AE86 is a chassis code, not a name. The A is the 4A engine family, E8 is the fifth-generation Corolla range, and the 6 marks this variant — the 1.6-litre, rear-wheel-drive one. Japanese enthusiasts shortened it to Hachiroku, "eight-six". Toyota sold it under two names that go together: Trueno is Spanish for thunder, and Levin, the Corolla version, comes from a Middle English word for lightning.
The engineering was half old and half new. While the rest of the E80 Corolla range moved to front-wheel drive, the AE86 stayed on the previous E70 platform, with the same 2,400 mm wheelbase and many parts that interchange: MacPherson struts at the front, a four-link live axle on coil springs at the back, anti-roll bars at both ends and an optional limited-slip differential on manual twin-cams. On top of that sat the 4A-GE, a 1.6-litre twin-cam with four valves per cylinder, Denso electronic fuel injection and T-VIS variable intake — the "blue top".
It went racing almost at once. Racing in Division 1 of the European Touring Car Championship, it won the 1986 manufacturers' title outright, with 267 points, against cars from the classes above it. Chris Hodgetts won the British Touring Car Championship in one in 1986 and again in 1987. In Japan, Kaoru Hoshino took the 1985 Division 1 title in the Trampio Levin; in Australia, Toyota Team Australia won class titles in 1985 and 1986, and the car dominated its class at the Spa and Nürburgring 24 Hours through the decade. Its best World Rally result was third overall on the 1989 Rallye Côte d'Ivoire.
The other half of its reputation came from the mountains. Keiichi Tsuchiya, who won six Fuji Freshman races in an AE86 in 1984 and his class in the All Japan Touring Car Championship in 1985, became the "Drift King" through Pluspy's street-driving videos, including the two-part The Touge, shot in his AE86 on mountain passes. Katsuhiro Ueo won the 2002 D1 Grand Prix in one, fifteen years after the last was built. Toyota made an estimated 360,000-plus, named its 2012 sports car the 86 after it, and in November 2021 put the AE86's steering knuckle arms, rear brake calipers and rear half shafts back into production.
DeAGOSTINI Japan launched Weekly Sprinter Trueno AE86 on 28 June 2022 and ran it to 110 issues; this is that Japanese edition, magazine in Japanese. It builds the car as Toyota sold it, not as a tuned car: the 1983 early-model GT-APEX, with the wine-red two-tone interior only the GT-APEX had, the digital meter only the early cars had, and 185/70HR13 tyres on 5J × 13 alloys. Built, it is white over black. At 1:8 it is 526 mm long and about 6.3 kg, die-cast alloy for the body and engine; the 4A-GEU is built from parts under an opening bonnet, the headlamps pop up on a motor, the indicators tick, and speakers play the engine from start-up through idle to acceleration, worked by a remote shaped like the AE86's cockpit. Issue 1 came with a DVD of Manabu Orido driving a stock Hachiroku on a mountain road. This build also has DeAGOSTINI's four-box custom parts set — fog lamps, bucket seats, wheels, rear spoiler, single-tail muffler and carbon-look bonnet — which has to go in during the build, not after.