About 20 years ago, at the height of TNN’s Power Block and million dollar Hemi ‘Cudas at Barrett-Jackson, a company called Dynacorn blew SEMA’s minds with a complete reproduction 1967 Mustang Fastback body. Since then we’ve been wondering which Japanese car would be the first to get the same treatment. Well, you can now order a complete reproduction Toyota AE86 shell to build the touge warrior of your dreams.
To be clear, this shell has no official connection to Toyota. It’s nothing like the reproduction body parts that Nissan made for the Skyline GT-R. For one, those are official Nissan parts, but even though they can recreate entire quarter panels the leap to an entire assembled unibody is still huge. There are also companies making reproduction parts for the S30 Z and Datsun 510, but nothing on the scale of a complete monocoque. The closest we’ve seen is this Z body, but it was FRP.
The AE86 is manufactured by JiangSu Aodun Industries, a Chinese company that’s selling the shells on Alibaba. We can hear the “Made in China” dismissals already, and while there is still a lot of junk on Alibaba this does not appear to be the result of a fly-by-night operation. The Drive reports that JiangSu Aodun is a supplier to FAW-GM, China’s second-largest automaker and a joint-venture with General Motors. They already stamp panels for Chinese-market Audis, VWs, Toyotas, Mazdas, Cherys, and more. They also make a complete FJ40 body, but the AE86 is their first car.
To order the AE86 body you can visit one of JiangSu Aodun’s two listings on Alibaba. The price can be as low as $8,000 per body if you order more than 50 (!) units. The minimum order, however, is five units and in those quantities the price will be $9,500 with shipping “to be negotiated”. Clearly this won’t be as easy as having UPS drop a package off at your front door, but at least you can purchase them in the single digits.
AE86 bodies that are now 40 years old can be prone to rust in snowy regions where road salt is used. Not to mention there are plenty of former drift missiles that have tweaked frames. This might be a good solution, assuming the reproduction shell’s tolerances are good enough that parts can simply bolt right up to it. It can be hard to get a non-OEM urethane bumper to fit on a stock car. On an entire car there’s much more opportunities for being off by a few millimeters.
Here in the US yo can still get an well-used AE86 SR5 shell for less than $8,000, and it’ll come with bits like glass, interior trim, and suspension. We suspect that this shell was intended for the Chinese market, where the AE86 was never sold by Toyota, but where Initial D and the AE86’s general excellence has created a strong following. With zero four-decade-old buckets lying scattered around the countryside and potentially difficult import laws, enthusiasts have no choice but to turn to a reproduction shell.
Even so, it would be near impossible to build a streetable AE86 out of this shell. There are simply too many parts to find to make it a running, complete-looking car. Instead, the shell will likely be used for a drift, time attack, race, or rally car with all other components being aftermarket-sourced. We wonder if there’s anyone in America crazy enough to buy one of these shells and build an AE86. Group buy, anyone?
It’s like a base for a kit-car. Owner can bolt on any engine, built custom suspension etc.
You can buy on UK a manufactured shell od Lancia Stratos and build yourself a rally esque car with Alfa Romeo V6.
This might work in similair fashion – drop in the drivetrain of, let’s say, Lexus IS/Altezza, bucket seats, plastic windows and off to the track to shred some rubber 😉
Yikes. What does Toyota’s Legal Counsel say about this?
Doesn’t matter lol.
Who cares? Toyota clearly doesn’t seem to think there’s money in making more shells. If it has abandoned production of them, it can’t complain when other manufacturers step in.
LOL. That’s not how Liability laws work my friend. They gone after & crushed cars for WAY less.
First of all, AWESOME! That is some amazing news! Unibody cars seems to me harder to restore than body on frame cars, and over here, rust got hold of pretty much all of them. I mean, now it’s a cool car, but in the ’90s, it was just an old corolla. I remember when I started driving, these were seen as inferior to a base celica or a v6 probe and they were getting properly beaten by teens learning to drive until they were rusted enough to make no shade when left in the sun… Then the drift era came, they became cool and were wrapped around poles, trees, SUVs…
I can really see someone starting a group buy in order in eastern Canada to make actual cars out of part-out cars. Even the worn ones are rare and stupid expensive over here. Think about it, you can straighten a unibody, replace metal, but there will always be spots you can’t see, otherwise you will have to completely disassemble all welds to start as new… The option of getting a brand new one, including new body panels, for 9,5k plus shipping is expensive but realistic.
The less great part now, I hope they got the best and straightest hachi-roku to start with! The listings show the same car with white spots, those looks like 3D scanning targets, to help your scanner on flatter parts… This beautiful car is probably the one being scanned and not a reproduction one. It might be a prototype being scanned to compare to their original one too, but what we see could be the original or a ringer and not the actual manufactured, shipped item.
Wow, I see a perfect starting point for a rally car. I would start with finding a USDM rusted out hack to borrow from and go from there.
All it takes is money and time.
Or I could just build a 1/24 scale version and find shelf space to display it for less…
I really like this idea. Think about it, because it never was a real Toyota AE86 you can do whatever you want to it and not feel guilty. you’re not destroying classic steel. the options are limitless and no one can bark at you for doing something sacrilegious because it is a Chinese reproduction. it would liberate you from the judgment of the Toyota and JDM purists.
WOW, would be really cool to see more and more reproduction shells of classic JDM cars like the 69 Hakosuka or even Datsun Z cars. The last Z car I bought was sooo rusted out it was nearly impossible to restore. For now we’ll have to stick to restoring our 72 Datsun 510 🙂