Aside from a few notable exceptions, automakers engineer powertrains with their own in-house experts. Designing and conceptualizing a powertrain can take years and billions in R&D money. Sometimes, some automakers are nice enough to let others use their powertrains, usually for companies that don’t have the R&D money to create their own. Or maybe they’re just GM, and they offer the rather special LS as a crate motor, which every supercar startup seems to be using.
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Sometimes, however, even the automakers themselves have to enlist outside help for powertrain development. The outside help generally contributes to the powertrain’s packaging or its engineering, resulting in a much more capable and better-suited final product. A common outside assistant for the development of some brilliant powertrains in the world of cars is Yamaha.
Yes, the people that make the musical instruments. While we don’t hear about it all that much, you’d be surprised how many great performance cars have had input from Yamaha for their powertrains.
Every Performance Car That Uses A Yamaha Engineered Powertrain
