Cycle News

CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE H ow badly did Kawasaki want… make that need, Yoji Ham- awaki to establish Kawasaki in America? So much so that all they gave him was a one-way ticket and a mandate to find a way build a successful motorcycle business in the U.S. This was 1965 and Hamawaki was a 35-year-old junior executive, but he had a plan and Kawasaki was desperate, so off he went—Kawasaki's future in the motorcycle business directly hing- ing on his success or failure. The plan Hamawaki had was something the other Japanese motorcycle makers hadn't come up with yet. His idea was to work closely with American employees to find out, and then build what American buyers wanted. The direct pipeline of ideas from America, to the produc- tion lines of Japan ultimately produced some of the most exciting motorcycles ever built. He also was a visionary on bringing manufacturing capabilities to these shores. Dealernews columnist Mike Vaughan recently published the news that Hamawaki was inducted into the Japan Automotive Hall of Fame, which provided the perfect entrée into going back and reviewing the major influence Hamawaki had on the motorcycling landscape of the 1960s and '70s. Forbes magazine in August of 1980 might have described it best when it wrote—Hamawaki con- vened a bunch of crazy American kids from the Midwest to find out what Honda wasn't making that Americans wanted and set out to give it to them. The result: a third-place ranking and 15% share in the U.S. market and annual sales of over $300 million. Hamawaki ended up in the motorcycle industry quite by accident. He was an aviation enthusiast and after graduating from Tokyo University he joined Ka- wasaki Aircraft Co. only to discover Kawasaki wasn't planning on returning to airplane manufacturing. Instead the company was focusing on motorcycles, without much success, in Japan's domestic market. Rumors were running rampant that Kawasaki was about to pull the plug on their endeavor. Hamawaki, perhaps feeling he had nothing to lose, went over the head of two levels of management above him and went directly to the man known as "The Godfather," Kawasaki's top executive— Chairman Kiyoshi Yotsumoto. "Never give up," Hamawaki pled to the Godfather. "We can win in the States, even if we were defeated in Japan. Let me do that!" The Godfather apparently liked the enthusiasm and boldness of Hamawaki and gave him the go ahead to go to America. We know the end of the story—Kawasaki was eventually successfully established in America, but Hamawaki admits an early misstep followed by a quick correction. "I pushed for a Japanese trading house to export Kawasaki motorcycles—J1 80cc, B8 125cc, and 500cc—which were unsold and called as ducks and donkey in the US market," Hamawaki explained. "Realizing my failure without knowing its market needs, I decided to establish a factory owned U.S. company embarking from scratch with American expertise." It was the American element that provided the key to success. No one knew better what motorcy- cles Americans wanted and would buy than those heavily involved in the sport. Hamawaki brought on board a Harvard educat- ed enthusiast from Nebraska named Alan Masek to become general manager. Masek's family was in the auto supply business, so he grew up with his hand on the pulse of the American hot rodders, who also happened to by performance motorcycle buyers (Masek was the man who was later respon- YOJI HAMAWAKI: THE MAN WHO BROUGHT P138

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