Who owns yamaha motorcycles

Over the years, the Yamaha Corporation has diversified the products it produces. When they decided to begin production of motorcycles in , they founded the Yamaha Motor Company as a separate entity.

Originally, this company was still part of Yamaha Corporation. To this day, Yamaha Corporation is still the largest shareholder of Yamaha Motor Company as they have held Since the company was founded, the headquarters of Yamaha Corporation have always been in the Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan. When the Yamaha Motor Company was established, operations were initially based at the Hamakita factory. In , a new plant was built in Iwata. The headquarters of the Yamaha Motor Company finally moved to Iwata in In the early years of production, Yamaha motorcycles were sold only in Japan.

However, they then decided to sell their products internationally. The first Yamaha motorcycle was sold in the United States in by an independent distributor called Cooper Motors. The models they sold were the YD1 and the MF Yamaha International Corporation began selling motorcycles in the United States in and this made Yamaha motorcycles more widely available. He was involved in all aspects of the brand development and led the company to become one of the best-known motorcycle brands of today.

He worked on the ethos that if you are going to make something, you should make it the very best that you possibly can. Kawakami was the third-generation president of Nippon Gakki, which was the original name of the musical instruments and electronics division that later became the Yamaha Corporation. He had worked through the ranks in the company to achieve such a senior position.

Sadly, Kawakami died on May 25, Despite the loss to the company, his vision lives on in Yamaha. Kawakami wanted to find a use for the old machining equipment that had previously been used to manufacture aircraft propellers.

He did lots of research into different ways that machining equipment was used and considered many types of products that they could make using this equipment.

Some of the products that he considered included sewing machines, three-wheeled utility vehicles, auto parts, and scooters.

While conducting this research, Kawakami visited the United States on many occasions. He finally decided to focus his efforts on creating motorcycles with the machinery. Therefore, the concept for Yamaha motorcycles stems from the machinery used to make airplane propellers. They introduced the DT-1 Enduro in The creation of this dirt bike had a massive impact on motorcycling in the United States. Yamaha continued to be a leading force in the development of dirt bike technologies throughout the s.

Although motorcycles are the main product manufactured by the Yamaha Motor Company and it for their motorcycles for which they are best-known, these are not the only product manufactured by the company. One of their other major products is the snowmobile and they introduced their first model, the SL, in Other products they manufacture include boats and other watercraft, outboard motors, electrical generators, water pumps, go-kart engines, golf carts, recreational off-road vehicles, industrial-use unmanned helicopters, and electrical power units for wheelchairs.

Yamaha has a long history of competing in racing events. They first ventured into this arena in Kawakami believed that a product was not a success until it could prove itself against others in its field and the way to do this was to enter into competitive events. Yamaha's history began when its founder, Torakusu Yamaha, repaired a broken reed organ in Shortly thereafter, he successfully completed the first reed organ. More than years after our founding in , we defined the Yamaha Philosophy as the philosophical framework that underpins business management at the Yamaha Group.

Brand and History. Origins of the Yamaha Brand. History of Logo. During this post-war time period, many manufacturers around Japan were starting to convert their war-time production into new markets, such as motorcycles and automobiles. The first Yamaha motorcycle, the YA-1, was released in under the newly formed branch of the company called Yamaha Motor Company.

While many motorcycle manufacturers experience missteps with their early products, Yamaha found almost immediate success with the YA-1, which began placing in major national races. The YD-1 increased the engine size from cc to cc. Throughout the later s and into the early s, the racing success continued for Yamaha Motor Company, and by , they were setting up their first overseas subsidiary in Thailand.

In the early years, Yamaha had focused all of their attention on two-stroke engine designs, but in , they released their first four-stroke design with the XS This design would gain even more traction in the s with the release of the XS This era saw much larger cylinder displacements along with multi-cylinder engine layouts.

Yamaha continued to find success with bikes like the XS and the XT