Category Archives: AE86 History

CHMS AE86 BTCC Touring Car

September 9, 2008 in AE86 History by

While Bob Holden and the other AE86 pilots from Group A racing in Australia are common knowledge to most of us on HR, the other parts of the world had similar stories with heroes of grand driving stature. Andy over at Speedhunters has the low down on the UK’s local hero; Chris Hodgetts.

Chris Hodgetts was a successful club racer in the UK and made his debut in the BTCC at the beginning of the 80’s.  With the help of Toyota GB, Securicor and Brooklyn’s, a Birmingham car dealer, Chris put together ‘Chris Hodgetts Motor Sport’ for the 1986 season, running a Toyota Corolla AE86, initially for himself, before expanding to a two and then three car team in 1987.

Check out the full article outlining his cars and successes here.

Ueo Katsuhiro: The Greatest?

September 1, 2008 in AE86 History, HR Originals by

Few people garner as much respect from AE86 enthusiasts as Ueo Katsuhiro (植尾勝浩), In fact perhaps the only man to make ’86 fanboys jump with glee like giddy schoolgirls more would be Keiichi Tsuchiya himself. I thought it was high time we at HR Blog took an in-depth look at the history of the man who brought the AE86 to the world professional drifting stage. Should we stick to fact or legend? Is Ueo the greatest AE86 drift pilot of all time? Is that a worthy title? Let’s find out.

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Body Work: Tsuchiya Style!!

July 28, 2008 in AE86 History, Videos by

Thinking about doing a ground up rebuild on your humble little 86????

Dont know where to start???

Watch this youtube video to see how Tsuchiya’s personal Trueno was prepped:

As the user has disabled embedding of the link please find the link here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHEdtAVlbBw

How Well Do You Know Your Rear Ends?

July 21, 2008 in AE86 History by

Redlines, Whitelines, Fullfaces and Sprinters, we’ve all heard these terms before but do you really know the differences? Here is a definitive guide to identifying the different AE86 tail lights.

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Flashback: Runfree Kouki Trueno

July 3, 2008 in AE86 History, Feature Cars by

Back when I was pimply faced teenager I use to religiously buy every modified car related magazine that was available on the local newsagent shelves. A real favourite of mine was magazine called SPEED (which unfortunately no longer exists), and they happened to feature a car that was previously unknown to me. Once looking over the 4 page spread of this unknown car and reading every word over and over, I knew that one day I would have to own one of these cars.

The car happened to be a kouki Trueno hatch owned by the founder of Run Free, Koichi Yamashita and ironically the article and photos were written by Antonio Alvendia, the person responsible for bringing the original (not the current knock-off) AE86 Driving Club to the western AE86 scene.

See the amazing article after the jump:

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AE86: An In-Depth Look at A Legend

April 24, 2008 in AE86 History, HR Originals by

Ever wonder what the origins of the AE86 were? or what the hell those model names mean? or even still what the differences were between all those models, body styles or trim specs? Well pull up a chair, slap on your readin’ glasses and get yourself a nice strong coffee, you’re about to be schooled in a little history – AE86 Style.

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