Empowered by a passion for innovation,
we create expectional value and experiences
that enrich the lives of our customers
Revs your Heart YAMAHA

KANDO creating Company

KANDO is a Japanese word that describes the strong feeling of satisfaction and excitement when experiencing something of outstanding value.

Since its establishment, Yamaha Motor has continuously developed and perfected products. By consolidating its unique values and identity, the company decided to choose the mission of "becoming a company that creates KANDO" since then with this philosophical foundation that has contributed to the individuality of the company. and differences in products, including outboard marine engines.

Yamaha Motor strives to realize peoples' dreams with ingenuity and passion, and to always be a company that people look to for the next exciting product or concept that provides exceptional value and deep satisfaction.

Empowered by a passion for innovation, we create exceptional value and experiences that enrich the lives of our customers.

Begining of Outboard’s Development

In 1953, Yamaha Motor founder Genichi Kawakami took a 90-day study and observation tour of the United States and Europe shortly after taking the post of president of the company. Multiple times on the tour, he saw people enjoying their time on the water and became convinced that marine recreation would someday come to Japan as well. After he returned home, Kawakami acquired a sailing cruiser to help better understand the key appeals of marine leisure by doing it himself, enjoying time sailing on Lake Hamana.

His cruiser mounted an outboard motor from a prominent American brand at the time, but it broke down frequently, so he switched to a Japanese brand instead. But he found that while it suffered fewer mechanical problems, its performance did not even come close to matching the American outboard.

That was what gave President Kawakami an idea; if an outboard like that did not exist, Yamaha should make one. At the time, however, Japan was only about to enter its post-war period of rapid economic growth. Electric home appliances had only just begun to enter Japanese homes, and the very idea of going out boating on the weekends never even occurred to most. President Kawakami knew that even if they succeeded in developing an outboard motor, they couldn’t make a business of selling them if there was nobody interested in buying them. So, he concluded that their sole target for the time being would be commercial use, such as fishermen seeing signs that they needed to begin motorizing their boats, and he directed development to begin.

The development team for the P-7, Yamaha’s first outboard, consisted of just two engineers. The story goes that at the start, the only information they were given to work from were catalogs and brochures of outboards sold overseas at that time. It was truly a case of relying on trial and error every step of the way. In 1958, they had succeeded in building a 250cc prototype based on the engine of Yamaha’s YD-1 motorcycle, but due to setbacks like breakage in the engine mounts, the project to build a marketable outboard with it was abandoned. At the time, the engineers were at work establishing standards for product testing alongside development, and they ran repeated 24-hour tests of the prototypes using the factory’s firefighting water reservoir as a makeshift test tank. The tests would run until something broke, then the engine was examined and a way was found to fix it.

In 1960, an outboard motor ready for the market was finally completed. It was released as the P-7, with a production plan of 200 units per month. This marked the beginning of Yamaha’s history with outboard motors.

However, the P-7 could by no means be called a top-notch outboard. It was noisy and vibrated considerably

It wasn’t until a year after the P-7, in November 1961, that Yamaha outboard motors began to be recognized and accepted on the market. That came with the release of our second model, the P-3, powered by a 63cc air-cooled single-cylinder 3 hp motor. It had been developed precisely for the needs of the growing commercial-use market, where 3 hp motors were the de facto standard.

Having been developed with a focus on engine durability and corrosion resistance, the P-3 was especially resistant to abrasion. This was thanks to the exclusively developed aluminum alloy it used, which contained silicon. It was also the first domestic outboard motor to use die-cast parts, helping achieve a lighter and more compact design. Special attention was also given to making the motor easy to start and operate.
However, the P-7 could by no means be called a top-notch outboard. It was noisy and vibrated considerably

Having been developed with a focus on engine durability and corrosion resistance, the P-3 was especially resistant to abrasion. This was thanks to the exclusively developed aluminum alloy it used, which contained silicon. It was also the first domestic outboard motor to use die-cast parts, helping achieve a lighter and more compact design. Special attention was also given to making the motor easy to start and operate.

Unlike the P-7, where development was conducted entirely by trial and error, the P-3 was developed and refined based on feedback directly from the market. It could be said to represent the first time Yamaha incorporated market feedback into a product. Whenever there were performance complaints following its release, Yamaha engineers would make frequent visits to dealers to hear about the issues directly, or straight from users’ mouths. They would then put that to use in finding solutions and making improvements.

As word spread about the P-3’s ease of use, it soon began to appear in increasing numbers in Japan’s fishing ports, where most boats had been powered by other brands. At one fishing town on the eastern side of Chiba Prefecture, it is said that it only took one year for virtually all of the port’s fishing boats to switch to Yamaha’s P-3 outboards.

Toward Larger Outboards

After building a strong base in the commercial-use outboard market, Yamaha took on the challenge of developing larger horsepower models for recreational use, but it was no easy task to catch up to established U.S. outboard manufacturers. What Yamaha then did in 1974 was to market the jointly developed 55A model, powered by a liquid-cooled 2-cylinder 760cc engine. It featured new and exclusive technologies that included a fully carburized one-piece crankcase, 2-piece (assembled) connecting rods and capacitor discharge ignition (CDI). This became the base from which Yamaha’s new lineup of large-horsepower outboards would be developed.

The year 1982 saw the subsequent release of the 200A and 220A models that pumped out over 200 hp. Then in September 1983, after the dissolution of Yamaha’s tie-up with Brunswick Corporation, the company launched a full lineup of Yamaha-brand outboards at one of the world’s largest marine trade shows in Chicago, U.S. This event on American soil signaled Yamaha’s entry as an outboard maker in the North American market. The strong reliability that Yamaha had acquired through its years in commercial-use markets globally led to its outboards also being well received in the world’s largest outboard market of North America.

Becoming the World’s Top Brand

Yamaha built its reputation as an outboard manufacturer with 2-stroke engines, but a major factor in earning recognition as the world’s leading outboard brand was our technical expertise for creating more eco-friendly engines. The U.S. first implemented outboard emissions standards in the 1990s to reduce their environmental impact, and developed nations and emerging economies later followed suit one after another. This pivotal movement soon shifted the focus of outboard motor manufacturers toward developing more eco-friendly engines. But Yamaha had already begun R&D for creating a 4-stroke outboard in 1975 and launched the 2-cylinder F9.9A as its first 4-stroke outboard in 1984.

Further advancements were made to the model and in 1992, the F9.9 became the first outboard in the world to clear the Bodensee-Schifffahrts-Ordnung (BSO) emissions regulations (governing watercraft on Lake Constance on the borders of Germany, Switzerland and Austria), said to be the strictest in the world at the time. Yamaha released the F100A in 1998, a model powered by an in-line 4-cylinder, 16-valve DOHC engine. The F100A boasted class-leading power and environmental performance, and with its full line of transom mounts, propeller types and more, it could be used on a great variety of boats around the world.

In the first year of the 21st century, Yamaha released the F225A, the world’s first large-capacity 4-stroke outboard motor rated at over 200 hp. At the time, it had been considered technologically difficult to produce a commercially viable a 4-stroke outboard exceeding 200 hp. But Yamaha overcame the technical hurdles by equipping the F225A’s all-new 60° V6 DOHC engine unit with an in-bank exhaust system, in which the exhaust system is located inside the V-bank of the cylinders and the air intake system located outside. This resulted in an engine size comparable to high-end 2-stroke engines of the day and a weight viable for outboard use. Further, the F225A featured highly efficient intake and exhaust systems successfully reduced emissions and improved fuel economy while running at high speeds.

In this way, reducing weight and achieving greater compactness, good fuel economy, low noise and excellent environmental friendliness—all while retaining reliability—became the primary aims for all Yamaha 4-stroke outboard development.