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Yamaha Motor Company: Difference between revisions

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== Racing heritage ==
== Racing heritage ==
{{see also|Yamaha Motor Racing}}


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 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 Racing|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.
 
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 Racing|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 ==
== Other vehicles ==

Revision as of 11:36, 25 May 2010

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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.

See Also

Template:Yamaha

External Links

External links