I’m sure most of you reading this would have heard of Initial D when you were younger. I didn’t even know what Initial D was, till a fellow class mate at university mentioned it. Countless hours between classes were spent playing the arcade game and watching the series.

Seven years later, Sabih (the guy who mentioned Initial D to me) has his own Hachiroku that even Takumi would have loved to deliver Tofu in.

The car has been a real labour of love. It’s a true embodiment of the kiwi car culture of building a car to how you want it and making it unique. The car has been built with two things in mind, reliability and drifting!

Just over a year ago Sabih came across this AE85 whilst randomly browsing Trademe. To be honest when he first showed me, i didn’t see anything great about it, but he obviously saw something that I didn’t, which led to him building what you see today.

The car started off with a 3AU single cam engine, ugly 15×6 wheels, and a hideous 4wd-spec ride height. The whole car has pretty much been modified in some way or another, suspension, wheels, bodywork, engine and interior.

The kit comes courtesy of a Kouki front bumper and Zenki front lip, Vertex rear bumper and Origin side skirts, and a TRD wing to complete the drift look.

Believe it or not, but the wheels came off a Mustang. They’re a set of custom made 15×9” on the rear, and 15×8” on the front, that perfectly fill up the Crystal Body Yokohama (CBY) flares. The stance is held up with a custom Nissan hub/caliper braking set up in the rear, RX7 4 pot brakes in the front and a set of BC Coilovers. A Hilux LSD rear end has been fitted for slide duties and helps further widen the rear track.

The interior wasn’t left untouched, with the addition of a 4 point half cage and a pair of Bride seats.

So what’s powering this 900kg Hachiroku? Many options were considered including a built 4AGE set up and even the idea of an SR20DET was thrown into mix. However, in keeping with true Hachiroku spirit, Sabih knew that a high-revving naturally aspirated Toyota engine was the only option. The trouble is, the revered 4AGE requires a costly build and compromised reliability for the sort of power he was after. The solution? The Toyota 3SGE BEAMS engine and accompanying 6 speed gearbox. Yep, that’s right – that same engine that you would find in a RS200 Altezza. The 210 hp BEAMS 3SGE was designed as a performance engine for the 1360kg RS200 variant of the Toyota Altezza. This makes it a perfect power plant for the nimble 900kg AE chassis.

He’s still got a few more things to add to the list engine wise, so stay tuned for some engine bay shots in the near future!

For larger copies of the images, click here.

H2.