Development Of Yamaha Cars Axed

It has just come to light that development of all Yamaha cars with Gordon Murray Design has been put on hold indefinitely. Despite having several concept models showcased to the public in recent years, Yamaha has decided to drop plans to bring some cars to the market. On explaining the reason for this decision, the Japanese company has revealed that it would be difficult to deliver a USP for any of the models under the development with Gordon Murray Design.

The Sports Ride concept was debuted in 2015 at Tokyo Motor Show as the next car in collaboration with Murray after the Motiv.

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In 2015 and 2013, the brand introduced two concept cars at Tokyo Motor Shows, the Sports Ride and Motiv concepts, respectively, which are both based around the modular iStream platform by Gordon Murray Design. The Sports Ride concept created quite a buzz for the use of carbon fibre in its construction and a composite chassis within its ultra-light two-seater structure that promised to deliver great rigidity, admired power-to-weight ratio and motorcycle-like driving experience. Details of the car were not unveiled though, it was reported to weigh below 900 kg.

“Cars do not feature in our long-term plans anymore. We could not see a way to develop either car to make it stand out from the competition, which is very strong.” said Yamaha spokesman, Naoto Horie at Tokyo Motor Show.

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Even though the well-known designer Murray has said that the modular iStream architecture could be used profitably to produce around 1,000 and 3,50,000 vehicles, Yamaha still confirmed that the projects would still be axed. The company revealed that although the sports car had a great appeal for them as enthusiasts, the marketplace is so difficult to go on proceeding the plans.