Top 10 Most Influential AE86’s!

If there had to be only ten AE86s to influence our scene – we think it would be these! Selected from all over the globe, the Australian scene has taken styling and tuning cues from Japan, Ireland, America and of course home soil. So hit the jump and check out what I think are the Top 10 Most Influential AE86s!

Takumi Fujiwara’s Panda Trueno Hatchback

The basic story centres around Takumi Fujiwara, who delivers tofu up and down Mt Akina (Mount Haruna) for his father’s Tofu shop. Along the way he has a number of battles with bigger and more powerful cars and beats them all. Eventually the engine expires and Takumi’s father Bunta (the original owner of the car in his own youth), puts a new engine into the car after the old 16v gives up. After this revelation, Takumi moves on to bigger and better things take to all parts of Japan.

This simple story twist has spawned so much internet chatter about the speculation of the engine, as it is never completely revealed. This is part of the charm of Initial D – It is pure fantasy but based on a tiny kernal of truth, and everybody wants to be Takumi with that car and engine. Not a day goes by without the question asked “How can I get my car like Takumi’s in Initial D?”

This one comic has caused people to spend large sums of money on AE86s, the comic series, TV show, and arcade games simply because we love the comic and our AE86s. It will continue on for years to come as a new generation discover this world driving exhilaration! (yes I’m a closet fanboy..)

Hot Version’s TRD N2 Machine

The living embodiment of every AE86 racers car wants to be like – 1.6ltrs 16 valves, 9500rpms, wide-bodied of screaming fury, belting around Tsukuba race track in the 1:00 minute range. The Hot Version N2 Racer has been seen in Hot Version, Best Motoring, and AE86 Club DVD’s and magazines. The build up has been documented a number of times but no secrets revealed just yet.This is the best of the best.

It has won 2 N2 races for Hot Version and spawned quite a few clones the world over, including our very own from forum member AE86N2 Beau. The original car was loving created by TRD’s own Sakurai-san and expertly piloted by Keiichi Tsuchiya.

Sakurai-san has has put his years of knowledge into this car to dominate the race track, and perfectly set up to take on all comers. Being a factory backed team, you would expect them to be THE team to beat, but this is not so. The TRD-powered machine may have won 2 titles but they were not back to back. Their first win was back 2001, with their second coming in 2005, all other titles have been won, oddly enough, by much smaller and very dedicated teams including a couple of privateers.

Ueo’s N/A Monster Drifter
Almost everyone has seen YouTube video’s of this man with his Trueno madly flinging his car sideways into all sorts of corners, and toppling the worlds drifting giants with modestly powered D1 machine.

Like most of the D1 stars they started out on their local touge, and progressed on to bigger and better things, often bigger and more powerful cars. Starting his drift career fairly late in his 20’s Ueo soon rose to fame with his balls to the wall all out approach to drifting.

So many videos show this car angled 90* degrees to corners coming hard and fast, putting to shame much bigger and powerful cars with the extreme speeds and angles carried by this little car and mad driver. all this culminated in 2002 when Ueo won the D1 title, only to have mechanical issues the following year and dropping out in 2004.

The most memorable moment for the car and Ueo would have to be in 2003 at Irwindale Speedway where on the bank sides, and extremely long sweeping corners this humble N/A Trueno took on the best and won, with his secret cams and crazy N/A tuning, and wild driving style.

Tsuchiya’s Street-Spec Trueno
This for me is the best car to grace this list. Lovingly rebuilt and restored for Keiichi Tsuchiya by Toyota, this car was set up using Tsuchiya’s intimate knowledge of AE86s using while Tsuchiya’s own brand of coil overs, and suspension components.

The engine is a black top 20v built by Sakurai-san for Tsuchiya and tuned with a freedom ECU. This car is the scourge of the Gunsai touge, and is not unbeatable. The car was beaten by a JWRC Swift, and a B18C equipped EG Civic but has taken on a number of other cars both on the touge and race track.

Twice Tsuchiya has taken on a R34 skyline GT-R and won both times, on the touge and race track. Tsuchiya’s philosophy of balance over outright power has many times embarrassed more powerful cars with its cornering balance, nimbleness, and neutral handling ability.

Tec Art’s Purple Performance Eater
Everybody who has watched D1 this year and last year or seen any of the N2 races will know this car, after all it is bright purple! Also sporting white 17″ Work Meister wheels and the angry scream of a 4A-GE 20V, this car has only been on the scene for the last few years but has be built to an extremely high standard.

TEC ART is now a fairly major workshop in its own right, that builds all sorts of cars, but is more famously known for their AE86 tuning. TEC ART all facets of AE86 tuning from simple parts to full on engine builds.

Although TEC ART is yet to win a race with the purple people eater, it certainly has the goods to win. The car runs 17″ wheels which is uncommon for an AE86, as most cars use a maximum of 15″ wheels which is the more traditional look. Also unconventional is the sequential gearbox it uses to great advantage, shifting while cornering with the throttles wide open certainly has its advantages.

TEC ART also make their own body kits which is put to good use on this car as it has massive brakes and uses the ducting on the widebody arches to excellant effect.

Irish-Style
There is no one single car here that we will focus on, as they are all batshit insane! The Irish AE86 style is a fairly simple, well proven, tried and tested modification path. the Irish AE86 generally consist of 13″ wheels, revving the car sky high, and 4 7″ Cibie lights mounted to the bonnet!!

Also generally seen belting along tight winding tree lined dirt roads having the engines neck wrung, many videos of Irish AE86s have been seen on YouTube and other video sites flying down the road, sitting on the limiter being thrown left and right. This formidable little car has such a large following in the emerald isle, which stemmed from the early days with rallying Ford Escorts.

The Irish AE86 driver is also slightly nuts and what you and I might consider excessive or over the top is perfectly normal for these guys. They are highly organised and highly skilled amateur drivers, who can drift, rally, circuit race, or get the car dance an Irish jig!

Bathurst Group A Racecars
In the late 80’s to the early 90’s Mount Panorama reverberated to banshee howl of twin cams and 16 valves!
these cars are famous in Australia not only for dominating their class for 3 years, but also for being in the Guinness book of world records.

The car racked up 28 wins from 28 starts and nearly 80 podium finishes putting it as the most successful race car in history. Just to rub salt into the wounds, it held the under 2 liter class record for every track in every state. how many V8 super taxi’s or Nissan can boast that!
The car used Bilstein suspension, TRD close ratio gearbox, and heavily work big-port engine and was said to make around 160hp at the rear wheels, but that can neither be confirmed nor denied. A lot of specs of the car are closely guarded and as the car was initially built in Japan its hard to track down exact information pertaining to the the TOYOTA works cars, as the engineers have passed away or it has been lost over time.

The winning car is now located in Bathurst at the motor sport museum on mount panorama along with many other Bathurst race cars. The car it self looks like it has finished a race, washed, polished and taken straight to the museum and there it has sat since.

The AE86 coupe was followed up by an AE92 SX corolla that continued to dominate its class up until the Group A rules were scrapped in favour of the modern day V8 Supercar series format we see now.

Beau Yates’ Levin Hatch

Love him or hate him, this guy has almost single-handedly changed the face of the Australian drift scene.

Starting over 5 years, I can remember going to the first ever FullLock Drift Nationals at Oran Park, and remember taking so many photos that i ran out of camera batteries before running out of card memory!

The memory that sticks out most is watching this silver AE86 with white bonnet, simply destroy all comers on the day coming up against an absolutely fired up Josh Young. it was a classic battle N/A vs TURBO, Josh in white N/A corner, and Beau Yates in the silver TURBO corner. Unfortunately Josh had fuel problems in the final run easily handing the win to Beau.

The car has evolved since then, going from a straight but rough looking car to the only factory backed TRD drift car in the world. Originally using a 16v turbo motor, which expired, it was replaced by a 20v black top turbo motor which he campaigned to a Drift Australia championship. That engine has since made way for a full house group N (big N) motor built by Neil Bates. The car uses custom suspension, an F series diff and 6 speed Altezza gearbox.

Now sporting a new white and red paint job and J-blood wide over fender and new Work Meister wheels, it took awhile for beau to get used to the car over the season, but once he has total control it will be look out world!

C&Y Sports 2JZ Drag Racer

Not the first people to put a big motor in a small car, but never has such insanity be completed to such a level. Take one unassuming Levin coupe, add a 2JZ-GTE, a dash of massive turbo, and supra running gear and bake – bake the rear tyres that is!

For once, an AE86 that has trouble turning corners. This car was built for one thing and one thing only, to own the drag strip. running a T88 turbo and making bulk power in such a light weight body such as the AE86 poses a few problems.

The first being the physical size of the 2JZ engine, the second being the stress to the chassis and body, thirdly the drive train. Thankfully C&Y sports solved most of this by fitting an extensive roll cage, and the gearbox and diff from a JZA80 supra (Ryan Woon having proven that you can run an 8 second pass on Supra diff and 6sp gearbox).

The physical size of the engine was one of the major hurdles but was solved by a custom radiator mount and massaging of the fire wall. Currently the cars best has been a mid 9 second pass at Sendai Speedway, before being retired so C&Y sports can focus on a new drag car and full house JZA80 supra.

Techno Toy Tuning’s F20C Trueno

Again, not world first but definitely well executed and brought the F20C conversion to the masses. Techno Toy Tuning (T3) have be providing parts for Corolla’s and 4A-GEs the world over for number of years, and every decent tuning company need a demo or hero car.

Enter the simple white Trueno owned by proprietor Gabriel Tyler who runs T3. Gabe had the not so simple idea of taking Honda’s best engineered N/A engine and putting it in a much lighter and balanced chassis and so the F20C conversion was born and delivered to the world. T3 fitted the engine and 6sp gearbox to the pristine white body, and T3’s full suspension catalogue to the car.

Fitted with a fat set of Work Equip 03’s and stripped inside and roll cage, the stage was set. It’s been used for drift, circuit and in shows such as SEMA. The car has sat dormant for a while now, mainly used as a demo car at the T3 factory, it may be some time before we see something as innovative and awe inspiring again.

Let us know what you would change! Hit the comments!