Remember the Mazda 787B? Oh, and what about the Toyota TS050? Talk about some of the coolest and most successful Japanese race cars in history! These two legends are the only 2 Japanese cars to ever win the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans and they give us faith into Japan's future in endurance racing.

Not to say that other Japanese cars haven't tried, but their attempts often get shoved under the rug of history, and this is something that we, as car enthusiasts, should avoid.

12-year-olds on the internet will have you believe that Nissan is the only relevant Japanese brand because the R34 GT-R was a magical rainbow filled with supernatural sauce, but if I may... Nissan has been continuously ruining the GT-R since the R33 and now their once god-like supercar killer is totally irrelevant, which brings us to Dome - A company you probably have never heard of and most likely will never hear about again.

Related: Here Are The Coolest Japanese Cars From The '90s

The Dome Zero

Dome zero race car
VIa supercarnostalgia

Contrary to popular belief, small companies actually make some of the best cars in the world. When corporate politics and branding decisions are out of the picture, car companies are able to spread their wings and be creative. For example, Toyota recently came out with the A90 Supra and it famously shared BMW's Z4 underpinnings. Toyota claims that its decision to go with the BMW platform was economic, simply, they didn't have enough money to build a bespoke engine and design a suitable chassis.

Despite the new Supra being quite the driver's car, it was a missed opportunity to regain the wow-factor that Japanese cars had in the '90s, but Dome never had this problem. They were a very small Japanese company that, like most, just wanted to go racing.

Related: The Toyota Supra Won't Sell. Here's Why

There Is Hope

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The Zero was Dome's dream as a road-going car that could be eventually homologated and specced for racing in either the legendary group 4 series of the '70s or the prototype class at Le Mans. The project started in '75 with the head honcho himself, Minoru Hayashi. He got the car a big spot at the 1978 Geneva Motor Show which would help him eventually get the car into the states.

Surprisingly enough, Dome's crazy 2.8 liter Nissan inline 6 car got good journalistic reviews and was a well-behaved road-car, at least to 1978 standards. All this praise only heightened Hayashi's dream of taking the Zero on the world stage of racing, but he couldn't afford it. His company had spent big money on the Zero and the homologation process is an expensive one, so as of '78 he was out of luck.

Related: Watch The Cosworth-Sourced Acura NSX Engine Being Built

A Short-Lived Stint

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A year and a lot of dealmaking later, Hayashi and his head of design, Masao Ono, had finally pushed the FIA hard enough to get a pit at Le Mans. With help from the wonderful Cosworth engine team, their new "Zero RL" was cheap enough to fly, but fast enough to compete.

Now, "compete" is a strong word, and as much love as we have for Dome, they didn't have the experience nor the engineering prowess to maintain a serious racecar for 24 hours in a row. Of the two RL racecars that started the 1979 24 Hours of Le Mans, one qualified in 15th and the other 18th, and both suffered catastrophic failures that concluded their race.

And if you're waiting for a glorious comeback, how's an extra last-place finish and DNF for you? Yes, sadly, but expectedly, their next two prototype entries came up short and then even shorter, thus turning the final chapter in Dome's dream of Le Mans.

Next: 15 Of The Most Epic Looking Cars That Won The 24 Hours Of Le Mans