Matsuo-san, what paths has your career at Yamaha Motor taken?

I joined the company in 1984. After spending about 13 years in motorcycle sales for dealerships in Japan, I did PAS e-Bike sales and marketing, and was then transferred to the Public Relations & Advertising Division. The PR work I did for our businesses became the foundation for what I do today. Prior to that, I’d had no experience with ATVs and other 4-wheelers or with our robotics business and so on, so the work I did there really helped me gain a lot of knowledge and understanding about the company’s various operations.

From there, I worked on marketing and advertising projects for overseas operations and was responsible for providing support for product production and setting up subsidiaries. Armed with the knowledge and experience I’d gained over the years, I took part in establishing a sales base in Cambodia. After that, I returned to the Public Relations & Advertising Division and worked in advertising and marketing. Our goal in advertising was to really know our products and businesses and to then communicate their appeal to society at large, so in that sense, it connects to what I’m doing now.

What led to you being chosen to serve as manager of the Communication Plaza?

It wasn’t a “selection” of any kind, really. I was just asked if I was interested in the Communication Plaza, and I said, “Of course.” That’s about it. When I helped set up the base in Cambodia, my reference for the main showroom was the Communication Plaza, and I knew how to display products and disseminate information from my PR and advertising work. So, I’ve been managing the Plaza’s operations since 2020.

What are your typical duties as manager?

Well, every day, I first make sure that the Plaza is ready to safely receive visitors. I also check to see if the items on display and their surroundings are in order, and that the Plaza is in a condition ready for opening. With our older bikes, parts can sometimes fall off or they can leak a little oil while on display, so daily checks like these are essential.

Events are frequently held at the Communication Plaza too, so making the necessary preparations and working with the involved divisions on adjustments and things of that nature is also an important part of the job. Each division also has its own scheduling for events and new product launches, so I often need to arrange what’s on display to fit those. But, it’s not like our divisions always have things running like clockwork and problems sometimes do occur. If something falls behind, it affects the entire schedule for events or displays planned well in advance. So, I stay in constant contact with the divisions to confirm where things are and make whatever adjustments are necessary.

What was the aim behind establishing the Communication Plaza?

The Communication Plaza opened in 1998 as a place compiling the full history of our Monozukuri and to present the past, present, and future of Yamaha Motor. When I took on my current post, all those that had this role before me said, “The displays must clearly show not only what Yamaha Motor has passed down but also how the company is striving to keep that alive into the future.”

Visitors can see all of the company’s areas of operation at a glance, and see not only the flow of our history but also where that history is going. That’s what led me to often come here myself to study more about our company. For me personally and for other employees, the Communication Plaza is like a textbook that reveals and explains the company’s past, present, and future.

Even on weekdays, the Plaza gets many visitors, correct?

Yes, we do. We get people of all ages and many come from overseas as well. Of course, a lot of them are product users but there are some who visit as a family and fondly tell their kids, “This is the bike Mom and Dad used to ride.” If their children hear that, they’re likely to think that a Yamaha motorcycle is a good choice, right? Conversations like this make me very happy because in this way, the familiarity and affinity for our products gets passed from one generation to the next. What I also often hear from visitors who are Yamaha fans is that this is the birthplace or hometown of Yamaha products. For many of them, the Plaza is like a place to make a pilgrimage of sorts.

That’s something that would make any Yamaha Motor employee happy to hear! In contrast, what’s the most difficult part of the job?

Since the Plaza has a role as a “textbook,” figuring out ways to enhance our content is quite hard. History is an accumulation of events and facts, right? I don’t want to leave blank spaces in our history, but in reality, they exist, so I want to make the record more and more complete. If there’s a bike that falls under one of those blank periods, I call on my connections and other means to try and look for one to acquire. I’ve always got my antennas out!

Wait, you’re the manager, but you’re also in charge of finding motorcycles?

Of course! I sometimes visit retired employees and collect old materials they’ve held on to. When I’m looking for a bike we’re missing for a particular era, I still have to look at the displays for our businesses today and have to keep in mind which direction each business is headed in. Keeping up to date with all that information is quite hard work, but we’ve been receiving a lot of old materials—and even machines—a lot more frequently from recently retired employees at or around 70 years of age. At the moment, I’m pretty swamped because I have to go through and organize all those materials!

It must be helpful to have more machines coming in to put on display.

Of course, we’re incredibly thankful. But the room we have for displays as well as storage space is limited, so one really hard part with this job is deciding on which bikes to bring into our collection. The rare models we want from the blank eras I mentioned earlier or otherwise epoch-making models simply always take precedence. In addition, it’s our policy that the machines on display all be kept in running condition. They are restored as close as possible to the same condition as they left the factory in, and are only added to the list of displayable machines after confirming that they can be started and run. Getting to that stage is a long and arduous process!

Why does the restoration process take so long?

Firstly, there simply aren’t many people who have the knowledge needed to restore an old motorcycle. We have a specialist restoration team at the Toyooka Technical Center, but it’s composed of just four people, and because two of the four are in charge of maintaining bikes that have already been restored, that leaves only two to do the actual restorations.
During a restoration, the motorcycle is completely disassembled down to its last nut and bolt and every part is thoroughly cleaned, and if certain parts cannot be reused and are also no longer produced, they have to be custom made. Plus, the rubber, plastics, and paints we use today are more advanced and no longer have the same composition from back then, so a long process of trial and error is needed to replicate the look and feel they had when a bike was first produced. It can take one to two years to fully restore a single motorcycle. It takes that much time and effort. And even then, sometimes a painstakingly assembled engine won’t start up. Each restoration is a hands-on project carried out to a level of detail that makes you want to call each finished one a work of art.

Why go through so much trouble to keep the machines in running condition?

Maybe it’s because Yamaha Motor builds products to bring greater fulfillment to customers’ lives. You can only really call it a motorcycle if it can actually be ridden. These are bikes we put on display for customers to view, so they can’t be imitations made of papier-mâché. They have to be ridable and that’s what we are dedicated to upholding at Yamaha Motor. Even the bikes we don’t have on display are kept in running condition, and I personally believe it’s the best kind of service we can offer visitors.

Well, since the restoration team has gone to so much trouble, let’s see one fired up!

We hold the Historic Models Demonstration Run for employees, where you can ride a restored motorcycle out on the test track ! We used to hold the event every two years, but since we celebrate the Plaza’s 25^th anniversary this year, we’re holding a special CP25 Commemorative Historic Motorcycles Demonstration Run. The event is also a big unveiling of all the “artwork” the restoration team has been working so hard on, so they’re really fired up and carefully prepping all the bikes. It would be wonderful for employees with various specialties from different corners of the company to experience the kind of DNA Yamaha Motor has passed down through its motorcycles, from old classics to today’s modern models.

This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the Communication Plaza. Do you have any particular aims or goals, like restoring a set number of machines?

Well, I hate to say it, but we don’t have any special goals set. Or should I say, the goals haven’t revealed themselves just yet. At present, we still have many machines awaiting restoration. Including the display bikes, we have restored over 200 machines and if we don’t regularly run and maintain them all, we can’t say they’re in running condition. On top of that, new models are continually being released and they also get added to the maintenance list, so for as long as Yamaha Motor stays in business, the restoration team will basically have an unending list of machines they have to restore and maintain. With our current organization, there’s no end in sight.

Are there any special events or plans in the works to celebrate the 25^th anniversary?

Classic motorcycles have enjoyed a bit of a boom in recent years and the older bikes at the Communication Plaza have also been gaining a lot of attention. However, the biggest problem people who continue to ride their old bikes is the deterioration of rubber parts. The wearing down of such items is unavoidable and since these parts are no longer made, they’re simply no longer available. So, to commemorate our 25^th anniversary, we plan to produce and sell a set of rubber parts for the first motorcycle Yamaha made, the YA-1 or Red Dragonfly. We’ve recently been getting a lot of requests for YA-1 parts from overseas. We’ve gone to a lot of effort to ensure that the colors remain authentic while making the parts with modern materials so they’ll be more durable. We paid a lot of attention to the details and are proud of the results, so we hope they will be put to good use in YA-1s around the world.

To conclude, do you have anything you would like to express as the manager of the Communication Plaza?

As most people know, Yamaha Motor’s logo consists of three tuning forks representing a strong union of manufacturing, marketing, and technology aimed at building quality products. From that perspective, the goal of the Communication Plaza is to clearly express Yamaha Motor’s past, present, and future. Further, putting the word “communication” in the facility name points to our desire to create a place where the local community, company employees, and customers can all freely and openly communicate with each other.

There’s still much work we have to do, but as we continue to edit and improve this Yamaha Motor “textbook,” I want to help us tie together the company’s past, present, and future. Please take the opportunity to visit sometime and in so doing, perhaps catch a glimpse of the future we will help create.