honda has received 100 orders, and deliveries are likely to begin later this year.

“I know people are working hard for deregulation,” Fujino told reporters. “It won’t happen immediately, but there is a chance in the long run.”

He said Japanese government officials and others, for whom saving time is critical, should use such jets and fight the “fat-cat image” of flying on executive jets.

Fujino said the potential is also great for China and the rest of Asia, where demand is likely to overtake South America’s by 2020.

Development of a jet began in 1986 at Honda, several years before the death of its founder in 1991.

The HondaJet, as it is called, the design of which was based on a Salvatore Ferragamo high-heel shoe,
rolled into a hangar at Haneda.

The aircraft, built in North Carolina, is set to fly into other airports in Japan, including Sendai and Kobe, before heading to an aviation show in Geneva.

Fujino said the HondaJet adheres to top safety standards and outperforms the equivalent offerings from Cessna of the U.S. and Embraer of Brazil in both fuel efficiency and the altitude it can reach.

Honda is out to change the aviation industry in the same way it changed American auto culture, Fujino said.

The company was instrumental in influencing North American auto tastes with its Civic and other popular nifty models offering reliable engines and excellent mileage.

Honda already makes cars, boats, lawn mowers, scooters and the Asimo robot. The HondaJet marks its foray into aviation.