Yamaha Motor Corporation

Yamaha Motor Company Limited (ヤマハ発動機株式会社), is a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company. Yamaha Motor is part of Yamaha Corporation and its headquarters 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 produces motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, boats, marine engines including outboards, automobile engines, personal watercraft and snowmobiles.

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 in which Toyota paid Yamaha Corporation ¥10.5 billion for a 5 percent share in Yamaha Motor Company, while Yamaha and Yamaha Motor each bought 500,000 shares of Toyota stock in return.

Yamaha Motor Company was founded by Torakusu Yamaha (in Japanese 山葉 寅楠 Yamaha Torakusu); 山葉 Yamaha means "mountain leaf".

Yamaha Motor divisions

 * Motorcycles — Sport bikes, Star Cruiser bikes, trail bikes, road racers and motocrossers
 * Commuter vehicles, including scooters
 * Recreational vehicles — All-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles
 * Boats — Powerboats, sailboats, utility boats and custom boats
 * Marine engines — Outboard motors, electric marine motors, marine diesel engines and stern drives
 * Personal watercraft
 * Electric bicycles
 * Automobile engines
 * Industrial-use unmanned helicopters
 * Golf cars
 * Power products — generators, multipurpose engines, water pumps and snow throwers
 * Swimming pools, watersliders and pool-related equipment
 * Intelligent machinery, including compact industrial robots
 * Electric wheelchairs and wheelchair electric drive units
 * Yamaha parts and accessories, apparel, cycle helmets and motor oil
 * Industrial robots and surface mounters

Racing
Yamaha produced Formula One engines from 1989 to 1997, initially for the Zakspeed team, in 1991 for the Brabham BT60Y, in 1992 for the Jordan 192, from 1993 to 1996 for Tyrrell, and in 1997 for the Arrows A18. These never won a race, but drivers including Damon Hill, Ukyo Katayama, Mark Blundell and Andrea de Cesaris scored some acceptable results with them.

Automobile engines


Yamaha has built engines for other manufacturers' vehicles beginning with the development and production of the Toyota 2000GT (1967) with the Toyota Motor Corporation. Also, the cylinder head from the Toyota 4AGE engine was developed by Yamaha Motor Corporation and was built at Toyota's Shimayama plant alongside the 4A and 2A engines. Some other high performance Toyota engines developed by Yamaha are the 1LR-GUE engine found on the 2010-2012 Lexus LFA and the 2ZZGE engine found on the 1999-2006 Toyota Celica GT-S. In 1984, executives of the Yamaha Motor Corporation signed a contract with the Ford Motor Company to develop, produce, and supply compact 60° 3.0 Liter DOHC V6 engines for transverse application for the 1989–'95 Ford Taurus SHO. From 1993 to 1995, the SHO engine was produced in 3.0 and 3.2 Liter versions. Yamaha jointly designed the 3.4 Liter DOHC V-8 engine with Ford for the 1996–'99 SHO.

Yamaha also tunes engines for other manufacturers, Toyota being one of them. Yamaha logos are, for instance, found on the Toyota S engines.

Snowmobiles


In 2010, Yamaha was the only snowmobile manufacturer to use four-stroke engines across its range. 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. The RX-1, released in 2003, was the first performance-oriented four-stroke snowmobile on 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, Yamaha received much criticism for its weight disadvantage when compared to similar two-strokes, despite its 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 E-tec and power-tec 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.

Yamaha was the first brand to win with a 4-stroke in a professional snowcross race. This happened in 2006 at the WPSA snow cross championship.

Current line-up

 * Apex
 * Nytro
 * FX Nytro
 * Phazer (4th Generation)
 * RS Vector
 * RS Venture
 * VK Professional
 * YBR
 * YBR Custom

All-terrain vehicles (ATV) vehicles

 * BW80/200/350
 * YFZ450
 * Raptor 80/250/350/660/700R
 * Badger 80
 * Blaster 200
 * Timberwolf 250
 * Banshee 350
 * Warrior 350
 * Bruin 350
 * Kodiak 400/450
 * Grizzly 80/125/350/400/450/550/600/660/700
 * Big Bear 350/400
 * Wolverine 350/450
 * Tri-Zinger 60
 * Tri-Moto 125/175/200/225
 * Yamahauler 200
 * Tri-Z 250