, literally "child's dream", is a Japanese racing car constructor involved mainly in
open-wheel
An open-wheel single-seater (often known as formula car) is a car with the wheels outside the car's main body, and usually having only one seat. Open-wheel cars contrast with street cars, sports cars, stock cars, and touring cars, which have thei ...
and
sports car racing
Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Broadly speaking, sports car racing is ...
.
History
In 1965, Minoru Hayashi built his first racing car, a rebodied
Honda S600
The Honda S600 is an automobile manufactured by Honda. It was launched in March 1964. Available as a roadster – bearing strong resemblance to the Honda S500 – and as a fastback coupé – introduced in March 1965 – the S600 was the first H ...
coupe. Belonging to Tojiro Ukiya, it was called the "Karasu" (crow in Japanese), due to its shape. Built on a small budget and in a short time, the Karasu emphasized weight reduction and aerodynamics using
FRP materials. The car went on to win its debut race at the Suzuka Clubman Race, despite Hayashi having no experience in racecar construction. In 1966 he went on to build the "Macransa", a more extensively modified
Honda S800
The S800 is a sports car from Honda. Introduced at the 1965 Tokyo Motor Show, the S800 replaced the successful Honda S600 as the company's image car. With a redline of 9,500 rpm, it is one of the highest-revving sports cars produced for street use ...
, to compete at the
Japanese Grand Prix
The Japanese Grand Prix ( ja, 日本グランプリ, Nihon-guranpuri) is a motor racing event in the calendar of the Formula One, Formula One World Championship. Historically, Japan has been one of the last races of the season, and as such the ...
. This was followed by the "Kusabi" three years later, which was a
Formula Junior
Formula Junior is an open wheel formula racing class first adopted in October 1958 by the CSI (''International Sporting Commission'', the part of the FIA that then regulated motorsports). The class was intended to provide an entry level class ...
racing car, and the "Panic" in 1971.
In 1975 at Takaragaike,
Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...
, Hayashi formed Dome with the intention to manufacture cars with small production runs, using racing machines to develop the technology. Three years after the company's formation in 1978, the company produced its first concept car designed for road use, the
Nissan
, trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...
L28-powered . It made its public debut at the
Geneva Motor Show
The Geneva International Motor Show is an annual auto show held in March in the Swiss city of Geneva. The show is hosted at the Palexpo, a convention centre located next to the Geneva Cointrin International Airport. The Salon is organised by th ...
the same year. For the following year, Dome produced a production version of the Zero called the Zero P2, which was exhibited at the
Chicago Auto Show
The Chicago Auto Show is held annually in February at Chicago's McCormick Place
convention center. It is the largest auto show in North America.
History
Samuel Miles, formerly a promoter of bicycle shows, produced the first "official" Chic ...
and
Los Angeles Auto Expo
The Los Angeles Auto Show is an annual auto show held at the Los Angeles Convention Center in early December. The LA Auto Show is an OICA sanctioned international exhibition. It is open to the public for ten days each year, filling of exhibit ...
. The car was refused type approval by the Japanese government, however, and was unable to go into production.
Dome continued as a sportscar constructor building cars for
Toyota
is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
's motorsport department
TOM'S
is a factory supported racing team and tuner of Toyota and Lexus vehicles. The name stands for Tachi Oiwa Motor Sport. Their head office is located in Tokyo, Japan. They are currently heavily involved with Super GT, Super Formula and Super Formu ...
to compete in the All Japan Super Silhouette Championship, then later used
Group C
Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with ''Group A'' for touring cars and ''Group B'' for GTs.
It was designed to replace both Group 5 special production cars (closed top touri ...
cars at the
All Japan Sports Prototype Championship
The , abbreviated as JSPC, formed by the Japan Automobile Federation, was a domestic championship which took place in Japan for Group C and IMSA GTP prototype cars and also featured cars that were eligible for touring car racing in its earlier yea ...
, which were also used to compete in the
World Sportscar Championship
The World Sportscar Championship was the world series run for sports car racing by the FIA from 1953 to 1992.
The championship evolved from a small collection of the most important sportscar, endurance, and road racing events in Europe and No ...
until the end of the decade when Dome switched to building cars for Honda.
Formula Three
Minoru Hayashi would also assist his cousin Masakazu Hayashi (of the Hayashi aluminum wheel company) establish his own formula car manufacturing concern. After producing cars for Japan's Formula Junior 1600 category for 10 years, their first Formula 3 car was the Hayashi 803
Formula Three
Formula Three, also called Formula 3, abbreviated as F3, is a third-tier class of open-wheel formula racing. The various championships held in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia form an important step for many prospective Formula One driv ...
car, designed by the two cousins. It was followed by the Hayashi 320 in 1981 designed by Masao Ono, who had also designed the 1976
Kojima Kojima may refer to:
Surname
* Kojima (surname)
Places
* Kōjima, an island known for wild monkeys in Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan
* Kojima, an uninhabited island belonging to the Tokara Islands, in the southern part of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japa ...
F1 car. Osamu Nakako won the
All-Japan Formula Three Championship
was a national motor racing championship that takes place in Japan. It is a junior-level feeder formula that uses small single seater Formula Three chassis.
As a result of Formula 3 naming regulations by the FIA, on 13 August 2019, series pro ...
title driving a Hayashi 320. A 320 was also modified for the
Formula Atlantic
Formula Atlantic is a specification of open-wheel racing car developed in the 1970s. It was used in professional racing through the IMSA Atlantic Championship until 2009 and is currently primarily used in amateur racing through Sports Car Club o ...
category and won the
Macau Grand Prix
The Macau Grand Prix ( pt, Grande Prémio de Macau; ) is a motorsport road race for automobiles and motorcycles held annually in Macau. It is the only street circuit racing event in which both cars and motorcycles participate, and one of onl ...
driven by American
Bob Earl
Bob Earl (born January 13, 1950) is an American former racing driver from Claremont, California. He began racing in Formula Ford in 1972 and was the 1973 national champion. In 1979 he made his professional debut in Formula Atlantic. In 1981 he b ...
. A further development, the 321, saw action briefly in Japan and England. Ono then switched to Dome to work on the sportscar designs, and Hayashi Racing switched to
Ralt
Ralt was a manufacturer of single-seater racing cars, founded by ex-Jack Brabham associate Ron Tauranac after he sold out his interest in Brabham to Bernie Ecclestone. Ron and his brother had built some specials in Australia in the 1950s under t ...
chassis to win the Japanese F3 title with Kengo Nakamoto.
In 1984, the follow-up Hayashi 322 was a success and helped Shuji Hyodo to win that year's Japanese F3 championship. In 1985, the Hayashi 330 won a single Japanese F3 race, but finishes were good enough to place driver Shuji Hyodo third in season-end standing. A development of the 322, the 331, appeared in a handful of Japanese F3 races in 1986 without success and disappeared quietly. A downturn in the aluminum wheel business is credited in causing Hayashi to abandon racing.
Post-Formula Three
In 1988, Dome would return to production car design, establishing a design studio called Jiotto Design to design cars with its own quarter-scale
wind tunnel
Wind tunnels are large tubes with air blowing through them which are used to replicate the interaction between air and an object flying through the air or moving along the ground. Researchers use wind tunnels to learn more about how an aircraft ...
. The studio produced the
Jiotto Caspita
The Jiotto Caspita is a prototype mid-engine sports car designed and manufactured by Dome in 1989. The car was billed as the " F1 on the Road." The original design of the car was done by Kunihisa Ito, who was the vice president and chief designer o ...
supercar
A supercar – also called exotic car – is a loosely defined description of street-legal, high-performance sports cars. Since the 2010s, the term hypercar has come into use for the highest performing supercars. Supercars commonly serve as t ...
, which never went into production due to the recession.
Dome continued to compete with
Jan Lammers
Jan Lammers (Johannes Antonius Lammers, Zandvoort, 2 June 1956) is a racing driver
Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition.
Auto racing h ...
, Keiji Matsumoto,
Ross Cheever
Ross Cheever (born April 12, 1964 in Rome, Italy) is an American race car driver and is the younger brother of former Formula One driver and Indianapolis 500 champion Eddie Cheever. Born in Rome, Ross never completed a full season in elite level mo ...
and
Thomas Danielsson
Thomas Danielsson (born 4 December 1964) is a Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finl ...
, driving until 1992, when
Marco Apicella
Marco Apicella (born 7 October 1965 near Bologna) is an Italian professional racing driver. He competed in one Formula One Grand Prix for the Jordan team in the 1993 Italian Grand Prix. He later won the 1994 Japanese Formula 3000 Championship dr ...
was signed to drive the new Dome-
Mugen F103, taking the title in 1994. The Formula 3000 program continued until 1998 with
Shinji Nakano
Shinji Nakano (中野 信治, born 1 April 1971) is a Japanese professional racing driver.
His father, Tsuneharu, was also a racing driver. He competed in the All-Japan Formula Three Championship.
Racing career
Pre Formula One Career
Formu ...
, Katsumi Yamamoto and
Juichi Wakisaka
is a former Japanese racing driver who was a 2002, 2006 and 2009 champion in Japan's Super GT series in the Super GT#GT500, GT500 category. Prior to the 1998 Formula One World Championship , 1998 Formula One season he tested for the Jordan Grand ...
but without much success.
Formula One
Late in 1995, Tadashi Sasaki, joined Dome and that autumn the company announced its plan to enter F1 with a car designed by Akiyoshi Uko called the
Dome F105
The Dome F105 was an unraced Formula One car designed and built by the Japanese auto racing, motorsport constructor, Dome (constructor), Dome.
Concept and construction
Dome was founded in 1975 by brothers Minoru Hayashi, Minoru and Shoichi Hayashi ...
, using a
Minardi
Minardi was an Italian automobile racing team and constructor founded in Faenza in 1979 by Giancarlo Minardi. It competed in the Formula One World Championship from 1985 until 2005 with little success, nevertheless acquiring a loyal followin ...
transmission and hydraulic system.
Marco Apicella
Marco Apicella (born 7 October 1965 near Bologna) is an Italian professional racing driver. He competed in one Formula One Grand Prix for the Jordan team in the 1993 Italian Grand Prix. He later won the 1994 Japanese Formula 3000 Championship dr ...
was installed as test driver in 1996 and the test driving duties were later taken over by
Shinji Nakano
Shinji Nakano (中野 信治, born 1 April 1971) is a Japanese professional racing driver.
His father, Tsuneharu, was also a racing driver. He competed in the All-Japan Formula Three Championship.
Racing career
Pre Formula One Career
Formu ...
and
Naoki Hattori
is a motoring journalist and racing driver from Japan.
After he won the Japanese Formula 3 championship in 1990, he failed to pre-qualify for two Formula One Grands Prix with Coloni in 1991 as a late-season replacement for Pedro Chaves. He r ...
. The planned 1997 World Championship effort came to nothing and the follow-up car, the Dome F106, never materialised due to lack of sponsorship and
Mugen's refusal to supply engines. The
Concorde Agreement
The Concorde Agreement is a contract between the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the Formula One teams and the Formula One Group which dictates the terms by which the teams compete in races, and how the television revenues and ...
also delayed the start for the team. By 1999, all development work would fold after Honda's involvement with
British American Racing
British American Racing (BAR) was a Formula One constructor that competed in the sport from 1999 to 2005. BAR began by acquiring Tyrrell, and used Supertec engines for their first year. Subsequently, they formed a partnership with Honda which l ...
.
Recent projects
In 1999 Dome established Dome Cars Ltd. in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
and the Dome Tunnel in
Maihara,
Shiga Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Shiga Prefecture has a population of 1,412,916 (1 October 2015) and has a geographic area of . Shiga Prefecture borders Fukui Prefecture to the north, Gifu Prefecture to the nort ...
, which was originally intended for F1 construction. The company also focused its effort in the
Japanese GT Championship
Super GT (stylized as SUPER GT) is a grand touring car racing series that began in 1993. Launched as the , generally referred to as either the JGTC or the All Japan Grand Touring Car Championship, the series was renamed to Super GT in 2005. It is ...
, which they had been since 1996 and also competing as a team as well as building the
Honda NSX
The Honda NSX, marketed in North America as the Acura NSX, is a two-seat, mid-engined coupe sports car manufactured by Honda.
The origins of the NSX trace back to 1984, with the HP-X (Honda Pininfarina eXperimental) concept, which was a mid-eng ...
for other factory supported teams. They also worked on the aerodynamics on the
JTCC Honda Accord
The , also known as the in Japan and China for certain generations, is a series of cars manufactured by Honda since 1976, best known for its four-door sedan variant, which has been one of the best-selling cars in the United States since 1989. ...
.
In 2001, DOME Carbon Magic was formed in
Mishima Mishima may refer to:
Places
* Mishima, Fukushima, a town in Fukushima Prefecture
* Mishima, Kagoshima, a village in Kagoshima Prefecture
* Mishima, Niigata, a town in Niigata Prefecture
* Mishima, Shizuoka, a city in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
...
,
Shizuoka Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...
, specifically for carbon composite development and manufacture. It continued to build and race the
Honda NSX
The Honda NSX, marketed in North America as the Acura NSX, is a two-seat, mid-engined coupe sports car manufactured by Honda.
The origins of the NSX trace back to 1984, with the HP-X (Honda Pininfarina eXperimental) concept, which was a mid-eng ...
in the recently-renamed Super GT series, with
Takata as the main sponsor.
Dome also upgraded their
Dome S101
The Dome S101, later upgraded and raced as the Dome S101 Hb, S101 Hbi, and the Dome S101.5, is a sports prototype built and designed for use in the LMP1 class of the 24 Hours Of Le Mans, and other similar endurance races. The car was the predecesso ...
Le Mans prototype
A Le Mans Prototype (LMP) is the type of sports prototype race car used in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship, IMSA SportsCar Championship, European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series. Le Mans Prototypes were create ...
chassis to meet new regulations for 2007. The new car has been dubbed the S101.5. These S101s were supplied to
Racing for Holland
Racing for Holland is a Dutch motor racing team started by Jan Lammers in 1999. The team is initially specialised in endurance races such as 24 hours of Le Mans and FIA sportscars series. The team also participated in the A1 Grand Prix as the A1 ...
. In 2008, Dome introduced a closed-cockpit prototype called th
S102for the Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) class and entered in the
2008 24 Hours of Le Mans after an absence of
22 years.
In February 2012, Dome announced that it will enter an updated
S102 in the
2012 24 Hours of Le Mans. The updated car, designated the S102.5, will be powered by a 3.4L
Judd V8. In a departure for Dome, the team will self-fund race operations, rather than lease their car to a separately funded race team. Dome allied with
Pescarolo for race operations until the latter dissolved, and have instructed its team to focus development on outright speed over one lap, rather than on reliability or endurance pace for a 24-hour race.
In 2014, Dome left Super GT as a team entrant to focus on the construction of the Mother Chassis platform for the GT300 class; the team was reported to return in 2017, but did not materialize in favor of entering a Honda Civic TCR in the
Super Taikyu Series
Super Taikyu (スーパー耐久, ''Super Endurance''), formerly known as the Super N1 Taikyu Series prior to 2005 and N1 Endurance Series prior to 1995, and currently named the Eneos Super Taikyu Series Powered by Hankook for sponsorship reasons, ...
.
References
External links
Dome official website2006 Super GT profile2012 LeMans Announcement
{{Formula One constructors
Formula One constructors
Car manufacturers of Japan
Japanese racecar constructors
Japanese auto racing teams
24 Hours of Le Mans teams
World Sportscar Championship teams
Formula Nippon teams
Japanese Formula 3 Championship teams
Super GT teams
BMW in motorsport