The exhibits by HINO Motors Sales (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of HINO Motors Ltd Japan grouped under Toyota Group of Companies, was one of the highlights that attracted participants interest and attention during the recently held Malaysia Commercial Vehicle Exhibition (MCVE) 2017.
This is HINO’s third participation of the event. It was organised by Asian Trucker Media and was held at the Mines International Exhibition Convention Centre in Kuala Lumpur from May 18 to 20.
This year, HINO expanded its event space to 324 sq m. With the larger space, †the company showcased attractions, such as the Dakar Rally truck, the Mini HINO Total Support Customer Centre and its newly-launched HINO products.
The Dakar Rally is the world’s most difficult endurance off-road racing challenge. The terrain that the competitors traverse is tougher than the ones in a conventional rally. The vehicles used are true off-road vehicles rather than modified on-road vehicles. Most of the competitive special sections are off-road, crossing dunes, mud, camel grass, rock among others.
The distances of each stage covered vary from short distances up to 800km to 900km per day. The event takes place for several days and the vehicles easily run over 9,000km of distance.
Held in the countries like Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina, it saw 316 vehicles took part in the challenge, including 50 in the trucks category.
HINO’s team Sugawara has marked a record in Dakar Rally 2017 by achieving the stunning feat of completing its 26th straight Dakar Rally since its first appearance in 1991. The team is also the champion of the Under 10-litres class for the eighth consecutive time since 2010.
For the first time in Malaysia, HINO brings its Dakar Rally truck all the way from Japan, as the main attraction for the expo.
It is also known as the “Little Monster” of HINO.
The “Little Monster” is based on the HINO500 Series trucks that are known for their world-class durability, these mid-sized racing trucks continue to fight fiercely against larger monster camions powered by engines with more than twice the displacement of the 500 Series engine.
The public had the chance to see and touch the HINO Dakar Rally Truck.
On top of that, HINO has showed the public the Mini HTSCC.
It is a gallery showcasing the first in world’s HINO customer centre built outside of Japan. The gallery also has the HTSCC museum experience from Sendayan, Negri Sembilan, where the public walked through the history of HINO’s operations in Malaysia and the older generation HINO truck.
HINO has recently launched the RM8 million HTSCC on April 20. HTSCC is built on a 3,960 sq m of land.
Hino aims for HTSCC to reach a capacity of 2000 training annually.
These training are open for truck or heavy duty vehicle drivers, who will be trained with ethical driving skills to reduce the number of accidents, complaints and summonses and ultimately to save precious lives and business costs.
Apart from the Dakar Rally truck and the Mini HTSCC, HINO also brought its two newly-launched products — the HINO 300 Series and HINO 500 series.
It gave the public a chance to experience the new range of HINO automatic transmission truck and its Prime Mover truck, which displayed the HINO QDR (quality, durability and reliability) that is in the DNA of all the HINO vehicles.
At the event, HINO also held a “Dakar & Me” selfie contest.
Members of the public had to post a creative captioned selfie with the HINO Dakar truck and they stood a chance to walk away with the grand prize of a HINO Dakar miniature truck, as well as 10 limited edition HINO Dakar merchandise for the top 10 creative post winners.