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Djim · 02-13-2023, 05:18 PM

During my college years - similar to many others - I was obsessed with the Initial D franchise. As I graduated and grew up a bit more (note: began earning money), I began collecting a bunch of ID-related goods (this isn't even half of it; just the ones I had photos of on my phone and doesn't include the rest of the print mangas, stickers, model cars, etc.), and told myself if I ever got to a point where I could afford a car while still living in San Francisco (which, is very expensive, if you didn't already know), I'd get my hands on a Hot Lava 86 - not only because it's the shamelessly-plugged advertisement car at the end of the anime series suggested to be eventually owned by the main character, but also to rep The City which I called home for a decade (orange cars are very common in SF; I don't think I need to explain why).

A lot of time and money has gone into this car, and several of you may be scratching your heads wondering how/why, seeing as 95% of the work could've been taken care of by simply finding a Hot Lava FR-S. Due to my fanatic-levels of Initial D love, however, I couldn't accept the idea of driving around a Scion FR-S masquerading as a Toyota.

Now don't get me wrong: there is absolutely nothing wrong with Scions - I just wanted the car to be a "true" 86 so I could work toward the pre-facelift Japanese version portrayed in the anime. This obviously meant Subarus were entirely out of the question as well.

Aside from the silliness pertaining to what the car was officially titled, I had been a multi-year lurker of these forums, and understood that the 2017 refresh of these cars were a noteworthy update. I wanted the benefits of all the initial quirks of this car worked out on the Toyota-branded refresh, but 100% wanted the pre-facelift styling, so I went back-and-forth for months on what to do.

With Hot Lava only being offered for the first year of 86s (versus the stretch of the FR-S's life), they're extremely hard to find for-sale; so much so that I had initially given in to the idea of going with an FR-S. I looked at a couple, and was building a list of what I would need to "Toyota-ize" the car, with the main obstacle seeming to be the airbag assembly on the steering wheel. I was aware people were sticking Toyota/86 badges on top of the Scion one, but if I was going to do this, I was 100% deadset on importing an airbag to swap out the badge, as I wanted everything to be as OEM as possible.

In my searches for an 86 specifically, I managed to find a couple which I paid attention to and began correspondence with the dealerships for: one was located in Seattle, and another all the way in West Virginia. The paint code was crucial enough for me that I was looking up flights and such to potentially pick one of these up. It was such a logistical headache to achieve all of this though, that I even considered simply picking up a new-at-the-time 2020 GT in Halo, as I thought having a last-model year car with the nice black/red interior (that you Subaru owners enjoyed for many years) in addition to the cool TRD fixings would serve as a good base to just work toward a panda AE86-inspired build instead.

All throughout this process, I was updating my father of my shenanigans (he's responsible for my love for cars); he was completely befuddled as to why I would go to such lengths to get this specific color. He was super weary of the West Virginia one due to differing climates and the distance, but seemed to have accepted I was going to do what I wanted anyway, and at least the Seattle option wouldn't be too bad to drive back down if that one worked out.

A good six months into my search, I had a scheduled flight down to Orange County (where I'm originally from) to visit my immediate family on PTO and update my father on my 86 manhunt. I had set all the auto-notifications I could on sites like Autotrader, Cars, etc. to notify me of any orange 2017 86s in manual that became available across the country, and on the week of my flight down, it happened: a 6-speed Hot Lava 86 popped up for sale... in Orange County.

I canceled my flight back up to SFO, and basically committed to purchasing this car and driving it back up to The Bay assuming all checked out; my family visit basically turned into me and my dad going to this dealership repeatedly instead.

The car was, as noted, a 2017 Hot Lava 86 with a 6-speed manual - bone-stock. It was formerly a lease by someone in the area, and the timing was just perfect, as this was happening summer 2020 when their lease had expired.

I had a pre-purchase inspection done by Toyota, and drove off with the car the day it was conducted.

02-13-2023, 05:18 PM	#2
Djim Junior Member Join Date: Feb 2023 Drives: 2017 ZN6 H8R Location: 415/510 Posts: 7 Thanks: 0 Thanked 11 Times in 3 Posts Mentioned: 0 Post(s)	During my college years - similar to many others - I was obsessed with the Initial D franchise. As I graduated and grew up a bit more (note: began earning money), I began collecting a bunch of ID-related goods (this isn't even half of it; just the ones I had photos of on my phone and doesn't include the rest of the print mangas, stickers, model cars, etc.), and told myself if I ever got to a point where I could afford a car while still living in San Francisco (which, is very expensive, if you didn't already know), I'd get my hands on a Hot Lava 86 - not only because it's the shamelessly-plugged advertisement car at the end of the anime series suggested to be eventually owned by the main character, but also to rep The City which I called home for a decade (orange cars are very common in SF; I don't think I need to explain why). A lot of time and money has gone into this car, and several of you may be scratching your heads wondering how/why, seeing as 95% of the work could've been taken care of by simply finding a Hot Lava FR-S. Due to my fanatic-levels of Initial D love, however, I couldn't accept the idea of driving around a Scion FR-S masquerading as a Toyota. Now don't get me wrong: there is absolutely nothing wrong with Scions - I just wanted the car to be a "true" 86 so I could work toward the pre-facelift Japanese version portrayed in the anime. This obviously meant Subarus were entirely out of the question as well. Aside from the silliness pertaining to what the car was officially titled, I had been a multi-year lurker of these forums, and understood that the 2017 refresh of these cars were a noteworthy update. I wanted the benefits of all the initial quirks of this car worked out on the Toyota-branded refresh, but 100% wanted the pre-facelift styling, so I went back-and-forth for months on what to do. With Hot Lava only being offered for the first year of 86s (versus the stretch of the FR-S's life), they're extremely hard to find for-sale; so much so that I had initially given in to the idea of going with an FR-S. I looked at a couple, and was building a list of what I would need to "Toyota-ize" the car, with the main obstacle seeming to be the airbag assembly on the steering wheel. I was aware people were sticking Toyota/86 badges on top of the Scion one, but if I was going to do this, I was 100% deadset on importing an airbag to swap out the badge, as I wanted everything to be as OEM as possible. In my searches for an 86 specifically, I managed to find a couple which I paid attention to and began correspondence with the dealerships for: one was located in Seattle, and another all the way in West Virginia. The paint code was crucial enough for me that I was looking up flights and such to potentially pick one of these up. It was such a logistical headache to achieve all of this though, that I even considered simply picking up a new-at-the-time 2020 GT in Halo, as I thought having a last-model year car with the nice black/red interior (that you Subaru owners enjoyed for many years) in addition to the cool TRD fixings would serve as a good base to just work toward a panda AE86-inspired build instead. All throughout this process, I was updating my father of my shenanigans (he's responsible for my love for cars); he was completely befuddled as to why I would go to such lengths to get this specific color. He was super weary of the West Virginia one due to differing climates and the distance, but seemed to have accepted I was going to do what I wanted anyway, and at least the Seattle option wouldn't be too bad to drive back down if that one worked out. A good six months into my search, I had a scheduled flight down to Orange County (where I'm originally from) to visit my immediate family on PTO and update my father on my 86 manhunt. I had set all the auto-notifications I could on sites like Autotrader, Cars, etc. to notify me of any orange 2017 86s in manual that became available across the country, and on the week of my flight down, it happened: a 6-speed Hot Lava 86 popped up for sale... in Orange County. I canceled my flight back up to SFO, and basically committed to purchasing this car and driving it back up to The Bay assuming all checked out; my family visit basically turned into me and my dad going to this dealership repeatedly instead. The car was, as noted, a 2017 Hot Lava 86 with a 6-speed manual - bone-stock. It was formerly a lease by someone in the area, and the timing was just perfect, as this was happening summer 2020 when their lease had expired. I had a pre-purchase inspection done by Toyota, and drove off with the car the day it was conducted.