Osaka Auto Messe 2014 (175) HKS RACING PERFORMER 86

is a publicly traded company headquartered in Fujinomiya,

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 ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

specializing in the production and sales of aftermarket and accessory automotive parts and components.

History

HKS was formed in 1973 by Hiroyuki Hasegawa, a former engineer for Yamaha Motor Company, and his partner Goichi Kitagawa, while the start up capital was supplied by Sigma Automotive (hence the name HKS). The company began operations by tuning gasoline-powered engines in a dairy-farming shed at the foot of

Mount Fuji , or Fugaku, located on the island of Honshū, is the highest mountain in Japan, with a summit elevation of . It is the second-highest volcano located on an island in Asia (after Mount Kerinci on the island of Sumatra), and seventh-highest p ...

in Japan. Their goal was to design and build high performance engines and components that major original equipment manufacturers could not, or would not, produce. In July 1974, Hasegawa engineered and built the first commercialized turbocharger kit for passenger automobiles, since then developing turbocharger upgrades and bolt-on turbocharger kits that subsequently became the core business of HKS. Hasegawa also created the first commercially available electronic turbo timer and boost controller. HKS is a publicly traded company with an international sales and distribution network spanning Asia, Europe, Australia and the Americas to support its customer base. The company remains near Mt. Fuji with its main manufacturing and R&D facility in Fujinomiya City, Shizuoka Prefecture. Subsidiary companies have been established in Cambridgeshire, England (HKS Europe), Bangkok, Thailand (HKS Thailand). HKS USA was established in 1982 but shut down operations in 2011 with HKS electing instead to use wholesale distributors to handle their supply chain in the USA instead. Motovicity Distribution was selected as the North American warehouse and in May 2020, Motovicity Distribution's assets were acquired by Turn 14 Distribution who currently handles authorized distribution of HKS's products in the United States. HKS SILVIA S12

Products

HKS offers Japanese domestic model cars a wide variety of aftermarket parts ranging from engine internals such as connecting rods and camshafts to external parts such as blow off valves, intercooler kits, full exhaust systems, turbo kits, engine management systems and other performance electronics. The company also produced the

HKS 700E The HKS 700E is a twin-cylinder, horizontally opposed, four stroke, carburetted aircraft engine, designed for use on ultralight aircraft, powered parachutes and ultralight trikes. The engine is manufactured by HKS, a Japanese company noted for ...

aircraft engine, under its subsidiary, ''HKS Aviation'',Cliche, Andre: ''Ultralight Aircraft Shopper's Guide'' 8th Edition, page G-9 Cybair Limited Publishing, 2001. but the subsidiary has since ceased operations.

Motorsport

In 1984, HKS supported the FJ20ET engined 'HKS WORLD TRADE SILVIA S12' competing in the JSS (Japan supersports) championship with driver Seiichi Sodeyama. Since the late 1980s, HKS then competed in many forms of motorsports including

drag racing Drag racing is a type of motor racing in which automobiles or motorcycles compete, usually two at a time, to be first to cross a set finish line. The race follows a short, straight course from a standing start over a measured distance, most c ...

, JTCC, JGTC, F3, D1 Grand Prix,

Superbikes Superbike racing is a category of motorcycle racing that employs highly modified production motorcycles, as opposed to MotoGP in which purpose-built motorcycles are used. The Superbike World Championship is the official world championship series, t ...

, plus many others. They also sponsor many racers to carry the HKS name and to become part of the HKS team. In the past, they notably used the likes of

Anthony Reid Anthony Reid is a British auto racing driver, born on 17 May 1957 in Glasgow, Scotland. He was educated at Loretto School in Edinburgh. He lives in England. Formula cars He spent many years in Formula Three and other junior single-seater cham ...

(

Supertouring Super Touring, Class 2 or Class II was a motor racing Touring Cars category defined by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for national touring car racing in 1993. It was based on the "2 litre Touring Car Formula" created ...

/JTCC), Tetsuya Kawasaki (drag racing), Nobuteru Taniguchi (D1 Grand Prix and

Time Attack Time attack is a type of motorsport in which the racers compete for the best lap time. Each vehicle is timed through numerous circuits of the track. The racers make a preliminary circuit, then run the timed laps, and then finish with a cool-dow ...

), Akira Iida (Time Attack) to drive for their in-house team.

In popular culture

HKS-tuned cars have been featured in video game series such as Need for Speed and Gran Turismo.

References

External links