Pengarang buku ini, wartawan ternama dan mantan ketua editor International Business Times, Jeffrey Rothfeder, berkata: "I interviewed dozens of Honda insiders, auto industry experts, car enthusists, economists, globalization gurus, and corporate analysts for this book."
Katanya lagi: "I also pored through voluminous research material about Honda, its history, its industry, its competitors, its strategies, its principles, and the economic landscape it is navigating."
Beliau selanjutnya menyenaraikan 105 dokumen, yang beliau sifatkan sebagai 'the most valuable documents', yang menjadi rujukan beliau bagi menyiapkan Driving Honda: Inside The World's Most Innovative Car Company. Salah satu daripada dokumen yang membicarakan hasil inovasi Honda ialah artikel dalam majalah Fortune 7 Mac 2008 bertajuk Inside Honda's Brain.
Perenggan pertama Inside Honda's Brain mendeskripsikan robot manusia ciptaan Honda, Asimo - hasil usaha penyelidikan, pembangunan dan inovasi jurutera Honda selama dua dekad. Inilah wajah Asimo yang dirakamkan pada majlis pembukaan Auto Zurich Car Show di Switzerland pada 8 November 2012.
Bagaimanakah Honda mampu melahirkan robot manusia Asimo (asimo ialah singkatan Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility)? Jawapannya dihuraikan oleh Rothfeder dalam Honda's Innovation Machine, bab ketujuh Driving Honda. Antara catatan pemerhatian beliau dalam bab ini:
"Honda R&D experimenting with concepts and features that further mobility...encompasses a broad spectrum of products including robots, planes, cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers, snowblowers, and tillers...Some of the research is essentially applied R&D, ...but other R&D efforts are much more basic, such as the study of the kinesics of cockroaches and bees to better understand of movement."
Beliau selanjutnya memetik pendirian pengasas dan presiden pertama Honda, Soichiro Honda: "We do not make something because the demand, the market, is there. With our technology, we can create demand. We can create market.".
Keperibadian dan daya wawasan jaguh industri permotoran, Soichiro Honda (1906-1991) (gambar sebelah), yang bermula sebagai pelatih mekanik motosikal dan kereta di Tokyo ketika berusia 15 tahun, dibentangkan dengan terperinci oleh Rothfeder dalam The Smell of Oil, yang menjadi bab kedua buku ini.
Antara catatan Rothfeder dalam bab kedua: "He (Soichiro Honda) never received a diploma, which he described as 'worth less than a movie ticket. With the ticket, you can at least enter the movie house and spend an enjoyable evening; but a diploma is by no means a sure ticket to life. I don't give a damn for the diploma. What I want is the knowledge.' That he obtained. Enough so that before long he held twenty-eight patents related to piston rings and piston ring manufacturing."
Banyak lagi catatan menarik, rahsia kejayaan serta penemuan yang tidak ternilai harganya berkenaan Soichiro Honda dan syarikat multinasional Honda Motor yang dipersembahkan oleh Jeffrey Rothfeder dalam Driving Honda.
[ Penerbit: Portfolio/Penguin. Tahun: 2014. Tebal: 310 muka surat (kulit keras). Harga: RM106.50 (MPH) ]
