I’ll wrap up this year’s coverage of 86 Day with this pit walk video from Fuji Speedway. It starts off in the parking lot and then winds through all of the vendors that were present. It seems the Toyota GT-86 / Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ has already been well embraced by the Japanese aftermarket tuners. There’s a couple of N2 cars from Crystal Body Yokohama and Tec-Arts and D1 FT-86’s from Up Garage and HKS.
In Japan they like to celebrate days devoted to some of their favorite classic cars based on their chassis codes. August 6th (8/6) is AE86 day. The AE86 is a Japanese cult classic because it sticks to a simple formula of lightweight, rear wheel drive and a rev happy engine. It’s the spiritual successor of the Toyota GT-86 / Scion FR-S / Subaru BRZ. The AE86 champions the saying “It’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow.” It’s a completely bare driving experience in that the car does exactly what the driver tells without any quirks. This has allowed allowed the AE86 to be adapted to several forms of racing including a freshmen racer’s cup, Group A, N2, rally and drifting. Here are some of my favorite videos of the AE86 in action.
This first video is from the Hot Version division of the Best Motoring company. It’s from a celebration thrown at the Tsukuba Circuit in honor of Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya’s retirement as a driver in the Japan Grand Touring Championship (JGTC). I like this video because it explains Tsuchiya’s racing history with the AE86 as well as the N2 racing series by Toyota Racing Development (TRD). N2 was the highest form of racing for the AE86. The car is still popular enough in Japan that TRD resurrected the N2 series and got Tsuchiya-san to drive the factory race car.
This is an exciting older Best Motoring video that pits the crew’s favorite tuner cars from the VTEC camp against the AE86 camp. Representing the VTEC cars, they brought out the Techno Pro Spirits DC2 Integra, Spoon EG Civic and Power House Amuse S2000. The two 4AG powered AE86’s are from Arvou and Crystal Body Yokohama. Of course Keiichi Tsuchiya shows up in a car that represents both camps. He got his hands on the Hot Staff AE86 powered by an F20C engine from an S2000. At the time, they were the first tuners to complete this swap. There must have been a lot of bragging rights on the line because the boys push pretty hard in the rain.
This is some pretty amazing footage of a Toyota AE86 from a European time trial event. The course looks extremely challenging which emphasizes the driver’s skill and the fact that the car is set up very well. This car was produced by Toyota in the mid 80’s and is the spiritual successor to the Scion FR-S and the Subaru BRZ.