Take Your Pick: Lucas Perez’s JDM Duo

For many of us of the Millennial generation, our fascination with JDM automobile culture began with Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo series for the Sony Playstation. My first exposure to the game was the third installment, and I remember first seeing the red Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT Apex and having no doubt that it would be my starter car, owing much to the unapologetic 80′s styling cues . As we dived deeper in the game, our eyes were opened to dozens of cars whose manufacturers might have been familiar, but only as modes of reliable, safe, vanilla transportation.  Our parents, born into the era of the great American muscle car, remembered the Mustang and Camaro as the performance beasts that they were, but many had opted for more reliable Odysseys, Siennas, Accords and Camrys as their daily transportation and kid-haulers.  While the Japanese sports cars were far from unknown, their existence did not penetrate into the American consciousness the way that domestic muscle cars and Italian supercars had throughout the 80′s and 90′s.  And yet, our culture finds itself in the middle of an explosion of vintage JDM boom.

Lucas Perez originally bought his Toyota Super Red II Corolla ten years ago as a daily driver/drifter. The car wears an authentic Runfree Type 2 body kit, which perfectly frames the period correct Work Equip 01s.

His intentions for the car from the beginning were to build a car that could be taken to the track on drift days, but retain a street-able demeanor. As parts accumulated, however, the build moved closer and closer to the track side of things (a familiar story). The car was sent to Garage AutoHero for the engine build. Lucas admits, “You can call me a fanboy of sorts for sticking with the 4AG in a time where most people are sticking anything in the bays of cars these days. I don’t hate on other engines in the 86 – heck my next one will probably have an f20 in it, but there is something about the 4AG. Like a pack of angry Asian hornets coming after you.” With the engine’s ITB set-up, this motor undoubtedly has caused heads to turn before the car even makes an appearance.

With the AE86 under the knife, Lucas needed to find his sideways fix elsewhere. After moving through several other Corollas and 240s, he decided to source his R32 Skyline GTS-T, another hero of JDM culture. The car was originally painted Midnight Blue, but after collecting the GTR front end and picking up other body parts, he opted to respray the whole car to match his AE86 – the same Toyota Super Red II. He also chose to stay within the Work family for wheels, settling on a set of polished VS-KFs. If his AE86 is a poster-child for the 80′s look, his Skyline handles the 90′s aesthetic flawlessly.

The Skyline has essentially replaced the 86 as the daily drifter. “My favorite part of the R32 is just how calm it is to drive it. It’s relaxing, quiet with the Apexi exhaust, but the power is on tap easily. It is really a fun car to drive around town.”, he contends.

Lucas never indicated which car was his favorite of the two, and maybe that’s like asking a parent which child is the favorite, but his passion for the 86 was most obvious in the responses. He shared,

One thing . . . that got me excited about the 86 was when I got to meet the guys from RWB a few [months] ago. For those that may not know, those dudes started out driving Corollas in the moutains, so to meet them was rad. Specifically I had a great time talking with Nojima-san, the guy who paints the Japan RWB cars. He has the flat black AE86 Levin RWB hatch that is all over the internet right now.

We talked about setup and parts and I was surprised and happy to know that I chose a good direction in the way to build my car… He was so excited to meet another 86 guy in the states. I offered to let him drive my 86 and he drove the piss out of it and drifted it in the middle of the hiway without even a license! That was a unforgettable moment for me.

The retro JDM scene seems to only be growing as younger fans raised on 350Zs, Evolutions, and RSXs (all released over ten years ago) discover the roots of the cars they dreamed about as children. As cars become more and more complicated and disconnected, the inherent value of simplistic sporty cars like the AE86, Mazda Miata, and Honda CRX Si remind us of the joys that can be found in driving slow cars fast, while JDM legends such as the Skyline harken back to why we fell in love with this scene altogether. For most us, having both of those together in the same garage is a bit of a dream. For Lucas Perez, he just wakes up and takes his pick.

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