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In 1965, Minoru Hayashi built his first racecar, the "KARASU", based on the HONDA S600. It was when the history of a "child's dream", which "DOME" written in the Japanese characters exactly means, started. At that time in Japan, however, the motorsport market was not large enough at all for a racecar constructor to be a sustainable business. Hayashi soon ran out of money, which forced him to stop his project. Several years later in 1975, he was still so passionate in racecars that he started the "DOME Project" aiming to set up a low-volume sports car manufacturer applying his experience in the racecar development.
In 1978, the first super sports car, the DOME-ZERO, was finished and launched at the 48th Geneva Motor Show. The car immediately became the highlight of the show, spreading the name of the oriental carrozzeria previously unknown around the world. In the same year, DOME was officially registered as a company limited and built its Head Quarters in Takaragaike, Kyoto, to begin full-fledged operations. Our first efforts to gain Japanese homologation for the DOME-ZERO and the production prototype P2 were discouraged by the bureaucratic barriers for reasons other than legal stipulations. It didn't stop our efforts to obtain homologations in abroad, though. By the time when DOME found a promising plan to gain homologations, DOME had acquired enough budget to participate in the Le Mans 24-hour race thanks to the royalty revenue for the extremely popular DOME-ZERO toys and the encouragement from the toy manufacturer. As the staff members at DOME were all "racing mad," it was so natural consequence for us to concentrate on the Le Mans project and to put the sports car project on hold.
Going back to the money-sucking origin of DOME, racecar development, the company's finance quickly fell in a precarious state. Luckily though, some automobile companies and their subcontracting companies became interested in the DOME-ZERO and the challenge in Le Mans. DOME started subcontracting projects from those companies, which saved DOME.
The initial consignments were mostly making display cars for motor shows, but the range of work gradually expanded to actual design and engineering.
In 1983 DOME began to enter cars in domestic races. The TOYOTA GROUP C CAR, which we had been developing since 1982, competed successfully with a host of other cars, including Porsche. The DOME's success in the series made the Japanese endurance racing all the more exciting.
From 1986 we switched our primary project from sports car racing to formula car racing in the wake of TOYOTA's withdrawal from the Le Mans project. While we competed in the All Japan F3000 Championship, we started developing our own F3000 chassis, which was intended to be a study model for the following F1 machine. After various prototypes and experiments, we started racing our own DOME F3000 car in the championship.
Meanwhile, the range of consignment works from automobile manufacturers, which were at the outset mostly the fabrication of display cars for motor shows, expanded to new-model planning, designing, prototype development andproduction championship.
Along with the business expansion, we moved our Head Quarters and provided it with a full line of facilities including a long-awaited 25%-scale wind tunnel in 1987. The environment for research and development improved dramatically as a result.
Such developments enabled us to develop the super sports car "CASPITA", an electric vehicle and a solar-powered car for an electricity company. The DOME-developed wind tunnel earned enormous praise, which brought us many contracts to build wind tunnels.
In 1991 we expanded our Head Quarters and added a new building completed with exceptional facilities, such as an NC machining facility for model-car manufacturing and an autoclave for CFRP-component manufacturing. Our capacity to handle consignment works expanded even more.
In 1994 DOME won the All Japan F3000 Championship after mere 4-year challenge. It was the first Japanese-design winner in the history of the championship. We immediately started development of the first whole-Japanese F1 prototype as the next step. Testing of the car began right after its completion in 1996.
Around the same time we started a racecar development programme for HONDA. We were in charge of aerodynamics for the JTCC ACCORD from 1995 and started developing the NSX JGTC chassis in the following year, both of which we achieved good results.
In 1998 we were subcontracted to by HONDA development of a formula car for oval tracks and a small-sized formula car for racing schools. The small formula car was actually the first mass-production racecar for DOME, opening the door into yet another area of business.
As it seemed to us growth of the domestic motorsport industry would be limited then, we started to have an eye on the European market. We ran a booth at the racecar show held in Birmingham "Autosport International" in 1999 as the first Japanese racecar constructor. Our products were a focus of attention at the show.
In 2000 we constructed a 50%-scale wind tunnel, the DOME Tunnel "Fu-Ryu-Sha", in Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, that was essential for an F1 constructor. Moreover, in 2001, we founded DOME Carbon Magic Co., Ltd., that enabled us in-house CFRP development and manufacturing, in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture. To become the world-leading racecar constructor, DOME was accelerating its improvement in engineering abilities and facilities.
It soon became apparent, however, that the motorsport industry in Japan had already been suffering from serious cancer spreading all over the body, and that your business would not be sustainable if it heavily relied on the domestic motorsport market. This fact realised us we had to strengthen our organisation as an engineering company to let ourselves continue creating racecars. In 2005 we moved all of the DOME's facilities to Maibara, Shiga Prefecture, and also founded DOME Composite Thailand in Thai. The DOME group was restructured completely to develop our business based on the CFRP engineering and manufacturing technology we had gained from racecar projects.
Since then we have been developing HONDA HSV-010 GT and running the HONDA works team. Meanwhile Minoru Hayashi founded the Japan Motor-racing Industry Association, whose objective is to promote the Japanese motorsport by developing the technology and nurturing the related industry, and installed himself as the inaugural chairman of the JMIA in 2008. Hayashi and the JMIA have been active in variety of area in the motorsport such as a junior formula, Formula 4.
DOME keeps challenging in Le Mans 24 Hours although not every year. We competed in Le Mans 24 Hours in 2012, which was the 17th race for us.
DOME Co., Ltd. is indeed a small company has materialised our dreams by utilising our creativity, adhering to our policy, and going our own way without affected by common practice. We will keep the "style" of ours and will keep achieving our goals.
DOME: It is the exceptional company in the country where people are discouraged to be exceptional.
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