Juicebox : A year in Review
Time has become quiet precious over the last few years, coming home from nine to ten hours a day of commuting and work and then finding the enthusiasm for sitting down to edit photographs and articles for this site has certainly been a challenge, I have to sacrifice a few things, but I really believe its worthwhile.
I contemplated pulling the plug on Juicebox about two years ago and ended up writing a long winded article about how I was felt and the reaction from people completely over whelmed me.
It would have been very greedy of me to just close up shop and move on.
Being across the other side of the planet chatting with like minded people having the same language of nonsense made me really appreciate how valuable this shit is to me.
The main reason why I started this entire project remains the same, to showcase to the world what this little green isle has to offer when it comes to the Irish car scene.
Since coming back onto Irish soil in March this year, the scene once again overwhelmed me. The spark instantly re-ignited and I had no issue finding a drive to get stuck back in to shooting features and throwing fresh words up on this site.
Leaving right when things were a little bleak it was fantastic to see such a resurgence of interest, fresh metal from Japan and fresh creations from random sheds, random towns and best of all new people.
There are so many things I have always wanted to do with this site, so many things that I wanted to achieve and I feel like we are only getting started once again.
The site has always been a platform for people who were a little suffocated, quality over quantity that’s well hidden around the country.
Its always a pleasure to spend hours editing photos of cars I have felt deserved a spot light.
Always a treat to try and put together a simple ramble to accompany someone’s pride and joy.
Living across the other side of the globe for a few years, watching with a close eye what was going on, paying attention to the spike it brought me great joy seeing things pick up.
This year alone at Japfest the standard of quality reinforced the fact that we have such a resilient country of people who just don’t give up.
Walking the show truly stuck a chord with me. The Irish people are relentless, as prices hike for basically everything car related.
Insurance forces the younger generation out of the Japanese cars we were lucky to easily enjoy, but again it just doesn’t stop them.
I still see new faces, new people and new cars, always getting comments from people world wide messaging us about how amazing the car scene looks over here and how jealous they are.
There were quite a lot of events we didn’t get a chance to go to this year, and again this is because Juicebox has quite literally been a project I do around a full time life with work and whatever else.
Its not without the help of a few close friends who throw their help and words when they can around their full time lives.
Sometimes people can forget that this stuff takes quite a bit of effort, the up keeping of a social media presence, the website, the photos, the articles…
But again its absolutely worth every bit of this effort. An undeniable passion for this stuff makes it all worth while.
Much like the guys that go out there for drift events, building drift cars, pouring their heart and soul into it along with Dave Egan and the whole Irish drifting crew and the beast the have created.
IDC in itself is something we don’t even need to pay attention to anymore on our site as the guys are doing a crazy good job getting it out to the rest of the world, showcasing the talent we have on offer, and that’s just another chunk of our community.
Our attention is focuses more so on the average man, Juicebox has always been for that guy in the shed, the guy that’s slaving away in some weird green corrugated soggy damp shed who churns out a car that blows people away.
Time and time again the fact our little rock in the Atlantic can produce cars on a global scale floors me, its one of the main reasons why I want to keep doing this.
The people we meet, the stories we here, its all part of it…
Regardless of how the platforms have changed, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, whatever. I was almost worried that the blog wouldn’t be relevant anymore as things moved on.
Blogs themselves have been slowly dying off as we get more and more addicted to high-speed information, click, like move on etc.
I do feel Juicebox still has a place; it’s a breath of fresh air, a little slow down to see a few nice pictures and a bit of text to accompany it.
Seeing the BBQ come together with the help of friends, then seeing the reactions to it, was more than I could have ever imagined.
It was fantastic to see that many great cars all in the one place then finding out it made the top five meets of 2016 in Speedhunters is a very humbling thing.
To know that our little Country can be up there in terms of quality with Japan and the USA, we don’t pat ourselves on the back enough.
Features have come once a week, id love to to do much more but for now as long as there is something once a week I’m happy.
Quality over quantity always. Next year, Ill try to ramp it up a little more, there is so much more we can do with Juicebox and I’m nowhere near finished yet.
Coming home from Canada has reinforced my passion for our scene, we truly give ourselves the hardest of times.
Many of our best builds would be internet famous anywhere else but most of the time the owner of such a car doesn’t even bother maintaining a heavy social media presence.
The cars literally have to be dug out and exposed and that’s something I love about this place
Next year the plan will be to travel more, showcase different peoples projects and most of all, showcase the finest this little emerald isle has to offer with a few random tales from abroad.
I’ve always tried to uphold a level of quality, which hopefully the site will always, remembered for.
For the almost unspoken guy, there is nothing more satisfying for me than seeing an their reaction when the car takes centre stage on the website in a feature, the positive feedback, the sea of comments. It makes this project all worthwhile…
Thanks to everyone who has supported the site over the years, I am going to keep doing this until its not possible, but as long as there is a car to feature or something to talk about in Ireland… Juicebox will be here; we will be here, thanks to all the lads who have helped out with the site over the years.
Cheers to Flip, Mark and Reuben for your endless contributions to both the site and the social media platforms over the last few years, cheers to everyone else who has contributed or helped out, you know who you are.
To everyone else, keep building cool cars; keep doing good shit, enough of the corny stuff enjoy the night.
Thanks for your support.
Happy New Year
To next year!
– Neil