Something Worth Celebrating
Tamiya's 1/12 motorcycle series started in 1981 with the release of Kenny Roberts' 1980 World Championship winning Yamaha YZR500, and in less than 24 years we have reached our landmark 100th kit with the Yamaha YZR-M1. The series has encompased the full scope of motorcycles seen in the last 2 decades ranging from production bikes, motorcross racers, Paris-Dakar rally bikes, 500cc 2-stroke and current 990cc 4-stroke MotoGP racers, and even a 50cc scooter.
All the top motorcycle manufacturers have been represented including the Japanese contingent of Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki, and European makers including Ducati, BMW, Bimota and Moto Guzzi. Bikes that have featured in our 1/12 series have been ridden by the world's best, with the list including current MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi, Kenny Roberts Jnr., Mick Doohan, Wayne Gardner, Freddy Spencer and Kenny Roberts Snr.
Just like the bikes themselves, model development and production has changed greatly since our first 1/12 kit. Painstaking hand drawn blueprints are now a thing of the past thanks to CAD technology, and now with digital cameras, 2-hour photo shoots of the actual machine no longer result in 100s of rolls of film. the corresponding advances in motorcycle and modeling technology makes for an exciting future for our 1/12 series.
Tamiya wants to thank all those motorcycle modelers out there who have helped us accomplish this significant milestone. No matter how much bike technology advances, as long as you continue to want to build more, see more and learn more, Tamiya's vision and committment to providing the world's modelers with the most detailed, most accurate and highest quality models will never change.
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