Dome's roots trace to 1965, when Minoru Hayashi built a rebodied Honda S600 coupe known as the "Karasu" (Japanese for crow) for racer Tojiro Ukiya. The car relied heavily on weight reduction and fibreglass-reinforced plastic aerodynamic bodywork, and won its debut at the Suzuka Clubman Race despite Hayashi having no prior racecar construction experience. Subsequent projects included the "Macransa" — a modified Honda S800 built for the 1966 Japanese Grand Prix — and the Formula Junior "Kusabi" in 1969.
In 1975, Hayashi formally established Dome at Takaragaike, Kyoto, with an explicit philosophy of small-production manufacturing supported by racing technology development. Three years after the company's founding, Dome produced its most celebrated road-car concept: the Dome Zero (童夢-零, Dōmu Zero), a Nissan L28-powered sports car that stood just 980 mm tall and was designed to be the world's lowest-riding production car. The Zero debuted at the 1978 Geneva Motor Show and generated international attention. A production variant called the Zero P2 was exhibited the following year at the Chicago Auto Show and Los Angeles Auto Expo, but Japanese government authorities refused to grant type approval and the car never entered series production.
Dome entered the 1980s as a constructor for Group C Toyota TOM'S machines competing in the All Japan Super Silhouette Championship, the All Japan Sports Prototype Championship, and the World Sportscar Championship. The company built a series of Toyota-branded prototypes through the decade, designated with model numbers from the 83C through the 88C.
In parallel, Minoru Hayashi assisted his cousin Masakazu Hayashi in establishing the Hayashi Racing formula car marque. The Hayashi 320, designed by Masao Ono, won the All-Japan Formula Three Championship with Osamu Nakako driving. A modified Hayashi 320 also won the Macau Grand Prix in the Formula Atlantic category, driven by American Bob Earl.
Late in 1995, the company announced plans to enter Formula One with a car designed by Akiyoshi Uko, designated the Dome F105. The car was intended to use a Minardi transmission and hydraulic system, with Marco Apicella serving as test driver in 1996 before Shinji Nakano and Naoki Hattori took over testing duties. The projected 1997 World Championship entry never materialised. A follow-up design, the Dome F106, was abandoned due to lack of sponsorship and Mugen's refusal to provide engines. The Concorde Agreement created additional barriers to entry, and all F1 development work was shelved by 1999 following Honda's commitment to the British American Racing project.
Dome established Dome Cars Ltd in the United Kingdom in 1999 and built the Dome Tunnel wind tunnel facility in Maihara, Shiga Prefecture, originally conceived to support the F1 project. The company turned its attention to the Japanese GT Championship, building and racing the Honda NSX for factory-supported teams and managing its own Super GT entries under Takata sponsorship.
The Dome S101 Le Mans Prototype chassis, originally built in the early 2000s, was updated to the S101.5 specification to meet 2007 regulations, with examples supplied to Racing for Holland. In 2008, after a 22-year absence from Le Mans, Dome entered its closed-cockpit S102 in the LMP1 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A further development, the S102.5 powered by a 3.4-litre Judd V8, was entered in the 2012 race. For that campaign Dome allied with Pescarolo for race operations and adopted a development philosophy focused on outright lap speed rather than endurance reliability.
In 2001 Dome Carbon Magic was established in Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, focusing on carbon composite development and manufacture. In 2014, Dome withdrew from Super GT as a team entrant to concentrate on building the Mother Chassis platform for the series' GT300 class, a standardised base chassis made available to customer constructors.
Dome's legacy spans more than five decades of Japanese motorsport, from club racing specials to full manufacturer-level programmes across multiple disciplines, and the company remains a reference point for independent technical ambition within Japanese racing.