With the AE86 I learned a lot about mechanics, with the support of a phenomenal community that spared no effort in sharing and putting their knowledge into practice. I found myself doing a transformation from a 16v to a 20v without any prior experience. Despite all the difficulties, our community was always there – I miss them – whenever doubts came up, even if the information was already available for distracted people like me… there was always a friendly word, a link, someone on the other side willing to help.

As parts started to run out, the opportunity came to put my knowledge into practice and give back to the community all the support I had received. I decided to start producing stickers, some of the most challenging being exact reproductions of the originals. Again, I want to emphasize that it was this community that took the initiative of sending them to me so I could make them according to the original specifications, because there were no options available on the market.

Time goes by and I have thought many times about giving up. I lost contact with most of the people and sometimes I wonder if, like I once was, there is now someone providing the same thing and carrying it on with the same level of dedication and demand.

What scares me most today is how easy it is to copy and appropriate the work others have done. In my opinion, these are works without soul, without precision. They are poorly made copies from questionable sources, distorted images.

Therein lies the main problem: the original work ceases to exist and no one seems to care.