by David Vivian
Cosmologist Carl Sagan probably said it best. Sagan’s paean to the planet, written after seeing a photograph of Earth taken by Voyager 1 from a distance of 3.7 billion miles – the now iconic ‘Pale Blue Dot’ – had, perhaps surprisingly, a very human resonance. ‘Look again at that dot,’ he wrote. ‘That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.’
Although a little more prosaic, engineer Soichiro Honda saw this vision when he said ‘because the water raises rice and the fishes live in the water, I don’t want to contaminate it.’ He, too, was talking about that same, fragile, beautiful pale blue dot. A place filled with water and home to the many beings that cherish it.
Five decades of marine engines
Fifty years have passed since Honda launched its first marine outboard engine. Although two-stroke engines dominated the market back in 1964, Honda’s advanced GB30 four-stroke model was significantly cleaner and quieter than its rivals. Since then, the company has striven to deliver on Soichiro Honda’s promise of a safer, cleaner marine experience for ‘all those who admire the oceans, lakes, rivers – all those who appreciate the beauty and power of nature’.
It has meant forging a cutting edge through innovation and evolution: technical advances such as PGM-FI (Programmed Fuel Injection); VTEC (Variable Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control); lean burn control and Honda’s unique BLAST (Boosted Low Speed Torque) have led to an unparalleled level of customer satisfaction around the world by combining high performance with low emissions and outstanding fuel efficiency.
Honda’s commitment to a philosophy that harmonises advanced technology and environmental responsibility has also inspired master craftsmen to hone their skills and absorb Honda’s way within their own work. ‘I worked to perfect every detail of mahogany boat-building to make my customers’ dream a reality,’ says Ryutaro Sano, a ninth-generation master builder at the Sano Shipyard in Tokyo. ‘Honda outboard engines have an elegance that harmonises perfectly with my boats. The shapely body line that goes from the propeller to the top of the outboard, the form that encases the V6 engine – the BF225 doesn’t just look good to the person in the pilot’s seat. It’s also the perfect match for the round tail of the boat as seen from behind.’
The incredible melding of cutting-edge technology and timeless craftsmanship depicted in this video is mirrored in many other areas of design and manufacturing. Dream uncovers three of the very best:
The Colnago – innovative design, meticulous attention to detail and peerless craftsmanship
Racing bicycles by Colnago
It is said every Colnago bike begins with the soul and creativity of Ernesto Colnago and the Colnago family. Since 1954, Colnago’s determination to perfect the competition bicycle has played out with innovative design, meticulous attention to detail and peerless craftsmanship. Racing legend Eddy ‘The Cannibal’ Merckx, who won just about everything after he joined the Molteni team riding Colnagos in the early 1970s, destroyed the world-hour record in 1971 on a bespoke bike that Colnago developed using a titanium stem, drilled chain rings and alloys that were so advanced they had to be made in the United States because the technology required was not available in Europe.
Boldly creative since his earliest days as a mechanic, Colnago has produced some of the most admired and innovative bicycles, from the Mexico, with its crimped Columbus tubing, to the various incarnations of the Master, with its unique star-shaped tubing and straight fork, which helps to reduce rider fatigue. Colnago, as used by the Honda Wiggle pro-cycling team, remains arguably the most coveted racing-bike brand among enthusiasts all over the world.
Design revolution: Unto This Last create high-quality furniture at mass-produced prices
Unto This Last furniture
‘Unto This Last’ is the title of an essay written in 1860 by John Ruskin. Dismayed by the human cost of the Industrial Revolution, he advocated a return to the local craftsman workshops. It’s taken a while but, with the help of modern technology, London-based furniture manufacturer Unto This Last is making Ruskin’s ideal of distributed manufacturing happen. Operating out of a workshop close to the city centre, UTL eschews dependence on heavy industrial processes in favour of innovative digital tools adapted to the small workshop.
Making furniture to order, it holds no stock and is therefore able to offer more than 100 product lines (that’s more than 2,000 products when you include size and finish options) from a small, energy-efficient location. And because there are no warehousing, transportation or packaging overheads, this model for on-demand, High Street micro-manufacturing, can produce high-quality furniture at mass-produced prices.
Proof that the humble turntable ‘needle’ is still the ultimate in hi-fi sound
The Koetsu cartridge
Sugano Yoshiaki began making hi-fi cartridges as a favour to his friends as part of his love for his hobby: high-end audio. He’d had a long, successful career in the Japanese automobile industry (at Toyota) and approached cartridge design as an artisan, perpetuating the tradition of excellence he’d learned from the example of the famed Hon’ami Koetsu – who came from a family of highly honoured appraisers of Japanese swords – and went on to become a multi-disciplined craftsman with skills in the arts of painting, calligraphy, lacquering, and ceramics.
Sugano became heir to this legacy of superb craftsmanship in service to art and named his cartridge company after the master Koetsu (the Japanese characters for which translate as ‘light’ and ‘pleasure’). Sugano-san passed away in 2002, but his legacy lives on in his son, Sugano Fumihiko, who, like his father, is committed to producing nothing less than the world’s finest cartridge. All materials must pass a stringent test for purity and musicality. When combined with the art of hand-wound coils, innovative construction techniques and the centuries-old tradition of hand craftsmanship in the arts of woodworking and painting, the result is a musical masterpiece.
