Torakusu Yamaha founded his company in 1887 and in 1900 he made the first piano built in Japan. The company’s logo is still a trio of interlocking tuning forks and it has grown into the world’s largest manufacturer of musical instruments, but a separate company called Yamaha Motor was spun off from the larger corporation in 1955. A 125-cc single-cylinder motorcycle called the YA-1 was its first product, and early racing success fueled sales. Success in motorsport continued into the 1960s on the international level. In 1968 Yamaha introduced its first four-stroke motorcycle called the XS-1, and the company was a pioneer in dirtbikes in the 1970s. A Yamaha won the first Paris-Dakar Rally in 1979, and Yamahas like the RD500LC, V-Max and XTZ 750 Super Ténéré were all high-performance highlights in the 1980s. So was the YZF-R1 in the 1990s, and since 1995 Yamaha has sold American-style cruisers under the Star Motorcycles brand.