This has been a fast year. It seems not so long ago when we covered the Annual Toyota meet in Cork last year. I really enjoyed this meet because you never know what comes out of the wood work. Even the machine we came down in is worthy of a picture, (TRD Camry which you see here). You can also see Flip using his best shammy cloth to clean the flies.
What started out as a bit of a Joke on the Internet the other day ended up luring us out on a freezing Friday night standing around in the dark with friends. We were almost excited at the fact this “Cruise” was going down.
“Cruises” have been a part of car culture for as long as I can remember, in all shapes and sizes they have always happened. Its a different kind of nightlife.
A lot of people made it down regardless of situations that sprang up which either on the day or close to it. Somehow the weather was on our sides which enticed people to make the journey down. I genuinely would not have held the event if there was a monsoon of Irish rain.
Where to begin really? This whole thing started as an idea few weeks back, well a concrete idea that is. This plan literally fell into place in less than ten days.
What I enjoy most about this event is how varied the selection is, not narrowed down to only drift enthusiasts or classic car its a perfect cocktail of car people right across the board and anything, literally anything can make an appearance. Check this KP pickup for example, something I have never seen before. A crazy idea!
Sometimes we tend to forget just how rich this country is with car culture. I mostly spend my time these days around Japanese metal, but that wasn’t always the case. Before the Internet and instant access to basically whatever we want, the cars you were into were the cars that you would see or hear of from friends or in magazines or on the street in front of you.
It came as quite a surprise to see the amount of cars rolling in all the way till the end, with cars coming from all parts of the country and the general public coming in for a look and not seeing everyone going mental, it must have been somewhat unusual. The cops even rolled in and couldn’t understand why it was day time and over 300 cars were parked up.
I’m pretty excited that some how I can finally write about a public event we put together. Juicebox has been going for about four years now and well it has been an absolute pleasure being able to capture the car scene and chuck it up here on the website. We had toyed with the idea of putting together something like this for a long time, possibly holding a show, or doing another BBQ, the main fear was that no one would turn up, or if something did it would be a disaster.
Another year another Japfest, the time when anything can come out of the woodwork to say hello.
So with an unpredictable Irish summer that we have already been pissed off with, we were very sceptical if it was a good choice to make it out to the V.A.G. meet in Fermoy Co Cork, I’m glad we made a positive choice… If you don’t know this already, or aren’t from this country, in Ireland, the scene is heavily split into a few groups, but it was nice to see the Volkswagen/Audi scene going showcasing some of the best examples this country had to offer all packed inside Cork Marts Car Park, something we just had to cover….
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We decided to take a trip down to the annual ford mmet in Bolands New Ross, being from Ireland the if you dont know already, the ford scene has always been around and pretty much always huge due to the massive rally following that exists. Sometimes we take some of these very impressive cars for granted so with that in mind we headed down to check it out, and obviously the line up didnt dissapoint, like this mint 96 Escort RS Cosworth.
So last sunday brought another Honda meet up in Portlaoise in the carpark at Midway court, the good thing about Midway court is it has a subway and is very central for everyone from all different counties to make the trip. I know your wondering about the picture above also, we managed to get stuck in a High nellie world record on the way up, which was extremely amusing to say the least.I really had no idea there was that many High nellie’s left not to mention useable! I’m sure they bet the record as there really wouldnt be any comparison!
The most interesting thing about the Irish car scene is the little niches that lurk in every corner of the country, friends and family which are all tied together by a model of a car or a manufacturer. Many people religiously stick to a company with the same type of passion a person would have for a hurling or football team. One of those people is a friend called Rob, he builds but mostly breaks Mitsubishi’s. He has always been telling me that there isn’t enough Mitsubishi’s on Juicebox.
