Hotaka Industrial Co., Ltd., Nagoya city , Aichi Prefecture, 1950-91
株式会社穂高工業所
The Hotaka Industrial company is possibly better known for its products which were sold under the Hodaka (ホダカ) brand. Hotaka started out producing transmissions and then engines for several motorcycle assemblers of which the largest was Yamaguchi (others included Toyo Motors, Rocket Company and Kitagawa Automobile). Per the Japanese language Wikipedia, at its peak, Hotaka was delivering 4000 engines per month to Yamaguchi, which represented 70% of Hotaka's engine supply business, so when Yamaguchi folded in 1963 Hotaka had to move quickly to also avoid bankrupcy. This is where it got interesting because PABATCO, which was in turn owned by a subsiduary of my old employer Royal Dutch Shell, had been selling Yamaguchi machines into the US. The collapse of Yamaguchi meant PABATCO had a dealer network with no product, and so they arranged a deal with Hotaka to produce complete motorcycles. This arrangement resulted in the Hodaka line of motorcycles which were sold between 1964 through to 1977 when Shell terminated the agreement. The company lingered on but finally folded in 1991.
The Hodaka machines ranged from 80cc through to 250cc and were all 2 stroke machines. There are many excellent on-line sources and also a few good books available that tell the story of the development, success and final failure of the Hodaka brand of machines, so I won't cover it here.
