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Nowadays, aerodynamics is
so important you could say that the potential of a racing car is defined
by the aerodynamic development skills of the constructor. But to use
the aquired aerodynamic potential it is no less important for the
chassis to be extremely stiff and light weight. At Dome we were aware
of the fact that aerodynamics and carbon composite technology will
be the core issues of racing car development and have been developing
our own technology for some time. As far as aerodynamics are concerned,
we finished building our 50% wind tunnel and moving belt system in
November last year and with a little more experience we should be
on par with the worlds highest aerodynamic development skills.
On the other hand, our carbon composite development started with the
experimental bike Dome DCF1 in which we, with the cooperation of carbon
fibre manufacturers, experimented with a carbon composite frame. Since
then we have put a lot of effort into developing our carbon composite
technology, also with the cooperation with carbon fibre manufacturers.
At the time carbon fibre manufacturers still had interest in making
carbon fibre products, so Dome would do the engineering design and
the carbon fibre manufacturer would make the product. Since then the
carbon fibre manufacturers have started to pull out of the market
for complex shaped pieces as they are not efficient profit-wise. At
the same time Dome also started to turn to factories that specialise
in carbon composite parts.
Of the several carbon composite part makers that exist in Japan we
started to develop a deep relationship with Whisker who were extremely
diligent in developing their knowhow and were also interested in racing
cars. Dome also let Whisker into know-how we had developed ourselves
and both sides had kept on pushing the other with new ideas.
Dome has long since kept its focus on research and development and
has left much of the manufacturing side to cooperating companies.
With our launch into the European market and mass production just
around the corner, the problems of cost, speed of development and
steady production has left us no choice but to choose to do carbon
composite parts manufacturering in-house. Therefore we have decided
to buy up Whisker with which we have a deep relationship and make
it a subsidiary of Dome.
Development and production can now work more closely together and
with the competition becoming more fierce we hope this will enable
us to further develop our technology in the future.
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