1985, Iwata Beach
Their task was to simply create a totally new generation of scooters. Yamaha top management had composed a team of young product planners, engineers and designers and had given them several weeks to travel Japan, see cities and usage of scooters and come back to Iwata with new exciting ideas.

The team had many ideas, but nothing was really exciting enough for them. So finally they were all a little disappointed and were sitting at the sandy beach in Iwata, not far from Yamaha head office, contemplating what they should present in the coming days to their bosses on top floor.

Someone made a rather frustrated statement, more joking rather than serious: "Let's make a scooter which can run on the beach!". No one reacted. After a while someone else's voice was heard: "Maybe that is a good idea. We could make something with balloon tyres and a funny styling, just like a dune buggy." This was the turning point to the stagnating conversation. Suddenly they all put their heads together and everyone added his perceptions of what this vehicle should be.

The biggest wheels and the smallest body
A few days later they presented their ideas to the management. Amongst some other concepts, the beach scooter idea was so attractive, that it was soon decided to go ahead. ELM design, Yamaha's external design office for scooter projects, started working on the styling under project leader Yasutoki Matsuno while the engineering team, managed by Masakazu Nakamichi, developed the first prototypes.

Nakamichi-san, already had experience with smaller vehicles as product manager of Chappy, the small 50 cc pocket moped.

Both models finally became among Yamaha's most long life models: Chappy was produced from 1973 till 1998 and BW's celebrates its 15th birthday in 2004. "Everything went on without major problems", Nakamichi remembers, "but it was a real difficult task to achieve the very compact size requested by the product planning team. The design of the front area was especially complicated to fit with big wheels. Those wheels were also much heavier than standard ones and during hard testing we even broke the rear wheel drive axle that was then replaced by a design with a bigger diameter."

Shown at Tokyo Motor Show in autumn of 1988
Introduced at Tokyo Motor Show in 1988, BW's 50 (the name stands for "Big Wheels") first targeted the Japanese and American market where its image was supposed to take profit from the incredible ATV-(3-wheeler) fashion. But things often turn the other way: the 3 wheeler fashion ceased in the USA and in Japan the scooter market remained mainly commuter driven. New fun concepts did not match consumer's taste.

In Europe however, the perception was quite different. Scooters already have been "life stylish" in the 50's and 60's and a fresh unconventional approach was falling on fertile ground.

Christian Petit, today manager of the biggest Yamaha exclusive shop in Paris, remembers "I was quite amazed and positively impressed when I discovered the BW's at the Tokyo show, but I could not expect such a huge success"; while Jean-Claude Olivier, president of Yamaha Motor France, was instantly convinced of the market potential and insisted to get it on sale in Europe.

Launch in Europe
MBK, being a French factory that was liaised with Yamaha since the middle of the eighties, was very interested to utilise their production facilities in Europe for the new and up-coming scooter market. The brave decision was made to produce this unique model for Europe, and to transfer the production line to Saint Quentin in the north of France. Production started in 1990, for Yamaha focusing on the sportive aspects of the model in their motorcycle dealer network under the name of BW's and for MBK, focusing on the fashionable aspects for their young target group, under the model name of Booster.
François-Marie Dumas, Product Planner at Yamaha Motor Europe, remembers: "One of the problems we encountered during development was caused by the front twin headlamps which were impossible to homologate in France. I suggested, almost as a joke, to replace them by a single headlamp with the shape of two linked-headlamps. Not very efficient said engineers, but it finally worked and BW's could keep its famous front face that defines a lot of its personality."

The famous French designer Sacha Lakic who came up with the brilliant idea of the name of "Booster" for MBK brand, remembers: "I fell really in love with this model and it has really influenced me. In Booster's later developments I wanted to go more extreme with a real hard core 4x4 jeep image and I created 2 or 3 prototypes with grill and protections everywhere. Only 10% was kept for production but we used some of these ideas for later accessory parts".

1 million made in France
The scooter proved to be a huge success in particular in Latin countries. When launched at Paris show in September 1989, the interest of media and the typical youngster target group was overwhelming. 4 138 units were sold in Italy the first year and 5 582 in France. Sales grew steadily to culminate in 1996 with a total of 126 645 BW'S and Booster sold all over Europe. To look at numbers: France with 44 005 units and Germany with 6 636 units. The Italian record was two years later in 1998 with 54 542 units sold. With increasing sales numbers, BW's & Booster became a full family range of products with model variations like Next Generation, SPY & Rocket, Bump & Track and other special editions.

The booming scooter market went through many changes in the 1990's, with a large variety of models being launched by many competitors, all offering new advantages to the customers. But remarkably, the demand for the 'original' model remained strong. Its authentic simplicity and robustness could still not be matched by others….and the model really became a cult. The factory in France produced its 1-million'th scooter in 1999 and not surprisingly, that scooter was a Booster…. The name 'Booster' had become a legend, in a country like France it is even used as a synonym for 'scooter'! Of course this fashion did also inspire accessory makers and very few two-wheelers offer such a huge variety of accessory products for customization.

Yamaha: new concept inventor
The young generation fully identified themselves with this model. Previously that has happened with motorcycles or sports mopeds but it was the very first time that a 50cc scooter got this position! As an example: In the first year of delivery, 84% of BW's owners were young boys. The model marked a break-through since it was the first scooter not primarily bought because of its utility function but mainly due to its looks and sportive appeal.

What the team on the beach in Iwata in 1985 could not have imagined, happened: they created the base for a lifestyle for youngsters on the other side of the globe and a model which is still after so many years in Yamaha's line up!