Manlys: A Honda journey from two wheels to four

Bill and Lori Manly were the first Honda car dealers in the United States.

The couple, who originally had a foreign-car repair business in Santa Rosa, Calif. before selling automobiles, started their relationship with Honda in 1959 selling the brand's motorcycles "because they looked like fun," Lori Manly told Automotive News.

In fact, the pair sold so many Honda motorcycles the company awarded them a "Holiday in Japan" trip in 1967. While touring the Honda factory there, they saw the brand's first car — the N600 — on display. When Honda started awarding U.S. dealerships, the Manlys asked to be the country's Dealer One.

"We saw this little Honda car and we thought, 'Oh that would be great,' " Lori Manly said. "At the time, our cars were big Buicks and great big cars. Because the motorcycles were very successful, people knew the [Honda] name, so it wasn't completely out there."

But the decision was not without risk given U.S. consumers' initial hesitancy to accept a car that small and outfitted with an air-cooled 600cc motorcycle engine. The car had little acceleration, and Lori Manly recalls people laughed at it.

"When they showed a picture of it on the freeway with all these American cars, it surely looked like it was going to be crushed. But we took them on," she said.

The Manlys' daughter Rita Case worked at Honda of Santa Rosa (later changed to Manly Honda of Santa Rosa) beginning at age 10, and she drove an N600 back and forth to high school. The dealership sold its first N600 in 1970, with Rita then-Manly as a salesperson in the showroom.

Compared with domestic competitors in 1970, the N600 had a low sticker price of $1,295 and high fuel efficiency, Case said. The 1973 U.S. oil crisis that sent fuel prices skyrocketing helped the Manlys' Honda car sales.

"It was at a time when cars were expensive, and people were looking to conserve, and college kids needed transportation," Lori Manly said.

Car sales grew and while the Manlys remained dealer principals, Case was general manager from 1976 until 1980. Bill Manly died in 2017, but Lori Manly is still active in the business. She goes to the dealership daily, reviewing dealer operations with her son Brian, who is dealer principal.

Case is now CEO of Rick Case Automotive Group, which ranks 24th on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups in the U.S.