TOYOTA

AE86

TOYOTA AE86 have been produced on earth in Japan between 1983 and 1987. The Toyota AE86 is the most famous cheap car in the world. Built from 1983 to 1987, the AE86 is the rear-wheel-drive variant of the fifth-generation Corolla (E80) — sold in Japan as the Corolla Levin (fixed headlamps) and the Sprinter Trueno (pop-up headlamps), and in the United States as the Corolla GT-S. It was the last rear-drive Corolla, launched at exactly the moment the rest of the industry was going front-wheel drive, and Toyota built it with a light body, near-50/50 weight balance, MacPherson struts, an optional limited-slip differential, a five-speed manual and the free-revving 1.6-litre 4A-GE twin-cam four — 128 hp in Japanese tune, 112 hp in the US. On paper it was unremarkable. In practice the Toyota AE86 became the definitive drift car: cheap, balanced, endlessly adjustable, and forgiving enough that a whole generation of Japanese street drivers learned car control in one. Keiichi Tsuchiya, the 'Drift King', built his career in an AE86, and Shuichi Shigeno's manga and anime Initial D — whose hero Takumi Fujiwara delivers tofu down a mountain pass in a panda-black-and-white Sprinter Trueno — turned the Toyota AE86 into a global cult object. Values reflect that: cars that were nearly worthless in the 2000s now trade like blue-chip Japanese classics, and clean unmodified examples are almost impossible to find. Toyota itself has acknowledged the legend, reviving the '86' badge for the GT86 and running an AE86 restoration parts programme. Upgrades & evolutions during the Toyota AE86 production: TOYOTA - Corolla Levin AE86 (fixed headlamps, JDM) : 1983 - 1987 TOYOTA - Sprinter Trueno AE86 (pop-up headlamps, JDM) : 1983 - 1987 TOYOTA - Corolla GT-S AE86 (US market, 112 hp) : 1984 - 1987 TOYOTA - Corolla Levin / Sprinter AE85 (1.5, 79,036 built) : 1983 - 1987 Average quotation for the Toyota AE86: cheapest US$10,000, average US$21,000, most expensive US$44,000 (listings and auction results, 2021-2026). ESTIMATED. The Classic Valuer puts an average-condition Toyota Corolla GT-S (AE86) at GBP 15,913 (about US$21,000), with the highest recorded sale at GBP 32,970 (about US$44,000). The avgprice field in the database currently holds the malformed value 'EUR 4.500,00' and needs a manual fix.