Yamaha Motor Company

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Yamaha Motor Company Limited(ヤマハ発動機株式会社, Yamaha Hatsudōki Kabushiki-gaisha), 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 in MotoGP and motorcycle racing, however, in the field of automobiles the company has 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, Ukyo Katayama, Mark Blundell and Andrea de Cesaris scored some acceptable results with them.

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.<ref>Template:Citation/core{{#if:|}}</ref> 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.

External links

• Yamaha Motor Co. global site