I’ll admit this upfront, and those of you who've been reading my stuff throughout the years would know. I’m a big Yamaha fanboy. Every motorcycle in my garage right now wears tuning forks on the tank. That didn’t happen by accident, and it’s not just because Yamaha builds great bikes. It’s because the deeper you dig into Yamaha’s history, the harder it is not to respect the company on an almost irrational level. Yamaha doesn’t just build motorcycles. It bends entire industries around its engineering expertise.
Most people know Yamaha for sportbikes, MTs, YZs, and race wins. Fewer people realize how deeply Yamaha is woven into the car world, especially Japan’s golden era of performance engines. Long before “collabs” became marketing buzzwords, Yamaha Motor Company was already doing the hard work behind the scenes, shaping engines that would become legends.
That reputation really started with the Toyota 2000GT. Toyota had ambition, but Yamaha had the cylinder head expertise. The result wasn’t just Japan’s first true supercar. It was proof that Yamaha understood airflow, valvetrain stability, and high-revving engines better than almost anyone. From that point on, Toyota kept coming back.
Fast forward and Yamaha’s fingerprints are all over Toyota’s greatest hits. The 3S-GTE. The 1JZ-GTE. The screaming 2ZZ-GE. Later on, even the muscular V8s like the 2UR series. These weren’t Yamaha-branded engines, but anyone who knows where to look can spot the influence. As the video above suggests, Yamaha became the cheat code. When Toyota wanted an engine that felt special, they called Yamaha.
That same mindset carried into Yamaha’s own motorcycle tech. Genesis, with its five-valve-per-cylinder design, wasn’t a gimmick. It was a genuine engineering solution that was put into practice in the FZ750 in the 1980s. Yamaha didn’t chase numbers for the brochure, but instead, focused on usable airflow, high RPM stability, and engines that begged to be ridden hard. It worked on bikes, and Yamaha immediately started wondering where else it could work.
That curiosity pulled Yamaha into racing, then deeper into racing, and eventually into Formula 1. The results there were mixed at best. Yamaha learned the hard way that F1 doesn’t care how clever you are if reliability isn’t nailed. But here’s the important part. Yamaha didn’t walk away thinking smaller. They walked away thinking bigger.
Which brings us to the Yamaha OX99-11, one of the most unhinged automotive ideas ever greenlit by a motorcycle company.
The OX99-11 wasn’t Yamaha dipping a toe into cars. It was Yamaha cannonballing into the deep end. It boasted a carbon fiber tub, pushrod suspension, center-lock wheels, and a screaming V12 derived from Yamaha’s Formula 1 program. Plus, the seating position was central, and the bodywork was full aluminum. This thing wasn’t inspired by race cars. It was a race car, barely legal enough to wear plates.
So was it the world’s first hypercar before hypercars were a thing? Honestly, there’s a strong case for it. Look at the intent. Ultra-low production. Eye-watering price. Zero concern for practicality. Engineering-first, compromise-last. That’s the hypercar playbook today. Yamaha was doing it in 1992.
Timing, unfortunately, was brutal. The Japanese economic bubble burst. Development costs ballooned. Internal disagreements slowed progress. Then, just weeks after the OX99-11 was unveiled, the McLaren F1 showed the world what a road-going race car could be if usability, pedigree, and polish came along for the ride. The comparison wasn’t kind to Yamaha.
The OX99-11 never went mainstream because it was never meant to. It was too raw, too expensive, and too early. At nearly ¥100 million, or around $800,000 USD, it was asking buyers to believe in Yamaha as a carmaker, not just an engineering partner. And that leap was a little too big at the time.
And yet, Yamaha never ran from it. They proudly display the OX99-11 today, not as a failure, but as a statement. Proof that they were brave enough to try.
What really seals Yamaha’s legacy for me is what happened alongside all of this. While the supercar dream fizzled, Yamaha kept winning in the real world. They built the Ford Taurus SHO engine. They helped Toyota perfect high-revving four-cylinders and bulletproof inline-sixes. They eventually co-developed the V10 that gave us the Lexus LFA, an engine so special its sound had to be digitally assisted because analog tachometers couldn’t keep up.
That’s absurd. And glorious.
So yeah, this is part history lesson, part opinion. But I’ll stand by it. Yamaha’s influence stretches way beyond motorcycles, and the OX99-11 proves they weren’t afraid to dream irresponsibly big. They didn’t need to build a production car to matter. They already shaped some of the greatest engines ever made. And that’s why Yamaha isn’t just a great motorcycle manufacturer. It’s the most badass Japanese motorcycle manufacturer. Period.
Sources: Yamaha, Toyota, 337 Speed via YouTube
