The name Trueno and Levin come from the Middle English term for lightning and the Spanish word for thunder, respectively. [17] The Corolla Levin was only available at Toyota Corolla Store in Japan, whereas the Sprinter Trueno was only sold at Toyota Japan shops known as Toyota Auto Store.
The 1600 cc RWD model from the fifth generation of the Corolla is known as the AE86 and gets its name from internal Toyota code used during the development of the vehicle. The “A” stands for the car’s engine (4A series), the “E” stands for the Corolla, the “8” stands for the fifth generation (E80 series), and the “6” stands for the variant within this generation.
The Japanese word “eight-six” (Hachi-Roku) is also used to refer to the AE86. The AE85 was also known as “Hachi-Go (),” which translates to “eight-five.”
Models sold between 1983 and 1985 are referred to as “zenki” (literally, “early period”), while those sold between 1986 and 1987 are referred to as “kouki” (literally, “late period”) (, lit. latter period).
[18]
[19]
Toyota marketed a limited-edition AE86 vehicle in 1986 under the name “Black Limited.”
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In This Article...
What makes an AE86 legendary?
Every other motorsport pales in comparison to drifting. Not only are the cars drastically different, but also the driving style. Drift vehicles are a rare breed, whether they are custom-built racers or manufacturer-sponsored track weapons. Furthermore, the Toyota Corolla AE86 is the automobile that everyone agrees is the best for drifting.
Not Just Any Toyota
Which automobiles would you choose if asked to list the top five most popular models sold throughout history? Ford F150? Bugatti Beetle? Both are accurate predictions, but the Toyota Corolla is unbeatable. The Corolla has sold over 43 million units worldwide since its introduction in 1966, outpacing the F-Series pickup, which came in second, by over three million cars. There is one specific Corolla model that demands special consideration.
The boxy sport compact AE86, also known as the Toyota Corolla Levin or Sprinter Trueno, was made from 1983 to 1987. At the time, front-wheel drive was popular in compact Japanese cars as a trend toward extra care and increased safety. Toyota chose a more performance-oriented system for the AE86, including rear-wheel drive, a limited slip differential, perfect 50/50 weight distribution, and other features that made it ideal for drifting.
The AE86 gained notoriety due to its iconic status in the popular Japanese anime Initial D as well as its legendary racing heritage and handling. It served as inspiration for the contemporary Toyota and Subaru sports car collaboration that resulted in the Toyota GT86, Scion FR-S, and Subaru BRZ. All three are rear-drive, lightweight sports vehicles that are excellent drifters.
Why the AE86 is the Choice of Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya
If you’re not familiar with the term “drifting,” it refers to a style of driving where drivers purposefully slide their cars around a track while trying to keep control. Drifting prioritizes style over raw speed and fast lap times, which produces tire smoke clouds and some of the most amazing car control demonstrations you’ll ever witness.
Keiichi Tsuchiya, sometimes known as Drift King, is one of the most well-known drifters of all time. Tsuchiya, a native of Japan, is cited as saying, “I drift because it is the most interesting route around a bend, not because it is the fastest. His other outstanding feats include winning his class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and serving as both a stunt coordinator and a stuntman on the movie The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
During his professional career, Tsuchiya’s go-to vehicle was an extensively customized AE86. The Drift King’s AE86 is a veritable legend, being incredibly powerful and built expressly for drifting sideways as quickly as possible.
Watch Tsuchiya explaining the AE86 and racing it around a track in the video below.
Modifying the AE86 Race Engine
The AE86’s highly changeable engine is another factor in its popularity as a drift car. Its factory-installed 1.6-liter 4-cylinder engine only produces 97 horsepower, but it has the potential to be significantly strengthened. The tiny Toyota was transformed into a drift monster thanks to upgrades including porting and cleaning the heads, regrinding the cams, updating the fuel injectors and fuel pump, and turbocharging. When done correctly, the engine was a true AE86 race engine.
The vehicle also had performance suspension, vented disc brakes, and a 5-speed manual transmission that were all easily upgradeable.
Protecting Your Older Car
The Toyota AE86 may not appear to be much, but because to innovative thinkers and accomplished drivers like Keiichi Tsuchiya, it has left a lasting impression on the drifting community. It’s moving evidence that thrilling driving experiences may be had without massive engines or excessive power. Additionally, if you want to safeguard and extend the life of your vehicle, an extended warranty plan may be for you.
Do you enjoy driving a vintage vehicle? Protect My Car offers warranty protection if your car is under ten years old and has accumulated more than 80,000 kilometres.
Additionally, Protect My Car offers flexible payment plans so that anyone with a limited budget can receive its 24/7 roadside assistance and A+ Better Business Bureau rating. Just be sure to always keep it on the track and consider taking a performance driving course if you get excited about driving like the Drift King.
About Protect My Car
A firm offering extended auto warranties is Protect My Car. At Protect My Car, we want to take away any concern you may have about bearing the cost of an expensive mechanical breakdown. You won’t have to worry about paying the full cost of a covered repair thanks to our extended auto warranty.
The Toyota AE86 is quick.
It’s difficult to argue against the Miata’s and the AE86’s greatness. But it doesn’t appear like their anticipated performance matches what they actually do. Since these two vehicles are so similar to one another, I decided to write a single article that covered both. This time, I’ll do my darndest to get this piece right; after all, my article about overrated BMWs was arguably one of the worst articles I’ve ever written.
ONE The Miata and the AE86 aren’t particularly quick. Many JDM vehicles appear to be plagued by unreasonably high expectations and hype. Both the Mark 4 Supra and Skyline GTR are known for their high top speeds and immense power. They aren’t as quick as they are advertised to be in stock form, though. The AE86 and Miata are comparable in this regard. In Initial D, Takumi is outdriving people in Toyota Corollas that are far faster than his on the touge. Fanboys’ fantasies about the AE86’s potential, however, are never as good as what the AE86 actually is. Its 0-60 MPH acceleration time is 8.5 seconds. For comparison, a 1997 Toyota Camry could complete the same sprint in 1 second less time. The Miata also has a problem with sluggish acceleration. A 1996 Mazda Miata needs 8.6 seconds to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph, which is also longer than a 1997 Camry. Both the Miata and the AE86 are the antithesis of sleepers in that their performance falls short of expectations.
TWO The popularity of the AE86 wouldn’t be as high without Initial D. Stock Deloreans were dreadful vehicles, but ever since they appeared in the Back to the Future films, they have become desirable automobiles. The AE86 has experienced a similar transformation. People are willing to pay high prices to own Takumi because he distributed tofu and competed in races in an AE86. A good-condition AE86 costs around $14,000, which is a tad excessive considering that it is a 40-year-old vehicle with 128 horsepower. The price of AE86s would probably be cut in half, and only half of us car guys would be aware of the Takumi mobile, if Initial D had never been broadcast.
THREE Unshakeable stereotypes surround the Miata. The Miata is a hairdresser/chick car, BMW drivers never use their blinkers, Audi drivers tailgate others, and truck drivers compensate for things, according to automobile stereotypes. Both car guys and non-car guys will make jokes about you “Have you yet come out to your parents as gay? and “Where do you put your hair dryer in your car? As a result, people start to become someone they are not because they feel like they need to be more male to make up for this (Alex Kersten perhaps?). Just be yourself.
FOUR The AE86 is essentially an upgraded compact vehicle. A Corolla is the Toyota AE86 Sprinter Trueno. Most people don’t associate a Corolla with going to the racetrack; rather, they picture a tiny sedan for commuting to work. Car enthusiasts idolize the Corolla AE86, but they neglect the brand-new Corolla S. Don’t you think there’s a little bit of a double standard here?
FIVE The Supra from the 1980s is undoubtedly a superior sports vehicle over the AE86. The Sprinter Trueno lacks power, which the 1980s Supra can compensate for. A Mark 2 or Mark 3 supra is available with a selection of more powerful turbocharged engines. As a result, it is quicker and simpler to manufacture faster. The Sprinter Trueno was not included on Car & Driver’s list of the coolest vehicles from the 1980s, but the Toyota Supra was.
SIX The Miata makes people oblivious to other options. Despite the fact that there are other vehicles they could gush about, Miata owners appear to talk exclusively about Miatas. There are numerous light front-engined RWD cars that are enjoyable to drive, like the MR2, Nissan S Chassis, and MG roadsters. The pedestal we place the Miata on prevents us from seeing a range of options, including better, faster, and more affordable ones. Keep in mind that the sea is full of fish.
SEVEN To compete with other sports cars, you must alter both vehicles. While a stock Miata might be a terrific learning vehicle for the track, eventually you’re going to need better brakes, suspension, and power. You can’t learn to control real power with these automobiles. Driving a Mustang GT or a Camaro SS, not a Miata, will teach you how to regulate power. The overexposure of the miata raises the cost of secondhand ones. This indicates that the Miata doesn’t fulfill its potential as a decent project car or an economical canvas on which to practice your driving. The Miata is simply a beginning; it arrives at the factory as a blank canvas, ready for you to transform it into the vehicle you need and desire to drive. If the Miata had a turbocharger from the factory, that ought to make things much better.
Are AE86’s rare?
The Corolla is still available today, even though Toyota discontinued making the AE86 in 1987. The Toyota AE86, on the other hand, is a rare and hardly seen vehicle. Some AE86 vehicles are occasionally offered for sale on auto websites.
Since models sold in Japan and the US have slightly different styling, you might even decide to import the AE86 from Japan. The cost of the Toyota AE86 Corolla on secondhand automobile marketplaces fluctuates from $15,000 to more than $40,000.
What does the automobile of Takumi say?
The GT86 Initial D concept car, developed by Toyota’s UK special projects division, is an exact recreation of the fictitious AE86. The coupe features updated versions of the same Japanese market components that were featured so effectively on the original manga car in addition to copying its characteristic panda-style monochrome paintwork.
RS Watanabe alloy wheels manufactured to order, TRD suspension, a Fujitsubo exhaust system, a Cusco strut brace, and a carbon fiber hood are a few of these. The yellow-tinted fog lights, which allude to the Cibi spotlights placed to aid Takumi’s night vision, and the silver-painted engine cover, which refers to the high-revving 20-valve “Silver Top” 4A-GE engine used in the series, are less obvious hints.
The addition of carbon fiber mirror covers and door handle guards, which provide an appearance reminiscent of the black plastic material used on the AE86, is more proof of the extensive renovation. The boot lid spoiler has also been taken off, the rear lenses have been darkened, and mud flaps have been added because they were on the original Initial D vehicle.
Fujiwara Tofu Ten, which translates to “Fujiwara Tofu Shop,” is written on the driver’s door. The word jikayou, which translates to “private” and denotes the car’s categorization in the Japanese tax code, is used in parentheses.
Joe Clifford from the team working on special projects said: “The Toyota GT86 was designed from the beginning to appeal to enthusiasts, whether in stock form or as a platform for additional modifications.
“With our Initial D design, we not only honor the role the AE86 played in inspiring Toyota’s current sports car philosophy, but we also show how the GT86 can be made to look better and perform better with very inexpensive aftermarket extras. However, what matters most is that we simply felt it was a brilliant idea.
Who made drifting popular?
“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the idea of arriving safely in a nice and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, utterly used up, totally worn out, and loudly exclaiming “Wow! Amazing Ride!
The act of sliding a rear-wheel-drive automobile around a predetermined track has evolved over the past 25 or so years from an illegal nighttime pursuit in the Japanese mountains to a widely recognized professional sport.
The global phenomena known as drifting has effectively taken over the entire planet. Drifting has a distinctive and varied history that solidifies it as arguably the most exciting and developing competitive form of accessible motorsport for decades. It is now a competitive sport in its own right, one that is fiercely contested from every corner of the world, never more so than in the USA, Japan, Ireland, UK, and even Sweden and Norway. There are rules and regulations much like in any competitive event, so it’s not just about hooliganism. Line, angle, smoke, speed, distance, proximity, and wall rubbing are all factors in determining the technical beauty and flair of how effectively a drift is accomplished. Sure, some would think it’s a bit of a waste of old dinosaurs, but others create competition-specific cars to maximize how easily they slide sideways predictably and regularly. Six-figure creations with mind-blowing fabrication precision are not unusual.
The popularity of drifting is simple to understand, whether it’s due to the 1000 BMW, Mazda MX5, or Nissan 200SX used as entry-level vehicles or the 100,000+ custom spaceframe chassis race cars powered by twin turbo Chevy LS series V8 engines.
It’s a lot of fun and there’s a lot of tire smoke. How did it all start, then?
Anyone who has watched the manga cartoon and movie Initial D will undoubtedly be able to connect the origins of drifting to Japan as a cultural phenomena, particularly the deserted roads near Mount Fuji and Mount Akina during the night. Due to the numerous switchbacks and hairpins that are present geographically, driving over the Tougeor mountain pass is extremely important in the development of controlled oversteer. Prior to the All Japan Touring Car Championship races, however, drivers from all over the world had been oversteering with some control for many years. This was because of the advanced engine and tyre technology of the 1970s, which made “drifting” virtually mandatory.
Most people agree that Kunimitsu Takahashi, a well-known motorcycle rider turned driver, was the primary innovator of drifting tactics in the 1970s.
The first Japanese racer to win a motorcycle Grand Prix was Takahashi, a former professional motorcycle and car racer who made his name in Germany in 1961. After suffering a serious injury in a collision at the 1962 Isle of Man TT, he switched sports and began car racing in 1965. Thanks to his distinctive flair, his Nissan Skyline KPGB10 drove him to consistent podium finishes. Takahasi would accelerate into corners in his ‘Hakosuka’ (Nissan Skyline) and coax the car into a slide before the apex of the corner, then power out into the straights, holding a high exit speed, to counteract the grip deficiencies of the bias ply racing tyres at the time. His ability to master the technique under all circumstances consistently placed him on top of the podium, with rivals unable to match his speed through the corners.
Similar to how stock cars and NASCAR emerged from illegal activity, drifting did the same. It became evident that there was time to be gained through “drifting” a bend rather than using the generally quicker and cleaner technique when illegal street racers (Hashiriya) started emulating the racetrack antics to attain the fastest corner entrance and exit speeds. Traditional racing lines and apex hugging have only recently been able to regain the advantage of “slow in, fast out” thanks to advancements in tyre technology.
The “Drift King” and race car driver Keiichi Tsuchiya is also regarded as a forerunner of the sport, not least because of the renowned Drift Pluspy video in which he deftly skids a Hachi-Roku (86) around Mount Fuji. Tsuchiya served as a key consultant for both the Initial D Manga animation and the later Fast and Furious: Toyko Drift feature film. Due to the footage, he ultimately lost his racing license, but drifting folklore has made him legendary. In conclusion, it is safe to state that Japan is the recognized origin of drifting, with its legacy now spreading far and wide.
When the first-ever drift competition was held by the Japanese tuning magazine Carboy in 1986 and again in 1989, it was evident that the clandestine Touge racer movement was beginning to acquire traction in the general public. While elimination tsuiso (twin run), the side-by-side format that has come to represent competitive drifting all over the world, may have originated in the mountains, it soon became apparent that the racetrack had a significant impact on the format.
It is evident that skidding has taken over if you look at Formula Drift in the United States, The BDC (British Drift Championship), The Irish Drift Championship, Power Drift in Norway, or even The Swedish Drift Championship. And those are only the recognized drifting competitions that come to mind. Every weekend, you can find a variety of ambitious drivers testing out their home-built vehicles at oval track and speedway venues throughout the UK. Contrary to many other types of motorsport, it’s a pretty simple activity to enter with a readily available vehicle. It’s fairly simple to start drifting for anything from as little as 2000 upwards by adding some height adjustable coilovers, a cheap lock extension kit purchased off of eBay, a race seat, and possibly even a welded rear differential with some stretched tyres and a heavy dose of camber dialed in.
Drifting is here to stay, and initial talent and sacrifices will always be the first stepping stone to unlocking the latest technology, power, and sponsorship deals that lead to bigger and better things. Drifting has come a long way from its humble and illegal nighttime origins in the mountains of Japan to the globally recognized professional sport that it has become.
This is not a passing trend in cars, as evidenced by people like Ken Block, the success of shows like Gatebil in Norway, and the domination of Youtube channels like Hoonigan on social media. Additionally, we would like to emphasize that Autoglym Intensive Tar Remover is the ideal instrument for cleaning spent rubber from bodywork after a life on the edge.
So go out there, get a sense of “the snap,” and maintain the momentum. A few practice sessions will get you the perfect steering feel and smooth throttle inputs, and once you’ve mastered them, maybe you’ll be the next 14-year-old driving sensation like Conor Shananhan. For evidence of his truly amazing abilities for such a young man, watch him in action. Give us a call when you’re wall rubbing, and we might be able to assist with some Intensive Tar Remover.