You know that a car is well loved among car enthusiasts when people are coming up with modern takes on the said car. Case in point: Rain Prisk latest set of renderings that look to bring a contemporary vibe to the Toyota AE86.

Come 1983, you could get - in Japan, that is - a rear-wheel-drive Mk V Toyota Corolla fitted with a 1.6-liter engine with either fixed headlights or retractable ones. That Corolla was the AE86 or Hachi-Roku. The AE86 Levin was the version with normal headlights, while the Trueno offered pop-ups.

You could also have your AE86 with either a hatchback or a coupe derrière. But regardless of what shape or headlights you fancied, you knew that getting your hands on a Toyota AE86 would mean fun delivered via low weight, RWD, and a delightful twin-overhead cam inline-four and 128 horsepower. It wasn't much, but enough to enjoy a proper mountain road. Drifting, as Top Gear points out, takes skill, but hey, nothing that's worth having comes easy, right?

Toyota AE86 specifications

We don't know when or if will Toyota revive the AE86 nameplate. I mean, if the Japanese carmaker ever thought of such a move, it should have been in today's context, where brands are bringing back old nameplates like their future depended on them.

So, for now, we're left with Rain Prisk's take on a modern-day AE86, based on the Toyota GT86. The designer says he kept the previous 86's dimensions but stretched the width a bit and added a cool set of wheels as well as the vintage black/white livery. Plus, we could definitely see a 2.0-liter four-pot in there - mated to a six-speed manual, sounding like a hornets' nest someone hit hard with a stick.