Description
By: Colin Mackellar .
Description
For many, the miracle of the post-war Japanese economic recovery was epitomized by the incredible fifteen years between 1960 and 1975 that saw the Japanese motorcycle industry sweep aside the established order to dominate the world. Yamaha was at the forefront of this wave, pushing hard to export to the USA, before turning to Europe to consolidate its position.
It was not plain sailing. Bankruptcy loomed in the early days when new model introductions failed. Production capacity rose and fell in the 1960s as the company learnt to anticipate market demand. Throughout the 1970s the company struggled to make the change from 2-stroke models to 4-stroke, finally succeeding as the decade closed. During the 1980s, Yamaha again teetered on the brink as their deep-seated rivalry with Honda drove them to take unprecedented commercial risks. In the decades before and after the turn of the new millennium, stormy waters in the domestic and world economies continued to provide a challenge for all the Japanese manufacturers, culminating in the worldwide financial crisis of the early years of the twenty-first century.
Despite the difficulties they experienced, Yamaha built and sustained a profile of design creativity and technical innovation, responsible over the last fifty years for some of the most iconic and ground-breaking street bikes of our time. From the YA125 of 1955 to the VMAX of 2009, this book covers the complete story of the successes and failures, the memorable and the unheeded, and all the models in between.
Synopsis
Since 1955 Yamaha has grown from being one of dozens of Japanese manufacturers struggling for domestic survival into a global brand. This book charts the course taken during those years, the highs and lows, model successes and failures, and their effects on the company's fortunes. With descriptions of all the major models and an analysis of their impact, backed up with specifications and a wealth of photographs and reproductions from period brochures, this is essential reading for all followers of this iconic marque.
