Monday 5th December 2011

PH Blog: So long AE86, it's been fun

The man from Toyota has taken the Corolla away, which is probably for the best

---

So, as you will have guessed from my blog on Friday I have very much enjoyed my four days with Toyota's heritage fleet AE86. The more for the fact it was a car that had previously passed me by completely.

It's a proper cult car too, which is why we'll be giving it the proper PH Hero treatment in due course. But before I drove this car almost exactly a year ago on another story I'd have been a true "but it's an 80s Toyota Corolla!" doubter.

Approaching a car with zero - well, less than zero - expectation and then discovering it to be something rather wonderful is all the more satisfying too. Let's face it, the ingredients don't sound too promising. 80s styling. Velour seats. 1.6-litre engine. Live axle. But what the AE86 fans already knew and I discovered in a very short space of time was that this was a car with real charm. Not something I'd have ever associated with Toyota. And not a car I'd have expected camera phones to be turned on at traffic lights or 'is it for sale?' speculative emails. Sorry Baz - good luck with the search.

It's very keen for this to happen

Blasting around Milton Keynes was such a giggle too. The engine is a beaut, a zingy, revvy little number that thrives on revs and responds instantly to the throttle. Shades of my Eunos there of course. And what it lacks in power and apparent sophistication it more than makes up for in fun. You can see where this is headed too can't you. Yes, here comes that inevitable 'I hope the GT 86 has even a scrap of this' comparison. No prizes for guessing why Toyota went to so much trouble to source an immaculate AE86 for the press fleet, eh?

I even met up with a jetlagged but gleefully excited John Simister, fresh from driving the new '86. Reminiscing that the last time he'd driven one of these things was back in the day at Donington he confirmed that, yes, the modest power and grip and bags of character thing has been carried over into the new car.

And like many who've responded to the story I think this is a great thing. You'd expect an MX-5 advocate to say as much but I fully agree with the growing sense that performance cars have gotten too obsessed with horsepower and outright grip at the expense of fun.

I am of course a hypocrite and if Subaru does as I'm hoping, blinks first and releases an STI version with a bonnet scoop and turbo I'll be first in the queue for a go.

Dan

 

 

[j_s14a]

"No prizes for guessing why Toyota went to so much trouble to source an immaculate AE86 for the press fleet, eh?"

Is there a story here?

[0a]

Toyota's PR team have done well!

[v8will]

Those are a real hooligan car and not so many years ago just about every country road here had one of those on full attack every evening after dark.

Commanding silly money now, with hindsight I should have bought a few and stuck them in storage when they were worth a fraction of what they are now.

[j_s14a]

v8will said:

Those are a real hooligan car and not so many years ago just about every country road here had one of those on full attack every evening after dark.

Commanding silly money now, with hindsight I should have bought a few and stuck them in storage when they were worth a fraction of what they are now.

Are you Irish?

I enquired about some a few years ago, at least a couple of people said they'd just been collected by an Irish lad

We seriously missed a trick with these in England

Edited by j_s14a on Monday 5th December 16:16

[B'stard Child]

I had one of these as a loan car back in 1986 when I had "issues" with a nearly new 205 (Norfolk Peugeot/Toyota dealership - so wasn't surprised when the Peugeot service manager passed over the keys to a Toyota) I was really unimpressed with performance and handling compared to the 205 - the RWD element made a nice change and that was about it.

Really never ever "got" the hype surrounding these cars but it's nice to see a std one still survives

[Dan Trent]

• Cough* It's not quite standard! But more standard than most.

And I'm gradually getting the impression that over in Ireland these really were the Mk2 Escort/Capri alternative. Fair description? I presume many of these were JDM imports or was it they just had more of a following? I'd welcome enlightenment if anyone feels like sharing!

Like I said in the blog, until I drove this one last year these things had never been close to being on my radar. Shame on me and all that but I'm a new convert!

[lankybob]

To think me and my friend used to take the piss out of this on Gran Turismo.
80's styling is definitely growing on me though, I now think it looks fantastic.
I had no idea these were good/ had a following/ cool until the drift scene came along and I saw loads in pictures.

[tomoleeds]

Dan how about a visit to where the heritage cars are kept for diffrent manufactures and get a story and some pictures, is there a lotus carlton and a 1983 cavalier sri,(a good car in its day),or are there any ford heritage cars left, they used to have a lot,think they sold them off,but would think there would be huge interest in a ford feature with some low mileage xr2/xr3, rs turbo etc. owned by ford ? good feature dan

[cptsideways]

Oirish accent "on the rack laaad"


Toyota have a few clunkers in the old fleet, a TT Supra, the Aygo Crazy & few other things too. I think the Corolla (with almost no miles if I remember) is the only one with a decent diff in it



Ford mind you have loads of em & even more weird & wonderful stuff piled up round the back of ***somwhere*** RS200, Lotus Cortina, Several Vans, Mk1 Escorts you name it.

[dinkel]

PH said:

". . . I fully agree with the growing sense that performance cars have gotten too obsessed with horsepower and outright grip at the expense of fun."

Finally!

[RV8]

It funny how these have such a huge following, especially in Japan, I recall an animated cartoon featuring this car. I suppose it makes sense that it is popular being a rwd with room for four people in quite a stylish 80's body but a small enough engine so it isn't out of the realms of possibility for a younger driver to drive around in one. I would have never guessed how much these fetch now. It's a shame the scirocco MK2 hasn't got the same drive train as I always preferred the VW coupe but felt it would have been even better with rwd, then again they can be had for peanuts.

Edited by RV8 on Monday 5th December 20:15

[SMcP114]

Dan Trent said:

*Cough* It's not quite standard! But more standard than most.

And I'm gradually getting the impression that over in Ireland these really were the Mk2 Escort/Capri alternative. Fair description? I presume many of these were JDM imports or was it they just had more of a following? I'd welcome enlightenment if anyone feels like sharing!

Like I said in the blog, until I drove this one last year these things had never been close to being on my radar. Shame on me and all that but I'm a new convert!

Not exactly. Here in Ireland the mk2 Escort is more popular than anywhere else in the world. The AE86 is a close second.

I had no interest in them until I happened to take one as either a swap or a trade in on something else I had in. I was already attached to it by the time I got it home. Here it is...

[Lauren13]

Dan Trent said:

*Cough* It's not quite standard! But more standard than most.

And I'm gradually getting the impression that over in Ireland these really were the Mk2 Escort/Capri alternative. Fair description? I presume many of these were JDM imports or was it they just had more of a following? I'd welcome enlightenment if anyone feels like sharing!

Like I said in the blog, until I drove this one last year these things had never been close to being on my radar. Shame on me and all that but I'm a new convert!

The AE86 has a world wide following. The reason for it's success and cult car status, is really because it was a very succesful car in motorsport. It won the BTCC in 86 & 87. If you search on youtube for AE86 and BTCC, there's a great clip of Tiff in an AE82 racing whoever it was in the AE86. It was also successful in rallying, worldwide.

They went mental for them in Ireland. A couple of reasons, the AE86 Corolla GT Coupe was importantly a 'GT' and not a 'GTI', so cheaper insurance. Rallying is big in Ireland and the AE86 was rather competitive. The Irish also have a penchant for leaving 'rings' at every T-Junction and car park. Again, good car for it!

I think the reason why it didn't become big news here is more to the MK2 Escort already having such a following so by the time you got to rallying in the 80's every club racer had a MK2. To be fair once you've put a decent twin cam in a MK2, chucked away the leaf springs and put a proper 5 link on the rear axle, what you've got is something close to an AE86. The AE86 also came with an LSD as standard.

The AE86 was also successful in circuit racing too. Again on a world wide scale. It also was the car that seemed to start the whole drift craze as the 'Drift King' (Tsuchiya) popularised the car further by winning lots of races in AE86 and always extoling the virtues of it.

Then there was the anime 'Initial D' (Story of Tofu delivery boy Takumi) who 'accidentally' finds out he has serious talent and wins lots of the downhill races known as Touges (Too-gay) on the mountain skyline roads of Japan. This served to popularise the car further.

I have been bitten by the AE86 bug since around 1984 when I saw one parked down my road on the way to school every morning. It took me a long time, but I finally own one, a 1985 GT Apex Sprinter Trueno (I wanted an import to get AC and power steering).

[v8will]

Lauren13 said:

The Irish also have a penchant for leaving 'rings' at every T-Junction and car park. Again, good car for it!

Understatement of the year, the 'Twincam' is very good at it. Most of the country junctions are absolutely caked in rubber.

They did have a bit of an image problem here due, being dubbed 'an ahole car' in some places. Good ones are now getting very hard to get and even rubbish is commanding silly money.

Basically anything RWD and cheap is sought after here. Sierras are popular, E36 M3s, E30 325 sport, Omega V6 etc etc

[scotty28]

Please stop posting about the AE86. I've been looking at the classifieds for ages now, and only ever managed to find one. And I'm pretty sure that was around £10k.

[Lauren13]

scotty28 said:

Please stop posting about the AE86. I've been looking at the classifieds for ages now, and only ever managed to find one. And I'm pretty sure that was around £10k.

You don't need to pay that much. Around 6K ought to get you something reasonable. I bought around this price (£5495). I have spent £3.5K since though, but my car is pretty clean now. Hmm, that's about £9K(!). I think though with such an old car, you have to budget for a bit of sorting post purchase unless it's a bare shell restoration.

[911stu]

I remember the good old days when the back of "Motoring News" was full of them for sale, rally preped for a couple of grand. I never did have one as i always had Mk2 Escorts . I would have given my left arm for an M5/Alpina at the time, BUT NOW I WILL HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH ONE AS I CANT AFFORD A NICE Mk2 OR AE86........

[MX7]

scotty28 said:

Please stop posting about the AE86. I've been looking at the classifieds for ages now, and only ever managed to find one. And I'm pretty sure that was around £10k.

Have a look here.

[patmahe]

I'm in the minority on this website in that I quite like Toyotas and have owned a couple. Cars like this do funny things to me and yes I am Irish.

[anonymous-user]

Ah, the legendary "Twin Cam" - these cars were a rural Irish / N Irish craze in the 80s (townies by and large didn’t ‘get’ them – in fact, to have one marked you out as a “bogman”). But they appealed to genuine petrol heads who appreciated what they could do and couldn’t care less about the (then) lack of image. A Golf of the period had more torque and was real-world faster for most ordinary drivers, but no matter - for cheap and unburstable tail-out fun the Twin Cam was in a league of its own.