Hyades

Hyades is a Japanese company known for their reliable commercial vehicles and winning streak in Rally Events.

History

Hyades Corporation's Hyades motor division has been making cars since 1953 in Japan and they haven't stopped since.

Hyades’s story starts with humble beginnings as a completely different company in 1915, the Shibuya Aircraft Company. SAC made planes for the Japanese military and after the second World War, many smaller Japanese companies were reorganized, including SAC. The company became the Shibuya Lion Company, making scooters out of spare aircraft parts. SLC was further divided into smaller companies, but in 1953, the CEO Kaoru Kamei decided to reorganize some of the companies into car manufacturing, renaming the car manufacturer to Hyades and SLC as the Hyades Corporation.

The first vehicle produced by Hyades wasn’t a success, or even sold at all, due to multiple issues. Later vehicles fared much better and gave the company a name and identity.

In 1965, the company introduced their boxer engine, in the highly popular Hyades Kure, selling over a thousand units in its home country. The durability of the engine was highly praised and caused the company to further invest into the boxer engine.

A few years later, in 1968, Itashi acquired a 40% stake in Hyades Corporation and both companies exchanged technology and resources. This led the company to introduce the ‘Ultra AWD’ All-Wheel-Drive drivetrain, slowly becoming the staple configuration in their cars over the years. During this period, they introduced two of their most popular models, the Armada and the Fabrica.

Itashi eventually sold their stake to Embager in 1999. This allowed the company to sell rebadged versions of Embager cars, to make sure that Embager could get some market share in Japan. The company eventually sold the shares back to Hyades, who has owned them ever since.

In 2005, Koromo and Hyades announced a 25-year long partnership, covering costs of technologies and factories, allowing a cross-agreement between the two parties. This allowed both companies to sell the Koromo Narukami KTD and the Hyades Raikou HMT, a car made from this collaboration.

The company has since reduced their lineup, and retracted from several markets, selling mostly on their home market. Many of their vehicles are rebadged Koromo cars, and with plans to make most of their lineup part of EVs, their future is uncertain.

HMT

HMT stands for Hyper Motor Tuning. The company has had plenty of success in motorsports, particularly in Rally. In 1988, Hyades created HMT to take over all the motorsport activities for the company and were immediately successful with Rally. While the company had joined the FIMV World Rally Competition, now known as the FIMV RallyTouring Championship, in years prior, it wasn’t with a proper team. With the HMT Team, the company took three years straight (1991 to 93), and with the introduction of the Fabrica sedan, the victories kept piling up. The Rally stint ended in 2008.

HMT-badged cars were sold as either homologation versions or custom factory-tuned trims of popular models, like the Armada, Fabrica and Raikou.

Featured Vehicles

Regular

Fabrica HMT (2000)

The first generation Fabrica HMT was in a league of its own, being sold in multiple countries with several variants. This year 2000 variant was the last variant to be produced, with a coupé configuration, and only 300 units produced, making an extremely rare version of the vehicle.

Powering the Fabrica HMT is a 2.0L turbocharged flat-4 engine in a F4 configuration, with a 5-speed manual transmission.

Fabrica HMT (2022)

The final Fabrica HMT (but not the final Fabrica model) is the 2022 model, released in late 2021 to international markets. As the final HMT trim, Hyades went all out, equipping the car with all several new modern features and a powerful engine.

Said engine is a 2.5L turbocharged flat-4 engine in a F4 configuration, with a 6-speed manual transmission.

Common

Azuma Stahl Fabrica HMT (1999)

Azuma Stahl, a Japanese customization company, took the Fabrica and customized it with a better engine and visuals, elevating what was possible with the Fabrica HMT.