Yamaha Hamamatsu Japan
Good day viewers and welcome back to another fantastic series of Bloss World. You might have seen a previous series with Camera 83 and myself, we went to Japan and drove around for 10 days and checked out some of the greatest car collections and car museums in Japan. Well, after returning back from the penide had a desert race, I spotted two really cheap return flights and said, “Hey, Dad, you keen to go back and let’s do the bikes of Japan.” And that’s exactly what we’re doing on this trip. We’ll be dropping in and to the factories of Yamaha, Suzuki, and Honda, as well as a stack of car collections we didn’t get to fit in the last series, as well as some amazing naval bases. But let’s start this series off in one of my favorite cities in Japan. It’s called Hamamatsu. It’s located about halfway between Aaka and Tokyo. Has a population of 800,000. And it is a beautiful looking town with some great places to eat, and it’s a great place just to go for a bit of a walk and a wander. But what it’s famous for is that it’s the home of Suzuki and Yamaha. And on this episode, we’re going to go and check out the Yamaha Communication Plaza inside the Yamaha factory. As well as that, we’re going to check out some of the cool things that you can do here in the town of Hamamatsu. And I should say as well that we went on this trip on the last week of July and August, which was another season that we’ve never experienced. and I hope we never will again because the temperatures for this trip when we are traveling range from 38 degrees to 44. Anyway, right now let’s head down to the Yamaha communication plaza and enjoy their air conditioning. Good day viewers and welcome back to Blues World. Right now we’ve driven just outside of Hamamatsu and we’re here for one of the other things that makes this town famous, Yamaha. And we’ve come to check out their museum or as they like to call it, what do they call it? The plaza. The communication plaza. Let’s go inside. I’m really excited to check this out. What do you reckon, Dad? Oh, yeah. I’m looking forward to this. Awesome. We just walked in the door. We’re at the Yamaha Communication Plaza. God, it’s already impressive, isn’t it? Oh, yeah. Definitely. It’s Well, it’s only initial stage rugby. [Music] These M9s are just a good looking bike, aren’t they? Oh god, it looks angry. Doesn’t it look angry? It just it’s it it just says drive me fast. And look at this. That’s what headlights That’s how good headlights are nowadays. Doesn’t have to be a massive big old school headlight. It looks like a little magnifi magnifying ball, doesn’t it? Yeah. It’s a little LED. Good god. [Music] Bike for the jacks. [Music] Oh, what do we got over here? Look at this thing. The Morpho 2. Looks like Yamaha and Lego got got together and made a bike. Oh, I like this bike. Love that paint. And I love this headlight. Look at it. Looks like a tail light off of old Pontiac or something. That looks That looks like old school. They’ve gone for an old retro look. That’s why that looks like an old tail light. It’s a 200 2007 model. And look at look at your instruments. That’s all you need. How fast am I going? Actually, how much fuel have I got? Would be pretty good, too. Yeah, that’s nice. What an awesome looking bike. And check it out. the Yamaha XS V1 Sakura featuring a 1000cc air cooled V twin engine. And if you’re wondering why haven’t you seen this bike before, it’s because it was a prototype and it was launched for the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show and it was never put into production. And that’s a bloody shame. Anyway, let’s continue on our tour. I’ve never seen one of these before. An XTW 250. Look at this thing. Half egg bike, half dirt bike, half I don’t know what the other the other half is. It’s a crossover [Music] for everyday and emergencies. Sorry. What the hell is going on here? Moid 2. I’m trying to get this bloody light out of it. lights. Where are you? What the hell is going on with this bike? I don’t even know how you steer it. These things fold out. They must these things. No, that’ll be it. No. No. Oh Oh well, I give up. You might have seen in our previous series, the cars of Japan, when we were in Coobe, we went to the Kawasaki Good Times Museum and checked out the Kawasaki Corio, an AI inspired I don’t know what you call this thing. It’s like a motorbike dirt bike meets horse. Well, this is Yamaha’s entry into the AI world with the Motoid 2 with its selfbalancing stance. I don’t know, viewers, just call me old school, but I’m not taken back by any of this new ace AI motorcycle sort of stuff. You check out some of the stuff in this museum that we’re showing you a bit later. All the good stuff’s already been built. I don’t know why you want to perfect it. Well, that is certainly one hell of a weird bike. And coming to one of my favorite bikes that I built, the WR, although this is a 155R. Yeah, the best WR ever made was the 1992 WR 200 two-stroke. These were an absolute weapon. They only made them for one year. I had one and it’ll always go down as one of the things I regret selling. Anyway, talking about selling, let’s go to a commercial break. We’ll see you after this for more Bloss World Bikes of Japan. Good day viewers and welcome back to Bloss World. If you’ve just joined us, we’re in Japan checking out the bikes of Japan and it’s day two. And if you’re wondering what happened on day one, well day one we landed in a saka, got our high car, picked up our high car, only to realize that my dad had left his wallet, his passport, his phone, everything in the backseat of the cab. So our first day basically was me driving around a saka with the app find my phone trying to track down where where in the bloody hell dad’s stuff was until I remembered we’re in Japan, the most honest country in the world. So, we headed back to the hotel and sure enough, the driver rocked up with dad’s bag and phone. Refused to take any money. Dad wanted to give him a massive thank you. He said no. Anyway, we got all his stuff back. So, let’s head back right now to the Yamaha Communications Plaza and let’s go shopping so he’ll never lose that phone again. You’ve just been to the merchandise shop. Give us a look what you purchased. What have you What did you buy yourself? Uh a look at that. Yeah, there’s Oh, yeah. Look at there’s a bag. It wouldn’t wouldn’t take the the new phone. Slide it down. Mom’s always complaining she’s not on the show. Yeah. Oh, look at that. There you go, love. All yours. Sort of. Next time. Nice. Nice manbag. Now, let’s go look at some bikes. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Applause] Well, here we are with the R1. There’s only about a million of these back here home in Australia. We absolutely love R1’s and R sixs. What a good looking machine, a dad. Yeah. 2016 model. 10 years old. Wow. Jeez, we’re learning heaps here today, viewers. I had no idea that Yamaha made drones. Look at this thing. Some sort of a crop drone. Oh man, look at this thing here. That just kills any DJI. How many blades are we talking? 1 2 3 4 eight blader. And for those of you who aren’t aware of Yamaha’s history, Yamaha first started making pianos and musical equipment. And if you’ve ever noticed the Yamaha logo, it’s actually three piano tuning forks. That’s on every bike that you see, every quad drone. There’s actually two museums here in Hamamatsu. There’s this one we are at now at the communication plaza, which is all bikes and racing gear. And then there’s one in town, which is all pianos and musical equipment. Obviously, we won’t be taking you to the piano one, but of all the things here, dad’s loving the golf buggy. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat up [Applause] here. Oh, there’s a lot of bikes I really want to show, but just like this one, but I can’t cuz it’s sponsored by a cigarette company cuz it’s back in the 80s. Because of Australian TV being what it is, I can’t have any bikes or cars with any old school cigarette manufacturers, even though that’s what it was like back in the day. So nowadays, we just look at the future where it’s petrol stations, mobile phones, and energy drinks. So you like these ones here, Dad? You like the 1950 jobs? 1960 jobs? It’s a 1961. Y and my bike was about 1958, I think. 5859. It would have been 5758 before I went to Wra. And now this is more of the the bike I had to this what you ride across an Alibaba on well but in a Royal Enfield. It looked like the Yamaha that bike. It’s 125 but this is a lot smarter than the Royal Enfield. A YB1 1955. It’s a lot uh a lot heavier I think too. Oh yeah, good looking bike. Hey, and if there’s any of these bikes that you love and there’s heaps stashed away in Japan and you want to buy one and get it back to Australia, then contact our sponsors at EDI. Don’t follow anyone. That’s the way life should be. At Yamaha, we don’t build great motorcycles to win races. We win races to build great motorcycles. Yamaha, the way it should be. Ah, viewers, look at this royalty of motorcycles. This is Stefan Ed’s bike back in the Moto GP days. His YZ 500 FM. Look at it. Number 72. Stefan Evers. One of the nicest human beings on the planet until he puts that helmet on. What an ab I feel like I’ve got goosebumps just looking at this one, Dad. Yeah. Absolutely. Legend, gentleman. Viewers, a YZ 125M 1987 model written by John Vanderberg. Won the world championship on this bike. Absolutely awesome. World Championship winning bike, two-stroke. This thing would rip your arms off. And right now we have the YZM M500 1988 model. It’s the first time they incorporated the aluminium frame and with the YZs. Once again, 500cc two-stroke. You need to know what you’re doing to ride this bike. Hence why I’ve never ridden one. But I have ridden a CR500 and a KX500. I’ve known well enough this is a bike I’ll stand back and look at. That to me is art. Oh, and here’s the bike that introduced me to four strokes. The YZM400F written by the likes of people like Doug Henry, legends back in the day. Look at it. 1997. And it still looks as good as any bike that’s come out nowadays. Well, viewers, unfortunately, we’ve run out of time and that’s all we can fit into this episode. But make sure you watch next week cuz we leave the town of Hamatsu and we make our way up north to one of the greatest greatest motorcycle collections I’ve ever seen. We’re going to the Honda Museum. Anyway, till then, have a great week and as we say here on the show, do what you want. See you next week. See you next week for more Bloss World. See you next week, boys. [Music]
ADO and Camera 83 Visit the Yamaha Communications Plaza, the museum for Yamaha Motorcycles in the Yamaha Factory in Hamamatsu, with free admission and an awesome collection of the history of Yamaha.
AloJapan.com