The AE86 is one of my favourite cars, yet I have rarely photographed them – firstly because they are becoming increasingly rare in Hong Kong, and mostly because I never felt ready in terms of skill. Through Zan, a local Trueno owner who recently got his car back on the road, I heard about the AE86 Club Hong Kong’s annual drive (held on the closest Sunday to 86 Day) and decided to check it out.
It’s safe to say it did not disappoint.
Wilfred picked me up first. His AE86 Levin does not currently have a vehicle licence, so he brought an AE92 out for camera-car duties instead. Arriving at the meetup spot around 9:00am, I met more local AE86 owners.
Most of them were driving Trueno hatchbacks in the iconic white-over-black ‘panda’ paint scheme made famous by Takumi Fujiwara’s tofu-delivering exploits in Initial D, but there were a couple of extra-special AE86s in the group too. One was a rare Black Edition Trueno, of which only 400 examples were ever made, and the other was the club chairman’s Trueno – a replica of Keiichi Tsuchiya’s TEC-ART’S car.
Driving a classic car in the middle of a Hong Kong summer is almost impossible. At this time of year, you either get torrential rain or a cloudless, steaming-hot day – as we had on this 37°C (98.6°F) scorcher. My camera could barely function due to the high heat and humidity, yet here were 17 40-year-old Corollas forming a convoy – many without properly working AC.
We started at a metered parking lot in Ting Kau, driving through a short stretch of coastal roads before taking a ramp onto the highway. A couple of merges later, we found ourselves cruising across the Ting Kau and Tsing Ma bridges, eventually arriving at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel for breakfast.
During the meal, I asked Zan how long this annual drive has been going on for. “Good question… they [the AE86 Club Hong Kong] have been doing it since the year I bought my 86, so it’s been more than 10 years, I guess.”
According to Zan, a few members have already left Hong Kong, living a second life elsewhere alongside their beloved AE86s. He continued, “You’re actually pretty lucky today. The last time we had this many 86s was a while ago… maybe 2023? Around 13 cars, perhaps, still nowhere near what we had today.”
While munching down more dim sum and diced fruit, a couple more members arrived. It turned out that some of the cars from the convoy had given up during the drive, prompting other members who weren’t driving AE86s to give them a lift. Just as I mentioned earlier, the weather was brutal. If these people are not fuelled by love and passion, I don’t know who is.
