Nostalgia is a powerful emotion, one that has become highly monetized. People pay top dollar every year for theme parks, movies, and accessories that bring back that sweet hit of dopamine. The car community is no different. There are hundreds of shops dedicated to rebuilding old cars to new performance standards, letting people have their dream car with modern engineering.
Let us not forget when the companies we so love bring back legendary names on new cars. Ferrari revived the Daytona name, Honda brought back the Prelude, Ford the Bronco, and Toyota remade the Supra. But none of these names hits so close to the car enthusiast community as the Toyota Corolla AE86, the car that brought many into an obsession with cars. It was the hero of the show, Initial D, where a tofu delivery boy rises through the ranks of Japanese street racing in his dad's old AE86 Trueno. And now, to literally nobody's surprise, this nostalgia has been monetized with a body kit from Result Japan.
Built for the Toyota GR86 and the Subaru BRZ, this body kit brings pieces of that classic look to its modern-day successor. The major rework was focused on the front end. It was given a beefier bumper to try to recapture the AE86's boxier look. Then they moved the fog lights and indicators lower to keep the original look. But most importantly, they added God's gift to the 80s and 90s, pop-up headlights. Personally, we love seeing a modern car with this iconic piece of history. Yes, they take a lot of extra moving parts, and when they are up, they aren't particularly aerodynamic, but in terms of the cool factor, it's unbeatable.
But once you have finally peeled your eyes away from the pop-ups and walk around, the illusion of an AE86 begins to fade. As you start looking further down the car, you'll see the Around the back, you can still see the rear end of the GR86 sticking out. They did keep the beefier and longer bumper at the front, but everything above it is still very much modern. It doesn't have the long rear window or the rectangular headlights, reminding you that this is a body kit, not a full car. They did, however, add a huge duck tail, which looks well at home on this oddly proportioned GR86. But for the price of just over $6000, the dream of a modern AE86 is well within reach for many.
However, this is still an impressive body kit that makes the normally looking GR86, which is not a bad-looking car to begin with, look like a drifting dream car. It even comes with stickers to nail down that Initial D look. But what gives us hope is that this isn't some random build shop; it comes from a shop with experience. Result Japan is a bodykit company out of Japan that makes some interesting bodykits, even by our standards.
Of course, they have kits for a Civic Type R, GR Corolla, and other kits for the GR86. But then you'll see a body kit for the Honda S660, the Prius, and the Swift Sport. Not exactly the cars you look at and think to improve, but they managed to turn them into cars that look right at home at a time attack event. These kits range from nostalgia-inspired to almost complete overhauls to make the car as bold as possible. Some seem incredibly smooth, and others are all angles. It is hard to find a common thread to tie them all together besides bold. You'll either love or hate some of these kits, but they seem to be fine with that arrangement as they keep pumping these kits out. But this company deserves respect for making a great modern interpretation of the classic drifting legend.
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