I was having a look on Yahoo Japan Auctions and came across a brand new gold Trueno badge! The starting price was high but not high enough to put me off. I was hoping no one else would bid so I could get it for the start price but unfortunately someone else also had their eye on it. In the end I won the auction, it got to the point where I had already bid such a stupid amount of money, what’s a little more, and with new bumpers and lights a new badge is almost a necessity.

So shiny! Don’t feel as bad about the price after seeing it 🙂

I also found a very mint steering wheel with new horn panel, a cigarette lighter, a new gearknob, a new heater panel a set of 4 new door decals, a new hatch and a new redline center garnish, very happy.

Most of my parts arrived, except for the bumpers and hatch, they’re boxed up and ready to send over.

I use quotation marks as unfortunately it’s not black anymore.

I have been looking around for a car to buy, have seen a few golds pop up but I was specifically looking for a ’83 so it would have the cream and brown interior.

There was one ’83 gold that came up quite cheap but it was pretty far gone, lots of rust, interior a mess, paint faded and dents everywhere. There was a couple of decent ’85 golds too but I decided I if I want cream and brown then I’d be better to wait for a suitable one.

I know interiors can be changed, but I’d prefer it all matched considering the car I want to build in my mind.

There was a very nice ’83 gold Sprinter for sale in Adelaide, untouched original condition, spoke to the guy who owned it on the phone and he said it had no rust, nice paint and was in great condition. The problem was the price, he was asking $10,000 non-negotiable which I couldn’t justify for a standard ADM due to the amount that would need to be spent to make it a “true” AE86.

My friend Iain was selling a 1985 GT-Apex Trueno that I went to have a look at. 124,000ks, tidy paint, electric windows, electric sunroof, powersteering, power mirrors, air con etc, fully optioned. Went to have a look at it, took it for a drive, such a lovely car. Had a bit of rust here and there, needed a little bit of a tidy up but overall a great car so I said I would have a think about it.

Funny to know that this car has my old bonnet. Turns out Iain had done a swap with the guy who ended up with my old Trueno front end as this Trueno came in with a carbon fibre bonnet.

About 9 months ago, Mitch, (who I bought the purple “Trueno” from), informed me excitedly that he had found and bought a Black Limited at auction in Japan which had been sprayed an orange/bronze colour. He said he noticed the orange dash, got one of his guys to check it out and sure enough, the colour code was 204 black.

A few months later he was thinking about selling it and offered the car to me. I gave it great thought but in the end decided the timing wasn’t right. He then decided to keep it and was planning on doing a restoration back to original.

Last week we were talking again and he mentioned he was thinking of selling it again. I didn’t think much of it, then I saw the sale post on a local forum and it hit me. I had somewhat regretted letting it go the first time, I was in a much better place now in terms of what I wanted and where I wanted to be so I decided to buy it.

Realistically it needs quite the restoration, and as I have all the new Trueno parts already, it really is the perfect car for me.

The car is due to arrive early next month and I have already started planning what I’m going to do with it. Of course back to black, factory bumpers, fit the skirts and the boot spoiler I have.

The car has the orange dash cluster, clock and heater control panel. It has the seats although they may need repair, and Mitch had since found a taillight centre panel for it.

My zenki Levin taillights, kouki Levin headlights, eye lids and parklights showed up from Ireland and Dubai this week too.

I have been meaning to head over to Ebisu for Matsuri for a long time however each time I had planned to go I ended up buying an AE86 instead.

I’ve decided I’m not going to miss out again so I decided to buy a car early.

My buddy Paul has been over 3 times already, the first time he bought a blue 180sx. By the end of the week there wasn’t much left of it so the second time he went back he bought a kouki S14.

He decided he wanted to sell it after the Matsuri just been and we got talking about it before he went over. He sent me through a spec list and we discussed a price and worked out a deal, I gave him the money and was just hoping it didn’t get written off while he was over there.

He returned with a bit of bad news, whilst drifting in a group the guy in front of him missed a gear, Paul spun avoiding him and made slight contact with the rear quarter and unfortunately the guy behind was too close to avoid him and hit pretty hard.

This resulted in a bent coilover, bent steering rack, bent tie rod and a bit of panel damage. Unfortunately for me this meant the car would go up in price as Power Vehicles made him an offer as it sat, which I had to match if I wanted the car, plus the costs of repairing it.

I gave it a lot of thought and decided it’s still worth spending a bit more on because of the parts it has on it.

The car has quite a bit of panel damage from tapping walls and other cars but I consider that a good thing, means I won’t be so precious with it! Here’s a few pics of the car as it sits now.

Paul had a few issues with the car throughout the week and had just got it running properly not long before the hit so I feel a bit sorry for him, he had the turbo off 7 times! But he gave the car a full service and it was running well so that’s the main thing. Once its all fixed up will be an awesome car to drive, he said it has about 400bhp.

Very excited! And it will be nostalgic as I used to own a silver kouki S14.

I have also put a deposit on an AE86 that is currently in a container on its way to Australia.

A guy called Matt contacted me regarding the Silvertop 20v I had for sale from the purple car. He came to have a look but decided not to buy, in all fairness I was probably asking too much for it.

About a month later I noticed he had a set of wheels for sale that I really liked, so I got talking with him and asked if he wanted to do a deal, made him an offer that was hard to turn down.

They are Weds Autobahn one piece mesh wheels, 14×7 -1, 14×7.5 -7.5, I really like them!

In regards to the NZ New AE86, I decided to pass on it. Over the next week it was haunting me, every time I saw pictures on my phone I thought, “what have I done, how could I pass on a car like that!”, so I decided to make John an offer. Unfortunately it wasn’t high enough and he respectfully declined.

I can understand completely, the car is worth a lot of money as it’s almost unheard of to find a car in such condition almost 30 years later, let alone a NZ New Corolla GT. I wished him good luck with his sale, guess it wasn’t meant to be. I really hope the car goes to an enthusiast who will look after it as well as he has. Realistically, anyone who is willing to pay the asking price will cherish the car.

I made the decision to buy as many new parts as I could as more and more are becoming discontinued, I thought better to buy now than not be able to buy later.

I got in touch with Nick at NST, Rob had left since I ordered the last Trueno parts.

I ordered

Kouki Trueno

Front bumper/mounts
Bumper lights
Two Trueno badges
Grille
Eye lids
Corner lights
Rear bumper/mounts
Redline tail lights L + R

Zenki Trueno

Tail lights L + R
Tail light centre garnish

Kouki Levin

Front bumper/mounts
Bumper indicators
Rear bumper/mounts

Unfortunately Nick said the headlights, eye lids and park lights had been discontinued which is a shame!

I knew Stephen from SC Auto Parts was still selling them in Ireland so I got in touch with him. I was disappointed to learn the bottom eye lids have been discontinued also! It doesn’t make sense to me, that you would discontinue one part of a ‘set’ and continue to produce the other parts!

So I ordered zenki Levin tail lights and kouki Levin park lights from him.

Now I had every part I needed except kouki head lights and eye lids, so I started searching around. I found a set of kouki Levin head lights complete with top and bottom eye lids for sale in Dubai, for the price of an arm and a leg! But I didn’t have any other option, so I reluctantly bought them.

The ADM has been sold, when I first left a note on it two and a half years ago, I wanted to keep it. Unfortunately the timing isn’t right now to be starting with an ADM base rebuild. Craig’s father has been looking for a decent unmodified base for a while so I got in touch with Craig and he came to look at the car.

We went over it together, really was quite a clean base! Not perfect by any means, but good considering the age. A deal was made, I was paid some in cash and some in parts (a new zenki Trueno front lip, a new zenki Levin front lip, a pair of good sideskirts and a good factory boot spoiler). I was amazed at the condition of the skirts and spoiler, very pleased.

I did have temporary dreams of building it into a kouki Trueno, but I seem to be getting more sensible with age. It was nice coming home to it for a week though, not owning an AE86 sure leaves a void.

I now have all the exterior parts to create either a Levin or a Trueno, so I’m keeping an eye out waiting for something suitable to come up. I still have my heart set on a 4E1 gold, will see what comes up.

I mentioned a long time ago that I had found an AE86 out in the middle of nowhere. I left a note on it saying I was interested in buying it, he rang me the next day and said he would be happy to sell it and that I should call him in a few months.

I called him in a few months, he said his other car had blown a headgasket so he was going to put more rego on the Sprinter and keep driving it, and that I should call him again in 6 months.

So I waited another 6 months and rang again, he seemed reluctant and said he didn’t think his wife wanted to sell it, it was her first car at the age of 16, 18 years ago.

So I stopped chasing it, but kept it in my mind. After I sold both of my AE86s I sent him a message asking whether he still had the car, and that I would be prepared to pay him a bit more than the original price we agreed to. He seemed happy with that, said he would talk to his wife and get back to me. He rang a week later saying that they were coming up to Brisbane, and that they would bring the car to me.

Unfortunately I landed myself in hospital with excruciating stomach pains and was unable to meet him when he came up. As soon as I got out of hospital I rang him and organised to pick it up that weekend.

Anthony was nice enough to take me out there in his 1972 Datsun 230, what an awesome car! It was over an hour drive out into the countryside and there wasn’t a more suited car to the task. Big solid laid back cruiser.

We met up with the owner, had a chat and handed over some cash and we were on our way back. It was so nice to be behind the wheel of an AE86 again, the sound of the 4A-C roaring into life was incredibly nostalgic. We headed to the car wash and gave both the cars a good clean.

Anthony had been working night shift so he headed home to sleep, I had the day off so I headed over to my mate Bens house. Luck was with me, it started raining! So we went for a bit of a comical slide, the Sprinter almost rolling onto its side as I compression locked it around corners, such a laugh.

Now the car is home, the plates will be returned tomorrow and I need to think about what I’m going to do with it, though I’m probably not going to keep it.

I have always wanted to own a New Zealand new Corolla GT.

I put a wanted ad up on a New Zealand forum quite a while ago asking if anyone had an unmolested one for sale.

An older fellow called John contacted me, he had one that had been sitting around for the last 10 years, in fact it turns out he had two!

The car for sale was a 1985 model, 3C7, “Rose Grey Metallic” in colour with red and brown interior.

New Zealand spec cars are very similar to Irish and UK spec cars. Factory front lip, sideskirts and boot spoiler, most with sunroof, different fabric in the interior and the Corolla taillights. I’m not sure the exact number but from what I have heard there were only around 30 NZ spec cars made.

He bought the car new in 1985, he was looking for a daily for his wife and something he could play with in the weekend. We got emailing back and forth and he sent me some photos, the car was mostly unmodified. It had KYB shocks and springs and some 13″ Superlite style wheels that were custom made for it in the late 80s. The car was such a time capsule, with just over 86,000ks on the clock!

At the time we first started emailing I had just bought the Levin, he said he wasn’t planning on selling for a few months so I said I would keep it in mind.

I thought about buying it often, but the thing that made me want it also made me not want it, the fact that it was so mint. Something my Levin taught me is that a mint 86 is almost a wasted 86.

John got the car out of storage, fixed up a few things that had gone bad from it sitting so long, got it warranted and registered and sent me through some more photos. The car was very clean and I started thinking more about owning it.

I couldn’t turn the car down without going over to see it so flights were booked.

I decided to make a good weekend out of it as things hadn’t been going well lately, so I rang up and organised a GT86 as a rental car. I’ve never liked the GT86, I thought driving one might change my mind, unfortunately it didn’t.

I worked 105 hours in 9 days, then worked until 11am on Friday before flying out to NZ. I landed in Auckland just before midnight NZ time, it was raining as it always is. Got in the GT, as soon as I left the car park I tried doing some sliding but traction control made sure that didn’t happen! I figured out how to turn it off which made the car a bit more fun. Went and picked up my mate and set off towards Wellington.

Arrived in Wellington around 10am, with no sleep I was a bit like a zombie. Got in touch with John and went to the place where he kept the car. As I arrived I saw his other Corolla which is also in great condition, he has owned it for 15 years.

The car was great, the interior was absolutely perfect except for wear on the drivers seat where they all seem to go. I took the car for a drive, as it had such low mileage everything felt tight and it drove beautifully.

We took both cars up the road as John wanted a few photos of the cars together, was a very cool experience having two NZ new cars together. Later a guy I’d been talking to a bit online came down with his 4E1 Corolla GT which made it even better! A gold NZ Corolla GT would be such an awesome car to own.

I thanked John for his time, told him I would do some thinking and headed back north to my father’s place.

The price tag is obviously large due to condition and I doubt I would ever find another in such condition, I know I would never find another NZ new like it.

Then there’s the downside of the condition, it deserves to be kept as pristine as it is, which means I couldn’t modify it or drive it too hard. I don’t live in New Zealand so if I buy it, it would be kept locked up and driven on times that I return, but that’s a lot of money to be sitting there.

There’s a lot of things to consider, this is going to take some serious thinking, it is a bit of a “once in a lifetime” opportunity.

Here’s a pic of the two cars for now, can see the toybaru hiding down the bottom there too, will upload more when I get the chance.

I went in to work and was told there wasn’t a truck for me so I rang the guy with the gold Sprinter and organised to come and view the car.

He lived in a place called Dalby, about 3 hours out of Brisbane. It was a beautiful day and was such a nice ride out there, open country roads so I was sitting at 150+ for quite a lot of the journey.

As he was so far away I made sure to ask for an accurate description of the car and photos before I paid the deposit. It looked a bit rough in photos but fixable so I was happy. As I’ve wanted a gold one for so long I was getting more and more excited the closer I got to his place.

However when I arrived and had a look over the car, those feelings turned to massive disappointment.

The car was said to have been sandblasted and resprayed, but left outside for a while so it had a little surface rust. A little.

I don’t think its fair to advertise a car as being freshly resprayed when it looked as if it had been painted with spray cans. It was the kind of paint job where nothing was masked properly, overspray everywhere and left me wondering what would be under the paint.

There was quite a bit more than just surface rust, I doubt the car was sandblasted at all.

The inside had been painted in a weird black tar like substance that was thick in some places, but in other places would peel off like burnt newspaper. The interior was shocking, things like rear quarter window trims were held on with sikaflex and the motor had a very bad idle where it was constantly searching.

I hadn’t felt that disappointed in a long time.

After talking with him and him lowering the price, I still decided it required way too much more work than I had thought by the description so I told him I didn’t want the car. He said he would refund the deposit and I left for home with low spirits.

Unfortunately I foolishly left my laptop on the floor and whilst investigating a noise in the garage late at night stepped on it and cracked the screen so posts have been few and far between. Image quality also isn’t great as the camera on my phone is scratched, I will come back and update the pictures when I buy a new computer.

After much thought I decided to sell the Levin. I don’t feel happy in Australia so I’m contemplating moving, will see what happens. Car was sold without wheels but I couldn’t fit standard wheels on the front due to the brakes, so I will grab the mesh back later.

This Levin was the best AE86 I have ever driven, had a lot of good times in it and learnt so much. No regrets at all.

I managed to finally get the Trueno out of the field and to my buddy Pauls house. After going over it properly in the daylight I’ve decided not to keep it. I bought the car without seeing pictures, for the money it was advertised for I couldn’t let it pass, being a complied Jap shell. Turns out it’s not as good as I initially thought and requires the kind of work that I’m not capable of, and that would cost a lot of money getting done professionally. I have sold it to a friend who is handy with a welder and has a spare shell sitting around who plans to restore it.

I came across an ADM AE86 which has had a GT-Apex Trueno reshelled into it. A guy brought the car in from Japan, after owning it for a while and taking it to the track a few times, a tie rod snapped whilst doing a mountain run sending the car up a bank and onto its roof.

He reshelled the car into an aussie shell but unfortunately they painted the car the wrong colour. He was disappointed and lost interest in it and it has been sitting in the same spot for 4 years. Bit of a shame but I understand the feeling completely, I felt the same after the dramas with my Trueno in New Zealand, you just lose the passion.

Here’s some pictures of it in its former glory.

And photos of how it sits now after I bought it.

It has a silvertop 20v which has been converted to rear wheel drive with Kaizen loom and Adaptronic ecu.

It also came with the frp bonnet and hatch which turned out to be Runfree.

The car also has Jap T-50, driveshaft, T series rear end with TRD 2 way LSD, Tokiko HTS 102 rear shocks, unknown front shocks with Cusco camber plates, 30mm RCAs and T3 knuckles. It has a Jap loom with all the wiring for the trueno front end and digital dash, fuel tank with digital dash sender, trueno front end and redline taillights.

Me and Paul stripped the car down today and pulled the motor and box out, the shell has already been sold as a non roller and I plan to sell the silvertop too.

I’m going to keep the running gear, dif, box, fuel tank etc, the reason I’m not keeping the motor is I found a blacktop for sale.

The original owner spent $5,500 with Anthony from Kaizen Garage, disappointed the car only made 99rwkw (134hp) he sold it and bought an SR20DET instead. The man that bought the motor was an Irish fella who put it into his race car. Unfortunately after 2 events he put the back quarter into a wall pretty hard and wrote the car off.

He came across a rare opportunity to buy an ex-Group A AE86 back home in Ireland so he was trying to recover a bit of money and put the motor up for sale.

It has been converted to rear wheel drive with coil packs etc, has Toda 304deg cams with 10.5mm of lift, under bucket shims and springs but not much else. It also has a Kaizen loom and Adaptronic ecu.

When he put the motor in his car he took it to a dyno shop, they rang him during the tuning and said ‘it’s still making power at 10,000rpm, what do you want to do?’. He told them to limit it at 9,000.

The silvertop came with Jubiride trumpets which I will keep for the blacktop.

I also swapped my pair of Superstars for a rebuilt smallport 4AGZE bottom end. Has been lightened and balanced so the long term plan would be to get some high compression 20v pistons put in it and rebalance it, then put the blacktop head on.

Paul finally got the Easyriders onto his KE70, it looks incredible! The photos don’t do it justice, it has such presense.

He will be getting front arches welded on the rear and lowering the car afterwards, it’s gonna look epic.

As for my plans, I don’t know what I’m doing, just going with the flow and seeing what happens. I would to build a Trueno to put that 20v and the running gear into, I have already planned a bit so far, the only thing I don’t have is a suitable shell.

I have also put a deposit down on a 4E1 AE86 as I’ve always wanted a gold one. All going to plan I’ll be picking it up in 2 weeks, sooner if I sell the silvertop, and have a few plans in mind for that too. Its a bit rough but has potential, already has a smallport 4AGE and I’m happy to spend a bit of money getting it looking and going well as 4E1 is quite hard to come by.

Main aim is legality, Australia is so harsh.

I put the new leads on and also bought new plugs. I wanted to put my car on the dyno to make sure the misfire had been eliminated as I can’t really test drive it as I had taken the exhaust off. I organised a tow and to meet Craig and Anthony from Kaizen Garage at the dyno shop as Anthony was doing some tuning on Craig’s turbo Altezza.

I arrived early so I could sort the exhaust out, I took down the exhaust I brought over from NZ. Unfortunately because it was such short notice I struggled to find anyone who could fit me in.

Eventually I found a nice old boy who let me use his hoist and tools. After getting the car up in the air I realised the extractors had snapped from the weight of the exhaust dragging.

I rang Craig to see if he had any extractors, he said he had a nice set but didn’t want to sell them, but said he would bring them down so I could use them as I was running out of time.

I went down and bought an exhaust gasket while waiting for Craig to arrive, once he arrived I put the extractors on.

I went to put the exhaust on but it was too long, the hangers were hitting on the fuel tank as the new extractors were longer than the ones the exhaust was made for. I unbolted the rear section and found a shop to cut the hangers off and managed to dodgily attach the exhaust by tying it to the tow hooks, good enough to get it on the dyno but it sounded dreadful.

Put the car on the dyno and did a couple of power runs, it revved freely meaning the misfire was gone, but after making 72rwkw (105hp) at 6,800 rpm the power started to drop away.

Because there were leaks in the exhaust system the air/fuel ratios weren’t reading correctly so Anthony couldn’t tell what the problem was. He suggested going to get a new exhaust made up then letting him have a look at it to try to diagnose the cause, then take it back to the dyno.

I saw a TA22 Celica parked up so I took the opportunity.

I had a talk to Craig at the end of the day and managed to persuade him into selling me the extractors. I then called a tow truck and took the car to my friend Bens house as he lived quite close to the dyno shop.

I called an exhaust shop this morning and booked the car in, organised a tow truck to meet me at Bens and headed over in the work truck. Whilst waiting for the tow truck I started the car to warm it up. As it was sitting there idling I had the sudden urge to drive it up the road and see if it drove like it did before the misfire. I told Ben to get in the car and took it for a spin around the block. I encountered an s bend so I clutched second and it stepped out majorly, so relieved it was driving properly again.

Loaded it up on the tow truck and dropped it down to the exhaust shop

Getting a 2 1/4″ mild steel under dif exhaust made up with a flange before the dif for ease of working on the car. I told him I wanted it to be as quiet as possible without compromising performance as I love the sound of induction.

I’ve decided I’m not going to get it tuned and put back on the dyno, it drives like it did before and it’s always driven very well. Thinking back I had always noticed it flattened out a bit in the high rpm so I tried not to over-rev it if I could help it.

I bought a set of whitelines from a guy in New Zealand.

I had been thinking of buying a TRD wing, paint the sideskirts white and fit whitelines but I’ve decided to leave it how it is, I’m really happy with the way the car looks.

I was having a look on the forums yesterday when I spotted an ad for a complied, non rolling AE86 Trueno shell with frontal damage for $500. There were no pictures so I couldn’t see how bad it was but for that kind of money I couldn’t turn it down. It would give options of either re-shelling the Levin into a complied shell, or even using the plates and tags.

I got hold of the guy and said I’d buy the shell, then organised to go and have a look at it later in the afternoon.

I went around to Anthonys house after work, (Anthony with the panda notchback zenki Trueno that was out at the track the first time I went) and we went out together to have a look at it.

I took some photos of his Trueno before we left. I sold him my zenki grille and Trueno badge, he has also fitted a front lip and some SSR Starsharks, I think it looks awesome.

We arrived at the house where the shell was and had a good look at it. The history of the car is that a Japanese family moved to Australia and the son really wanted to hold onto his AE86 so his father paid to get it shipped to Australia and complied. Not long after having it on the road someone ran a red light and crashed into the front of it.

The car was then sold complete to the guy who owns it now, he has since sold all the parts that were on the car and it’s been sitting as a shell in a field for 5 years.

I was suprised at the condition of the car considering it has been sitting so long, from what I could see it doesn’t have too much rust, seems quite a clean shell. I checked the codes on the firewall and it turns out to be a zenki Trueno in GT-Apex trim. Originally red and black panda, it was even fitted with a factory sunroof! The front end damage is no where near as bad as I was expecting.

I said I’ll be back next weekend with a trailer to collect it, as for what I’m going to do with it, I haven’t decided yet. I would love to rebuild it back to a perfect red and black panda Trueno, to save it if you will, but I’m still hoping to head to Japan next year, and if I rebuilt this car I don’t see that happening. I will give it some thought over the next week.

Anthony was nice enough to let me drive the Trueno back. It was the first time I’d driven a standard AE86 and I must say, it was quite a joy to drive.