Tag Archives: ae86

EVENTS: Old School Love, New School Flavor

After featuring their Old School Love, New School Flavor show last year (Part 01, Part 02, Part 03) at Schiller Park in the Chicagoland area, organizers Team Nostalgic invited us to come out again so we could see what Chicago’s … Continue reading

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EVENTS: AE86 Nights 9th Anniversary

What started as a small gathering of enthusiasts of the last RWD Corolla eight years ago has grown into a gathering that attracts hundreds of cars from all over southern California. It all started with the beloved Hachiroku, and the types of … Continue reading

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EVENTS: 2016 All-Toyotafest, Part 05 — Editors’ Choice

For the final installment of this year’s Toyotafest we share the JNC staff favorites. In a show packed with prime Aichi steel, it wasn’t easy to narrow down the field, making the results probably over-long. But hey, it’s a good problem to have, … Continue reading

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EVENTS: Nostalgic2Days 2016, Part 02 — Tuning Houses

For our second installment of the 2016 Nostalgic 2 Days event coverage, we’ll take a look at some of Japan’s kyusha tuning houses, beginning with our friends at Star Road. The Tokyo-based specialists of classic Skylines and Fairlady Zs typically holds court … Continue reading

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EVENTS: 2016 All-Toyotafest, Part 03 — Sporty Fours

As we saw in Part 02, Toyota has had no shortage of grand, powerful machines powered by the legendary straight-six. However, the company built its fortunes on millions of inline-fours. Using its vast production reserves, it has over the years been able to bestow … Continue reading

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How the Toyota Corolla Changed American Motoring

Fifty years is a very long time. If you think about America 50 years ago, the synthesizer had just begun to find its way into mainstream music, a ’32 T-Bucket was as commonly street raced as a EF/EG/EK Civic in the … Continue reading

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VIDEO: Toyota Corolla 50th Anniversary

Last week Toyota threw a party in New York celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Corolla. This is a copy of the video that was playing on loop on TVs during the event. KE10, TE37, TE51, AL10, AE86, and a bunch of … Continue reading

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NY Auto Show: Toyota kicks off 50th anniversary of Corolla

In November 1966 the Toyota Corolla went on sale in Japan. That makes 2016 the 50th anniversary of the humble little runabout that’s been everything from a family hauler to a balls-out drifter to a rally racer. To kick off a year-long … Continue reading

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GRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 04

By the end of Day 03 we’d arrived at Shimonoseki, the southernmost point of Honshu, Japan’s main landmass. As the island on which most of the nation’s major cities — Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Hiroshima — are located, Honshu contains about 60 percent of … Continue reading

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EVENTS: 2016 New Year Meeting, Part 04 — The Streets

In the last two installments of our 2016 New Year Meeting coverage, we prowled the parking area to find as much diversity in marques and models as there were in customization styles. In our final installment of the 2016 New Year … Continue reading

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GRAND TOURING: Driving across Japan in a JNC, Day 01

In 2015 we took a once-in-a-lifetime road trip across Japan behind the wheel of a proper Showa Era icon. The chariot of choice was an Isuzu 117 Coupé, and it would serve as our trusty steed for 10 days and over 2,400 kilometers before … Continue reading

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ART CORNER: Beautiful dioramas of model cars from Japan

Takuji is a Japanese artist who places 1:43 and 1:64 scale minicars into beautifully constructed dioramas. From AE86s on touge roads to Mitsubishis tearing through a rally stage to mechanics tuning Skylines in a garage, each scene is a slice of … Continue reading

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EVENTS: Initial D World meet

If people are willing to dress up as country squires, high-mannered butlers, and Maggie Smith for Downton Abbey season premieres, then why not an Initial D-themed car meet? As the most popular work of Japanese automotive fiction of all time, it’s … Continue reading

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VIDEO: Drifting Hakone in 1992

Imagine a winding touge packed with Japanese drift machines — Silvias, RX-7s, Supras, Fairlady Zs and AE86s. So. Many. AE86s. Last year we showed a video proving that underground drifting was already reaching fever pitch by the late 80s. By 1992, Hakone Pass — one of … Continue reading

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VIDEO: 40th Anniversary of TRD

Founded in 1976, Toyota Racing Development is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. At the Tokyo Auto Salon a video played on loop, showing highlights of the last four decades. From Starlets to AE86s to Celicas to Supras, this is … Continue reading

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EVENTS: Hachimaru Meeting at Fuji Speedway

If it wasn’t for its glorious motorsports history, Fuji Speedway would be just about the worst place to hold a car show. It rains seemingly half the time there, and while that makes for cool photography, it can’t be pleasant for the … Continue reading

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Celebrate the holidays with your own JNC AE86 cookie cutters

Want a JNC-themed activity you can do with your family this holiday season? We at JNC have created an AE86 cookie cutter that you can download, 3D print, and use to make delicious, rear-wheel-drive cookies that will drift their way right … Continue reading

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VIDEO: 157 of Japan’s best Touge roads, brought to you by the Toyota 86

Going strictly by land mass, Japan is about 10 percent smaller than California, and a full 70 percent of its terrain is mountains. That’s why the twisting passes that cut through the ridges known as touge provide Japan’s preferred method of hooning. When the Toyota … Continue reading

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NIHON LIFE: How to park your car in Japan, Part 02

Sure, owning your own kyuusha in Japan sounds like a lot of fun, but where do you put it? In Part 01 of our damning exposé on the topic of parking an automobile in Japan, we illustrated what was legal and illegal, and did a … Continue reading

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NIHON LIFE: How to park your car in Japan, Part 01

Finding public or street parking in Japan’s major cities is sometimes chotto muzukashii — a Japanese saying for “a little difficult,” said through clenched teeth with a trailing “iiiii…” it essentially means, with typical Japanese subtlety, impossible. So there is naturally … Continue reading

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