Japanese motorcycle manufacturer Yamaha has reportedly enlisted the help of a Formula One design guru to design their first automobile offering, tiny city car Motiv, which they unveiled at the 2013 Tokyo motor show.
To counter its inexperience building cars, Yamaha has enlisted the assistance of famed South Africa-born designer Gordon Murray, who made his name in F1 designing world championship winning cars for Brabham, McLaren and Mercedes.
According to The Age, Murray has developed a revolutionary way of building road cars, dubbed iStream, that does away with expensive production-line techniques required for conventional cars.
Murray further said that iStream keeps production of the body and chassis separate, with the pre-painted panels attached to the car at the final stage of assembly, adding that conventional steel and plastic body panels are replaced by ultra-light honeycomb sandwich that also saves weight and complexity.
Murray also claimed that iStream advantages include greater flexibility, shorter lead times for new models and greater customization and hoped that Yamaha is just the first iStream customer and admitted talks are on going with several other existing car makers.
The report mentioned that Yamaha's Motiv concept car has a small electric motor, but its newly-developed 1.0-litre, three-cylinder motorbike engine could also work its way into the car.
