| Home | - | Photos | - | Orders | - | Retail Store | - | Contact Us | - | Motorcycle History | - | Museums | - | World Records |
| Yale History | Zundapp History | Yamaha T-shirts |
Yamaha Motor Company Limited, 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[citation needed]. 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.
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, Eddie Lawson, 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 monoshock 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.
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.