MJ-700TZ
Personal watercraft (PWC) are often referred to as water-going motorcycles in Japan. Yamaha’s boat design office had been in charge of PWC design until then, but the MJ-700TZ was the first time Yamaha entrusted the design of a PWC to GK Kyoto. Yamaha’s PWCs until then had matured under the influence of the company’s boat development know-how and engineering culture, so the design development without a doubt took on the same kinds of methods. One example of this was the use of Styrofoam in developing the craft’s form. So, when a GK Kyoto designer said that since a PWC is smaller than a boat and closer to a motorcycle, and that they wanted to use clay modeling because of its greater capacity for fine details of form, the Yamaha engineering team so accustomed to using Styrofoam replied with, “It’ll sink if you make it out of clay.” The MJ-700TZ was designed to have advantages whether it was ridden standing up or sitting down, and it was even used for racing. But, it also incorporated a number of new experimentations in design. For example, altering the method of connecting the exterior body panels together helped reduce the number of parts and overall weight. Also, the designers took on challenges like printing graphics onto the synthetic leather seat cover, working together with the engineers as a team to develop the model.
