Hino completes 2025 Dakar

Hino has finished the 2025 Dakar Rally, with Hino Team Sugawara coming home in 13th place in the truck category after 12 stages and over 7800 kilometres.

Held in Saudi Arabia over January 3 to January 17, the 47th edition of the gruelling race saw competitors on motorcycles, in cars, buggies and trucks take on some incredibly challenging terrain, including a 48-hour marathon stage through the world’s largest continuous desert, the Rub’ al Khali, or ‘Empty Quarter’.

Steered by Teruhito Sugawara with navigator Hirokazu Somemiya and mechanic Yuji Mochizuki, the team completed the full event in 106h 01min 35sec, guiding the Hino 600 Series bonneted race truck home in what was the team’s 34th consecutive Dakar.

The race truck is powered by Hino’s A09C 9-litre turbo-diesel, which produces 588kW at 2800rpm and 2430Nm at 1600rpm. A production version of the same engine can be found in Hino’s 700 Series heavy-duty trucks.

According to Richard Emery, President & CEO of Hino Australia, the result underlines yet again the robust and durable nature of Hino products.

“As a sponsor of Hino Team Sugawara for the last 12 years, Hino Australia is thrilled with the team’s result – their bonneted 600 Series truck was extremely competitive against its more powerful 13-litre rivals,” he said.

“Hino trucks are renowned for their quality, durability and reliability, and a 34th successive Dakar Rally finish is testament to this.”

The truck category saw the MM Technology team triumph in the general classification, with a Czech team of Martin Macik, Frantisek Tomasek, and David Svanda bringing their IVECO PowerStar home in a blistering time of 58h 42min 58sec.