Motoring | Features

Toyota Corolla AE86

The original Hachi-Roku is still the cheap, reliable, rear-wheel drive fun sportscar of choice

By Dejan Jovanovic, wheels
Published: 09:30 September 27, 2012

Image Credit: Supplied picture
The venerable little Toyota Corolla AE86 has quietly been the favoured cheap, reliable, and plentiful rear-wheel drive sportscar of choice for track-day-goers, drifters, and plain old enthusiasts alike for ages.

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It didn’t exactly take the fan furore of the new Toyota 86 to reignite the spark for the model’s spiritual predecessor. The venerable little Toyota Corolla AE86 has quietly been the favoured cheap, reliable, and plentiful rear-wheel drive sportscar of choice for track-day-goers, drifters, and plain old enthusiasts alike for ages.

Launched in 1983 to a receptive audience, it built up a fearsome reputation on circuits all around the world, especially in the production categories of touring car races in Europe as part of Toyota’s factory team.

Once the drifting community rose in the mountains of Japan, the midnight drivers flocked to the Corolla mainly for its price — it’s not easy for a young driver to own a car in Japan, with its draconian taxes — but also for its live rear-driven axle, and limited slip differential fitted as standard.

The 4AGE engine revved like mad doing little else, but it was responsive and faithful, as it still is today. However, finding an AE86 still with its original four-cylinder motor fed by a carburetor is nigh on impossible, even more so in the Middle East. Many have been butchered to hold straight-six 2JZs or even the 1UZ V8.

Be patient, be prepared to import from other GCC or further-off countries, and stick to the 4AGE family or alternatively the much more powerful BEAMS motor, with its two defining features: 200 horsepower out the box, and a six-speed manual transmission.

Otherwise head to Sharjah and take your pick: five versions of 4AGE motors are all available, with the best ones being anything with fuel injection, basically. (Good luck finding a carburetor specialist in the UAE.) An engine swap is easier than changing your tyres, provided you do your research before taking any of the 4AGEs designed for front-wheel drive transverse applications. In any case, most local AE86 owners swear by the furious-revving BEAMS four-cylinder.