Yamaha. Propellers to pianos.
Yamaha is the world's biggest piano maker and one of the biggest motorcycle makers. The war did that, not strategy.
THE GIST ON YAMAHA: "Propellers to pianos"
What is odd about Yamaha?
It is the world's biggest piano maker. It is also one of the world's biggest motorcycle makers. Same company. What?
How did it start?
In 1887, making reed organs in Hamamatsu, Japan. Then pianos, drums, guitars, wind instruments, everything except the conductor. Then along came the Second World War, and the Japanese Navy looked at their precision woodwork and thought, you lot would make sick propellers.
So Yamaha spent the war making them to the millimetre, at scale. Spoiler alert: Japan lost, and the Allies forbade them from making aircraft. Yamaha was left with propeller factories, thousands of skilled workers and nothing to make.
What did they do next?
They thought, hang on, we've got all this gear and we can make almost anything. In 1955 they made a motorbike with the same factory and the same skills, and it won the Mount Fuji race in its first year.
Every major Japanese industrial name did the same. Honda made aircraft pistons and then motorbikes. Toyota made military trucks and then Corollas. Mitsubishi made the Zero and then everything.
What is the lesson?
That's what a post-war economic miracle actually is: factories with nothing to make, going out and finding something. The best companies don't pivot cleverly. Yamaha didn't choose to make motorcycles. The war did, and they just didn't fumble it.
From outside it looks like clever diversification. From inside it looks like survival. Yamaha has lasted 138 years by hanging in there and not closing a factory. That's the whole trick. What would you make after the war?
Would you buy a piano from a motorbike maker?
Your take. One tap, then see how everyone else voted.
Quick answers
Why does Yamaha make both pianos and motorbikes?
After the war it had propeller factories, skilled workers and nothing to make, so in 1955 it built a motorbike.
When was Yamaha founded?
1887, making reed organs in Hamamatsu, Japan.
Did other Japanese firms do the same?
Yes. Honda went from aircraft pistons to motorbikes, Toyota from military trucks to Corollas, and Mitsubishi from the Zero to everything.
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