Nothing digital, just a couple of old fuzzy photos in a box somewhere. I wish now I had taken a bunch of photos but for whatever reason never got around to it.
The legend of the AE86 really comes from Initial D. Back in the day no one in the US cared about the Twin Can Corolla. I remember seeing them around and thinking they looked cool, especially the notch back style in red with the white lettering but they really didn't make enough power to get any street cred. Most of us thought of them as "girl's cars." If a guy was into Toyotas, he usually wanted a Supra, and Supras were expensive. You could buy a new car for the price of a three year old Supra.
The 200SX was also a "girl's car," but at least it had a turbo. The funny thing is, both of them, the AE86 and the 200SX, really came alive in the 90s when the tuner craze hit. They were basically really solid, really light little cars and once people learned how to get the power out of them, we all learned just how good they could be. But when they were new, guys didnt really care for them.
In 80s America, most normal young guys, ie not rich enough to afford a 300zx, a Supra or anything Euro, stuck with the basic Chevy, Ford or Dodge. A lot of us had older muscle cars, I had a Nova for a long time, but if we wanted something new it was usually a Camaro, a Mustang or one of the turbo Dodges. I was a Dodge guy and my first new car was an 88 Turbo Shadow. Anyone one of these three cars would whoop it up all over a 200SX or an AE86 and since most races were drags or on the highway the great handling of the little Japanese cars never even mattered, it was all about power.
I liked the Dodges, by the way, because they did more with less. Instead of a big old school V8 under the hood they had "high tech" four cylinders. Seems a little silly today, they really weren't that high tech at all, but man they sure were different. I have a pretty nice 83 Shelby Charger today and can tell you straight up that by modern standards it is no power machine, but it is still fun. That said, I wish sometimes I'd have found another 86 200SX turbo instead. I still miss that little car. It had so much heart.