Toyota is located in the Toyota Aiichi region of Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda, and is now the largest automobile company in the world, according to market research by Investopedia. Since its inception, Toyota has gone on to produce a plethora of cars, trucks, and SUVs, and even some concept cars, with the majority of them still in the market while some were discontinued due to one reason or the other.
High on the list of discontinued Toyota cars is the Toyota AE86, also known as the Hachi-Roku. It's one of the most impressive performance cars produced by Toyota. It entered the market in 1983 and was discontinued in 1987. This car came in both Coupe and Liftback versions and quickly gained popularity in both its country of origin and around the world.
The AE86 was fitted with a 1.6-liter 4A-GE powerplant, a high-revving naturally-aspirated twin-cam 16v engine that produces circa 120bhp and 109lb-ft. torque. By today’s standard that’s really not much, and less than you’d find in your average small family hatchback, but back in the 1980s, it was a fairly fast car.
There is a lot of things to be said about this car, maybe too much in fact, but here are 9 things everyone forgot about the Toyota Corolla AE86.
9 Hachi-Roku And Modifications
The popularity of the AE86 in Japan, made it to be nicknamed the "Hachi-Roku" which means Eight-Six.
The AE86 is one of the most modified cars in the history of car modifications. With modifications mostly for speed or drifting, as well as cosmetic upgrades, of course.
8 AE86 And Drift King
In the mid-'80s, the AE86 gained popularity among Japanese hashiriya (Japanese street racers), who raced in the Japanese mountain passes. It was during this time that Japanese racing legend Keiichi Tsuchiya, also known as The Drift King, helped popularize the sport of drifting and the AE86 was his car of choice.
At some point, the AE86 was referred to as the Drift King's Chariot. Keiichi used the AE86 on Japan’s mountain passes, showing off the new sport of drifting. He also displayed these skills in a video known as The Drift Pluspy.
7 AE86 And "Initial D"
Only a number of things or platforms can boost a car’s popularity like appearing in popular media, and the Toyota AE86’s reputation got a starring role in the “Initial D” franchise. “Initial D” was a wildly successful manga about a young street racer and his AE86.
The popular comics spawned numerous animated series, movies, and even a live-action adaptation. However, they all shared one factor: the Toyota AE86 at the center of the action, winning hearts as it zipped through the mountains and drifted around tight corners. Initial D’s popularity boosted the price of the Toyota AE86. This price hike is jokingly called the "Takumi Tax", named after the main character in “Initial D.”
6 Fast And Furious
Fast and Furious is a franchise of racing, high adrenaline movies that have lasted for about 10 years and counting. One of the movies is Fast and Furious; Tokyo Drift. In this movie, the AE86 appeared just for a moment.
When Sean races DK in the parking garage, an AE86 Panda Trueno, Keiichi Tsuchiya's (Drift King of Japan) car of fame, is parked conspicuously at a corner. This made a lot of car fans happy, as they recognized the car immediately.
5 Popularly Known By Its Codename
It's quite rare for a car to be known more popularly by its factory code name. Most cars are known by their model names, Camry, Mustang, Camaro. Corvette, etc.
Not the case for this car, as almost everyone will refer to it as the AE86, or even use its Japanese translation, Hachi-Roku, when talking about it.
4 Championship Car
Behind the wheel of the Toyota AE86, driver Chris Hodgetts won the British Touring Car Championship in 1986 and 1987. The AE86 went on to win the European Touring Car Championship in 1988. These records made it popular in the British and European scenes.
With its 150 horsepower output, the lightweight Toyota AE86 managed to beat out cars like the BMW M6, Volvo 240 Turbo, Mazda 929, Holden Commodore, Alfa Romeo 75, and the Mercedes 190E 2.3-16, winning the Manufacturer's Championship.
3 Cult Following
From new, the AE86 didn’t sell in particularly high numbers in the UK and mainland Europe, but enjoyed more concentrated popularity in the U.S (thanks to the size of the market) and in Ireland, the huge following of road rallying in the latter no doubt a deciding factor. With time, the AE86 went from a well-kept secret to cult favorite, and as lively, rear-wheel drive compact cars became a thing of the past, the value of used AE86s began to climb.
It is common knowledge that owning an AE86 is about more than just the car that you drive. It's a lifestyle. Because of their age, the cars need almost constant maintenance, repairs, and upgrading. However, once you've got the bug, it's difficult to learn to love anything other than an AE86.
2 Drifting, Rallying, And Circuit
In recent years, the drift roads are dominated by superfast cars, cars with high horsepower, but this was not always so. The RWD AE86 by today's standards was not so fast yet, it was fast enough, and with the pure skills for drifting this was the perfect car for you.
It wasn’t just the Japanese art of drifting that found an appreciation for Toyota’s RWD Corolla. The front-engined rear-wheel-drive platform also found fans across rallying, sprint, and hill climbs.
1 Inspiration For The GT86
The GT86, was built on the legacy of the AE86. This newer more refined series were made by a collaborative effort of Toyota and Subaru to commemorate the famous drift king Toyota AE86.
This cooperation between Toyota and Subaru began in 2005 with contract manufacturing of cars. After some time, the brands entered into an agreement to jointly develop a rear-wheel-drive sports car, which was sold as both the Toyota GT86 and the Subaru BRZ.