( ), a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company. Yahama Motor is part of the Yamaha Corporation and its headquarter is located in Iwata, Shizuoka. Along with expanding Yamaha Corporation into the world's biggest piano maker, then Yamaha CEO Genichi Kawakami took Yamaha into the field of motorized vehicles on July 1, 1955. The company's intensive research into metal alloys for use in acoustic pianos had given Yamaha wide knowledge of the making of lightweight, yet sturdy and reliable metal constructions. This knowledge was easily applied to the making of metal frames and motor parts for motorcycles. Yamaha Motor is the world's second largest producer of motorcycles after Honda . It also produces many other motorized vehicles such as all-terrain vehicles, boats, snowmobiles, Yamaha outboard motors, and personal watercraft.
The Yamaha corporate logo is composed of three
tuning forks placed on top of each other in a
triangular pattern.
In 2000,
Toyota and
Yamaha Corporation made a capital
alliance where Toyota paid Yamaha Corporation 10.5 billion yen for
a 5 per cent share in Yamaha Motor Company while Yamaha and Yamaha
Motor each bought 500,000 shares of Toyota stock in return.
Racing heritage
Yamaha has a long racing heritage where it has had its machines and
team win many different competitions in many different areas,
particularly in motorcycle racing. Yamaha has had great success
with riders such as
Bob Hannah,
Heikki Mikkola,
Kenny Roberts,
Wayne
Rainey,
Jeremy McGrath,
Stefan Merriman,
Chad
Reed,
Valentino Rossi,
Ben Spies, and currently James Stewart. They won
the supercross championship two years in a row (2008 and 2009) with
the YZ 450F(One with Chad Reed, and the other with James Stewart).
Yamaha has won a total of 36 World Championships, including 3 in
MotoGP and 9 in the preceding 500cc 2-stroke class, and 1 in World
Superbike.
Yamaha created the innovations which lead to the modern motocross
bike, as they were the first to build a production mono-shock
motocross bike (1975 for 250 and 400, 1976 for 125) and one of the
first to have a water-cooled motocross production bike (1977 in
works bikes, 1981 in off-the-shelf bikes).
Since 1962, Yamaha produced production road racing
grand prix motorcycles that any
licensed road racer could purchase. In 1970, non-factory
"privateer" teams dominated the 250cc World Championship with Great
Britain’s
Rodney Gould winning the
title on a
Yamaha TD2.
Yamaha also sponsors several professional ATV riders in several
areas of racing, such as cross country racing and motocross. Yamaha
has had good success in cross country with their YFZ450, being
ridden by Bill Ballance, winning 9 straight titles since 2000.
Yamaha's other major rider, Traci Cecco, has ridden the YFZ450 to 7
titles, with the first in 2000. In ATV motocross, Yamaha has had
success with Dustin Nelson and Pat Brown, both who race the YFZ450.
Pat Brown's best season was a 3rd place title in 2007, while Nelson
has had two 1st place titles in the Yamaha/ITP Quadcross, one in
2006 and the other in 2008.
The company also produced Formula One engines from 1989 to 1997,
initially for the
Zakspeed team and later
for
Tyrrell. These never won a race,
but drivers including
Damon Hill,
Mark Blundell and
Andrea de Cesaris scored some acceptable
results with them.
Motorcycle models
Yamaha has made an extensive number of two- and four-stroke
scooters, on-road and off-road motorcycles. The
Yamaha XS 650, introduced in 1970, was an
early success. The Yamaha
RX-S 100
introduced in the RX models but with an energy induction in 1980s.
In 2009, Yamaha introduced the first production in-line four
cylinder with a cross-fire crankshaft orientation, technology
derived from their MotoGP racebike.
Scooters
- See also List of
scooters
All-terrain vehicles
Snowmobiles
Yamaha has recently claimed a 100%
four-stroke snowmobile
line-up, making them the only snowmobile manufacturer to do so. In
Canada though, there are still three models that Yamaha
manufactures that are still two-stroke. They are the Bravo, VK 540
and the Venture XL. Yamaha had introduced four-strokes to their
line-up in 2003 and the line-up became four-stroke based for model
year 2005. Many say that Yamaha has proven snowmobiles can be
clean, efficient, and reliable all while maintaining strong
performance. The RX-1 released in 2003 was the first
performance-oriented four-stroke snowmobile to ever hit the market.
It was not, however, the first modern four-stroke snowmobile
produced.
That honor belongs to Arctic Cat for their Yellowstone Special,
released in 2000, which was designed as a rental sled that could
meet Yellowstone
National Park
's stringent emission requirement. However, the
Yamaha received much criticism for its weight disadvantage when
compared to similar two-strokes, despite its excellent fuel economy
and low-range
torque. Yamaha is now on the
cutting edge of four-stroke technology with the introducing of
their 80FI engine which is equipped on the Phazer and Venture Lite
models. This engine has one of the highest
specific output of any four-stroke in
production, with 160 HP/L, Yamaha achieves this even without the
use of a
forced induction system.
Yamaha is also a key player in the "four-stroke wars", which are a
series of advertisements from opponent
Ski-Doo who claim their 2-tec and power-tek equipped
two-strokes are still cleaner and more efficient than four-strokes,
while Yamaha still claims the four-strokes are cleaner. Yamaha also
broke a multi-year absence from sno-cross in the winter of
2006/2007 with their introduction of a factory race team headed by
former
Arctic Cat racer Robbie
Malinoski.
Current line-up
WARRIOR XV 1700
- Apex
- Nytro
- FX Nytro
- Phazer (4th Generation)
- RS Vector
- RS Venture
- VK Professional
Significant previously produced models
Other vehicles
Yamaha has also built engines for other manufacturers' vehicles,
most notably the
V-6 and
V-8 engine for the
Ford Taurus SHO. The
Volvo
XC90 uses a larger version of the same Yamaha V-8 engine. They
also built
Formula One racing engines
from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, with little on-track success.
In 1991, Yamaha developed its F1 engined
supercar called the
OX99-11 where two drivers sit in tandem in
front of the engine, but the project was cancelled due to the world
recession and lack of interest.
Yamaha also tunes engines for other
manufacturers,
Toyota being one of them.
Yamaha logos are, for instance, found on the
Toyota S engines. as well as the
2ZZ-GE utilized by
Toyota,
Pontiac, and
Lotus.
Yamaha developed a prototype for a two-seater sports car with help
of
Albrecht Goertz. While the
Yamaha/Nissan partnership never progressed beyond the prototype
stage, Toyota took up the design and released the
Toyota 2000GT.
Other products
- Wheelchairs
- Snowblowers
- Remote-controlled helicopters
- Outboard motors
- KT series 2 stroke karts
- Wheelchairs
- Water purifiers
- Industrial equipment
References
-
http://www.yamaha-motor.com/outboard/products/lifestylehome/home.aspx
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