How I wanted to buy an AE86 in 2017, 2020 and finally ended up buying and importing one from Japan to Germany in 2022 and make it road legal. 【1】
I remember back 【hen I thought about getting a hobby project car in 2017. Back then I was thinking about some 80s car because those always have been the ones I liked most, especially the boxy designs, actually what comes to your mind when you think about the VW Golf 1. I always had a preference for Japanese sports cars and a great interest in Japan in general. Probably that interest had its seed from playing lot of racing games as a kid like Gran Turismo or an MMO called Project Torque which also featured the AE86 (at least the American model Corolla GT-S). So after a while of research I had the perfect car that fitted my expectations: the AE86 or especially the Sprinter Trueno model that was only available in Japan (Germany and EU had only the Corolla Levin and pretty much only the Coupes). A car that is extremely reliable and an engine that is probably indestructible if maintained properly. Not to think of the perfect base to start working on engines, electronics and mechanical parts, also mainly because there is a lot of manuals and a great community for the 86s and also it is a very easy platform to work on.
So after deciding on a Trueno or Toreno how it is pronounced in Katakana, I started checking the local national online market, only to find nothing or close to nothing. There were a few Corolla Levin Coupes for lots of bucks available and the most were not located in Germany but Romania or Estonia and so on and after checking few posts I quickly found out that there is low chance to find one, and if I’d manage to find one, it would probably be extremely expensive (we are talking about 30k Euro and more) which was a no go.
It took me a while to get into the international forums for the AE86 and I finally found the ultimate solution of importing my own AE86 from Japan, which meant a whole lot of work in any means of course. Back in 2017 I only got to the step of browsing auctions and then finally burying my plans after I found out that the hatches in roadworthy condition were about 16-19k Euro, a whole lot which I couldn’t afford at the time. (Not to mention all the other costs).
In 2020 that idea of a project car came up again, because of the recent events and lot of quarantine time and I browsed the local online markets again only to find a top-notch Corolla Levin hatch for under 10k Euro which was probably the cheapest offer I’ve ever seen on the internet. The problem was just, that the seller was sent back to Spain due to the recent events. I got more information about the vehicle from the seller at that time, and he offered me to send it via third party transport, where you pay a little in advance and pay full after receiving (which sounds extremely fishy, if you ask me), so I threw the whole thing off again because I got trouble with work, a short while after.