It’s A Family Affair: Toyota GR86 Drifts Alongside GT86 And AE86

The Toyota GR86 has some big shoes to fill given it comes from the same front-engined rear-wheel-drive bloodline as its GT86 and AE86 forebears, but this epic video released by Toyota Gazoo Racing shows it’s more than up to the task when it comes to drifting.

The 30-second promo for the latest GR86 sees the trio of Toyota icons slide in tandem around a tight track together, celebrating their front-engined, rear-wheel drive lineage. It’s short, snappy and very cool, but more impressive than the ad itself is the work that went in to capture it all perfectly.

The ad is full of impressive and seemingly-impossible shots that dive into, out and around the cars as they spin their tyres round the tight bends – if you’ve watched it, you might be left wondering how they did it.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the shots were the work of special effects or CGI, but they are in fact the result of a highly-skilled drone pilot swooping in and out of the cars moving at high speed.

Admittedly, the stunt had to be performed numerous times with multiple takes as the drone crashed into the cars on a few occasions (we can only hope the pristine AE86 finished in the same colours as The White Ghost of Akina from Initial D was unscathed after being buzzed by the fast-moving racing drone.)

Toyota also released a behind the scenes video showing how they made the ad, which makes for captivating viewing. You might need to brush up on your Japanese, but the epic shots of the drone capturing the drift action are pretty self-explanatory. Be warned, however, that the cringe-worthy gaffs when the drone makes contact with the Hachi-Roku are harder to watch…