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Posted
Nov 19 2009, 01:53 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 20 comment(s)
This past August, I was invited to be a guest judge at a local drift Drift Mania West event, held at Western Speedway in Victoria BC, Canada. As you can expect at typical North American grass roots drift event, the majority of the cars competing were S chassis of various types. But one drifter chose to break the mold with his choice of car and went in a more old school direction: his name is Chris Scremin and this is his 1985 SR-86. Chris is one of the top drifters in the west coast Canadian scene...
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Posted
Nov 07 2009, 01:22 PM
by
Patrick McGrath
with 25 comment(s)
When I met Darren for his headshots for the DMac retrospective , he had only just put the finishing touches to the latest incarnation of the MCNSport AE86. It's been several months since I last saw the car tucked away at the MCNSport shop; before that it was at an AE86 trackday at Mondello Park. I'd heard a few rumours circulating around for a while that the guys were planning all sorts of different engine conversions for the lightweight Trueno. 20V's and Formula Atlantic 4AGE's were...
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Posted
Oct 20 2009, 04:30 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 29 comment(s)
With the D1 Grand Prix all done for a good five months I thought it would be cool to take a look back over the last few years and more to the point at some of the top drifters that have participated in the Japanese drift championship. I've picked two names that are synonymous with D1, drivers that for some reason or another are no longer competing at a professional level in Japan. First up is Katsuhiro Ueo, in my opinion the best AE86 drifter out there... ...driver of the unmistakable Racing...
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Posted
Oct 06 2009, 11:31 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 102 comment(s)
After so many rumors I think our prayers have been heard, at least at the design studio of Toyota in France. They designed this successor of the Corolla AE86 that will be debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show. Luckily for us Dino will be covering this show so I'm sure he will get us all the details surrounding this car. I do know that it will be powered by a 2.0 liter boxer engine that has been developed by Subaru and that it will be rear wheel driven. The engine has been placed as far back as possible...
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Posted
Sep 11 2009, 11:03 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 107 comment(s)
In the early days of Speedhunters, whenever the subject matter of Need for Speed came up, it became clear that you guys thought we suffered from bad car style. And rightly so, it was the nature of the way that the 3D car models were created in the old games, that ended up with the same basic group of kit designs being used across all the various cars, irrespective of the model. We also had a situation whereby our old "rice" style wide body kits were being recycled from year to year, even...
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Posted
Aug 31 2009, 12:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 39 comment(s)
Thanks to everyone who sent in their photos!... BTW We are thinking to run something similar for September's BMW month for 3 Series owners... think that will work? Are BMW owners as passionate and devoted to their cars as their AE86 contemporaries? Well we are about to find out!... In the mean time here are the last group of AE86 photo submissions from around the world....
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Posted
Aug 31 2009, 06:19 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 44 comment(s)
The whole time I was at Formula D Seattle and Bonneville Speed Week in Utah my blackberry was buzzing away with late submissions for our AE86 day community celebration posts.... We thought it would be fitting to post up all the additional photo submissions... so without further adieu here we go... more photos from the AE86 global massive!...
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Posted
Aug 25 2009, 03:30 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 21 comment(s)
Ok, let's jump straight in to part two of my Drift Mania West judging adventure... As I had to attend to judging the drift runs from qualifying on, this blog post isn't going to read like a regular event report as I was unable to shoot the action during these sessions... But I'll do my best to share with you my own observations from the event.... someone requested more shots of the S12, so here you go! Now that I have the use of a proper camera to shoot events and features, I've been...
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Posted
Aug 07 2009, 01:30 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 4 comment(s)
Thought it would be a good idea to end the AE86 day with a wallpaper post, and what better car than the Crystal Body Yokohama AE86 from last night's meeting in Daikoku. Head to the Desktop section to grab the widescreen and standard versions. Enjoy. -Dino Dalle Carbonare
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Posted
Aug 06 2009, 11:45 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 12 comment(s)
As my final post for the AE86 day I wanted to show you guys probably one of the nicest street going hachiroku out there. This car is owned my Miguel of Newera Imports, and since picking it up about 4 years ago has gone well and truly crazy on it. Miguel instantly fell in love with his Levin and knew it would be hard to hold back on the modifications. He set himself a goal of creating a car that would be at home on the street as well as on the track... ...drifting as well as gripping. First up was...
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Posted
Aug 06 2009, 10:00 PM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 18 comment(s)
With the AE86 day coming to a close it's time to take a look at the second part of the coverage from last night's hachiroku gathering at Daikoku PA, starting with the Crystal Body Yokohama demo car which rolled in later on in the night. CBY is one of the biggest names in AE86 tuning and creates parts... ...like the rear FRP gate so many people use on their 86s. Hatchback or sedan? Tough choice! Daikoku PA is the perfect place do some general maintenance to your car, there is plenty of light...
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Posted
Aug 06 2009, 12:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 11 comment(s)
For my 86 Day contribution, I originally had this idea to do a post with 86 different photos of AE86's. Although that would probably set a record for the longest Speedhunters post ever, it turns out that it would be a quite a time consuming process.
Instead, I settled on 20 different AE86 photos I've shot at both drift and grip events in Japan. There's an interesting mix of cars here, and all of them represent the 86's never-ending popularity in its homeland....
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Posted
Aug 06 2009, 10:54 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 31 comment(s)
A lot of people have asked me about the history and story about this car. To some, it’s just an old Corolla that’s not worth more than a few hundred dollars. To those that know and are fans of the Hachi Roku, they understand and appreciate the efforts that go into resurrecting them, building them and most importantly – driving them. Some have speculated that this car was “too showy”, but it was truly designed and meant to be driven. It has seen it’s fair share...
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Posted
Aug 06 2009, 05:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 6 comment(s)
While browsing through my picture library I stumbled across this shot I took back in 2004 at Tsukuba. This is Keiichi Tsuchiya at the wheel of the TRD N2 AE86 race car that participates in the Hot Version N2 battles. This car was built by the late Sakurai-san of TRD Technocraft, who passed away last year. Sakurai-san was behind countless AE86 N2 winning race cars back in the 80's as well as many other Toyota motorsport projects. Today is the perfect day for remembering such a legend. -Dino Dalle...
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Posted
Aug 06 2009, 03:00 AM
by
Dino Dalle Carbonare
with 19 comment(s)
239 PS from a little naturally aspirated four-pot is definitely something you can't argue with. When Kamata-san of Tec-Art's got started on this N2 Project back in 2001 he had no idea it would have evolved like it has, helping him push AE86 and 4AG tuning to extremes. Tec-Art's is a small family-run shop in the outskirts of Tokyo, a place that over the years Kamata-san and his brother have turned into one of the most respected hachiroku shops in Japan. While they keep busy doing 20-valve...
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Posted
Aug 06 2009, 01:19 AM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 20 comment(s)
Let's start with my contribution to the official AE86 day celebration. I wasn't really into Toyota but after working together with Antonio that has changed. So for this feature I knew I had to cover the best AE86 that I could find. Luckily for me I found one and it gets better, because this car was located in Holland. After I saw the owner, Mike Nieuwstraten, posting on the Driftworks forum telling he wanted to refurbish his Hayashi's I contacted him immediately and soon after that a...
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Posted
Aug 05 2009, 04:12 PM
by
Patrick McGrath
with 13 comment(s)
When Rod asked the staff to come up with an '86 related feature for 86 Day, I admit I did have to spend some time considering what to shoot. Ireland has quite an illustrious past with the wee hachi-roku, most commonly refered to as a 'twin-cam' or 'cam' in these parts. My first plan was to roll back the years on some of the most famous '86s that have emerged from this small island. DMac's infamous Falken car and Eric O'Sullivans F20C Rockstar car would obviously be...
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Posted
Aug 05 2009, 08:45 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 48 comment(s)
This post isn't about having the right or the wrong rims. It's not about stance, offset, demon camber or wheel fitment. Nor is this post about whether or not it's right or wrong to swap your AE86 engine to another brand. No, this post is about one thing only: a celebration of the worldwide AE86 community. In compiling these photos, I'm quite amazing to me to see just how far the cult of the Hachiroku has spread... It seems like there are fans of this little car in every pocket of the globe!
I'd like to thank everyone who sent in their photos. They are still coming in as I type this blog, but I've been able to format the the first set of pics for you to check out. They are presented in no particular order; enjoy!...
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Posted
Aug 04 2009, 10:25 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 23 comment(s)
Hi guys... just a reminder that if you read Speedhunters and own an AE86 please send us a photo of your car today. We are compiling readers rides for all the Speedhunters community AE86s for August 6th and would like to gather together as many photos as we can of your cars. All AE86s will be shown so please email me a couple pictures, along with your name and location to rchong (at) ea.com. Tx! :R
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Posted
Jul 26 2009, 08:51 AM
by
Casey Dhnaram
with 16 comment(s)
A week ago or so me and some mates headed out to a private drift day at Queensland Raceway here in Australia. This day, was just one of those days, 5:30AM wakeup in winter, at the stage where you can't see 2 meters past your front door there is that much fog. The air is crisp and you're full of adrenalin for a big day! These events are held monthly during the week, and I missed out on two last semester, but I was lucky to get this day off and I'm glad i did! Myself and Robo in his Hachi...
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