Editing Yamaha Motors History

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[[File:Yamaha-motorcycle-logo.png|thumb|right|Yamaha Logo]]

'''Yamaha Motor Company Limited''' a Japanese motorized vehicle-producing company, was initially part of the [[Yamaha Corporation]]. After 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. Yamaha Motor is the world's second largest producer of [[motorcycle]]s.  It also produces many other motorized vehicles such as [[all-terrain vehicle]]s, boats, snowmobiles, outboard motors, and personal watercraft.   

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.

In 2005, Yamaha announced the creation of "[[Star Motorcycles]]," a new standalone brand name for its cruiser series of motorcycles. Although a separate brand, Star motorcycles continue to be sold at Yamaha dealerships.

Yamaha: the firm whose trademark of three tuning forks highlights its musical origins. The whole story began in 1851, when [[Torakusu Yamaha]] was born, for he was later to show an aptitude for engineering and to complete two apprenticeships, one in clock-making, the other

in medical equipment.

These skills enabled him to repair an organ which he had been asked to look at; a chance happening which inspired him to build one himself  and so the Yamaha Musical Instrument Company was set up, prospered, joined together with others, and became the Nippon Gakki Company. I t became one of the world's largest in its field but fell on hard times in the 1920s and 1930s before making a slow recovery in the late 1940s. The firm's continuous search for new products eventually led to the sphere of transport and in 1954 it began to design a [[motorcycle]], despite the many Japanese marques already in business.

[[File:Yamaha.jpg|left]]

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, as will a future Lincoln automobile. They also built Formula One racing engines from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s, with little on track success.

Yamaha is also one of the big 4 companies in the Personal water craft market.

==See Also==

*[[List of Yamaha motorcycles]]