The company was established in the year 1955 upon separation from Nippon Gakki Co., Ltd. (currently Yamaha Corporation) and is headquartered in Iwata, Shizuoka, Japan.

The company is also involved in the import and sale of various types of products, the development of tourist businesses, and the management of leisure, recreational facilities and related services.

Yamaha was contracted to manufacture wooden and (later) metal airplane propellers by the Japanese government during World War II.

The company struggled in the aftermath of the war, and in the early 1950s, chairman Genichi Kawakami decided to repurpose its underutilized war-time facilities to manufacture small motorcycles for leisure use.

Yamaha's initial product was a 125 cc (7.6 cu in) two-stroke, single cylinder motorcycle, the YA-1, which was a copy of the German DKW RT 125.

Fuji Ascent, but also sweeping the podium with first, second and third place in the All Japan Autobike Endurance Road Race that same year.

A performance version of this bike, the YDS-1 housed the 250cc two-stroke twin in a double downtube cradle frame and offered the first five-speed transmission in a Japanese motorcycle.

By 1963, Yamaha's dedication to both the two-stroke engine and racing paid off with their first victory in international competition, at the Belgian GP, where they won the 250cc class.

Success in sales was even more impressive, and Yamaha set up the first of its international subsidiaries in this period beginning with Thailand in 1964, and the Netherlands in 1968.

In early 1969, Yamaha added reed-valve induction to its previously piston-ported designs to produce the twin-cylinder RD and single-cylinder RS families, with variants in a number of capacities.

The RD family would be developed through the 1970s and 1980s, gaining solid wheels, water-cooling, YPVS, and other newer technology 'til they had little in common with the original variants (before being supplanted by the TZR).

The RS family was produced for many years in a large number of variants by Yamaha and then Escorts Limited in India without losing its resemblance to its progenitors.

The XS-750 (and later 850) a 750cc triple cylinder machine with shaft final drive was introduced almost seven years after Honda's breakthrough bike.

Yamaha was an early innovator in dirt-bike technology, and introduced the first single-shock rear suspension, the trademarked "Monoshock" of 1973.

By the end of the 1980s Yamaha had offered dozens of cruiser styled bikes in a variety of displacements and engine configurations.

The RZV500 was one of the first "repli-racers", a near copy of Kenny Roberts competition GP bike, it featured a liquid-cooled two-stroke motor of 500cc displacement in a V4 configuration, along with a perimeter frame and full fairing.

Some owners of the earlier RX-Z motorcycles may have problems during take-off because the engine tends to stall when an inexperienced rider tries to take off in the first gear.

In 1998 Yamaha marketed a 1000cc four cylinder road bike called the YZF 'R1', this model introduced a new style of gearbox design which shortened the overall length of the motor/gearbox case, to allow a more compact unit.

This was an attempt to create a brand identity more closely aligned with the cruiser market segment, one of the largest and most lucrative in the US.

[19] Past Yamaha riders include: Jarno Saarinen, Giacomo Agostini, Bob Hannah, Heikki Mikkola, Bruce Anstey, Kenny Roberts, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, Jeremy McGrath, Stefan Merriman, Dave Molyneux, Ian Hutchinson, Phil Read, Chad Reed, Ben Spies, Jorge Lorenzo, and nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi.

The Yamaha YZ450F won the AMA Supercross Championship two years in a row, in 2008 with Chad Reed, and 2009 James Stewart.

Yamaha's first Motocross competition four-stroke bike, the YZ400F, won the 1998 USA outdoor national Championship with factory rider Doug Henry.

In 1970, non-factory privateer teams dominated the 250 cc World Championship with Great Britain's Rodney Gould winning the title on a Yamaha TD2.

Yamaha produced Formula One engines from 1989 to 1997 (with a one-year break in 1990), initially for the Zakspeed team, in 1991 for the Brabham BT60Y, in 1992 for the Jordan 192, from 1993 to 1996 for Tyrrell, and in 1997 for the Arrows A18.

(key) In March 2024, it was announced Lola Cars will enter Formula E in the 2024–25 season as a powertrain supplier in a technical partnership with Yamaha.

Yamaha was not pleased with the result as it was too similar to sport cars of that time, so it contacted IAD to continue working on the project.

This resulted in a radical and somewhat outrageous design based on Group C cars of the time, with features such as the cockpit-locking roof.

To make matters worse, Japan was in the midst of an economic downturn, which made Yamaha believe there would be no customers for the car, and so the project was cancelled in 1994 after many delays, with only 3 prototypes in existence.

The MOTIV was a compact city car designed to accommodate gasoline engines, EV drivetrains, hybrid systems, and range extenders.

The Cross Hub was a coupé utility with a diamond-shaped sitting arrangement to allow it to carry two motorcycles in the bed while retaining compact dimensions for urban use.