Yanmar Releases New Powerboat Diesel Series Based on BMW Engines

OSAKA, Japan, March 22, 2006: Yanmar Co., Ltd. announced its new high performance marine engines, the BY series, at the recent international boat shows in Dusseldorf and Miami for release to the powerboat engine market beginning April this year. The BY series engines are based on the engines of BMW.

Yanmar enjoys a close to 50% share of the sailboat engine market in the world. The company entered the powerboat engine market in 1989 and has steadily increased its presence as a manufacturer of high performance, high quality engines in this field, too. Yanmar, now enjoys an over 30% market share in the U.S. and 25% even in Europe, the most competitive market.

The BY series is based on passenger-car-use four and six cylinder diesel engines built with the outstanding technologies of BMW combined with the high output diesel technologies of Yanmar. The result is 260hp in the six-cylinder (3-liter) model.

To comply with the tighter pleasure boat engine exhaust gas regulations of EPA in the U.S. and RCD in Europe, the BY series employs the second-generation common rail system for the FIE system, the core of the diesel engine. The BY series clears those exhaust gas regulations and has compactness, lightness and acceleration performance equivalent to those of gasoline engines in the same class.

The release of the BY series fuses the high quality brand images of BMW and Yanmar in a way that transcends differences of engine field and has the dynamism to foster a whole new stratum of sophisticated powerboat users. Annual sales of 6,000 BY series units in the 150-260hp range are expected by 2008. Combined with sales of the bigger LY and CX (Yanmar's original power boat engines) and SY (made jointly with Scania of Sweden), Yanmar's global market share of the powerboat diesel engine market could then exceed 40%.