65 YEARS OF YAMAHA
Celebrating biking’s big innovator
By Jon Urry
Yamaha pride themselves on engineering and innovation. Always willing to push the boundaries, the famous three tuning forks logo can be found on some of the most ground-breaking motorcycles ever built. And it all started with a musical organ. After studying engineering, Torakusu Yamaha moved to Hamamatsu with the intent of becoming a medical equipment repair man but a shortage of work saw him turn his hand to fixing just about any mechanical object – including a school organ. Having studied the instrument, Torakusu saw how it could be improved and in 1887 developed Japan’s first reed organ, soon afterwards setting up a company to manufacture them called Nippon Gakki. Rapid expansion soon followed and after World War II the firm set their sights on a new audience. With Japan in need of cheap transport, company president Genichi Kawakami formed the Yamaha Motor division in July 1955 in Hamana. Using the company’s skills in machining, it didn’t take long for Yamaha to produce their first motorcycle, the YA-1 or Akatombo, which translates as ‘Red Dragonfly’ which was named after its striking red paint when most rivals were black. Powered by a 125cc twostroke, the YA-1 was effectively a copy of the German DKW RT125 (BSA also copied the same design and called it the Bantam) and sold in reasonable numbers in Japan (2272 units), establishing a reputation for being well-built and reliable but pricier than its rivals as a result. It was also fast, winning the Mount Fuji Ascent Race and Asama Highlands Race in its first year, beating Honda in the process. Encouraged by the YA-1’s success, Yamaha built a 175cc version called the YC-1 before taking the plunge and designing their first in-house motorcycle in 1957 – the YD-1. Powered by a 247cc parallel twin, the YD-1 owed a lot to the Germanbuilt Adler but Yamaha’s design team put their own stamp on it and it is recognised as the first Japanese-built sports motorcycle and even had a race version, which won the Asama race that year. Yamaha were coming of age but with only 15,811 motorcycles built in 1957, the company were the smallest Japanese brand behind Honda and Suzuki. This was soon to change. Rapid expansion over the next three years saw production rocket to 138,000 bikes by the start of the 1960s with sports models such as the five-speed YDS-1, which was built in 1959, leading the charge. When recession hit Japan in the early 1960s, Yamaha saw they needed to gain worldwide recognition to boost exports so they turned to the racetrack, entering the 1961 250GP championship with the RD48 and riders Tanahara Noguchi and Fumio Ito. Despite the RD48 being off the pace, Ito scored a sixth place at the TT and finished the season ninth overall. But Yamaha wanted more and with US exports now topping 12,000 they invested heavily and developed a series of ‘road to race’ bikes to allow club racers to compete.
With Yamaha’s name now seen on track alongside brands such as Honda, Morini and MZ, in 1963 the firm exported over 36,000 bikes to America and in 1964, undoubtedly helped by Phil Read winning the 250GP title on a Yamaha, this number rose to 87,000. By 1965 half of Yamaha’s 244,000 production was sold outside of Japan while in 1967 they overtook Suzuki’s production, building 406,000 bikes. And innovation driven by their race team was key to their success. With two-strokes seen as dirty, Yamaha invented the Autolube system for their race bike in 1961 before rolling it out onto the YG1D and YA6 road bikes in 1964, but it wasn’t until 1970 that they built their first four-stroke. With sales now at a high thanks to the huge popularity of the 1968 DT1 trail bike and 1965 U5D and U7 Mate scooters (think Honda Cub rival) in America, Yamaha moved production to a new facility in Iwata and as well as