Unboxed Photos: Flos AE86 Specialist shop
We are quite fond of any excuse to go on a road trip. I was very keen to make my way up to Flo’s garage just outside of Galway city. I needed some brand new essential bits for the 86 and his garage is the best place to find them. For anyone that missed the last vlog, Flos has a very rare setup on the west coast of Ireland. He managed to create a business out of his passion for old school Toyotas, mainly the KP and AE86 chassis.
Its a true testament to Irelands love for these cars, I can’t imagine there are many other places outside of Japan where someone can make a living solely off of the AE86. Flos shed is an absolutely essential part of the Irish AE86 scene. If you are looking for small parts like specific nuts and bolts, awkward little bits and bobs or very unusual hard to find stuff, he might just have what you are looking for.
Its sort of like our shed, but he makes money from his collection of parts and we spend and hoard ours. As you walk through the door you are greeted by a sea of Toyotas, more specifically AE86 chassis and AE parts. There’s a Levin chopped in half on the wall which instantly grabs your attention.
Then you notice a selection of overhanging shells in various states combined with all sorts of suspension and wheels and pretty much everything you would need to put an AE86 back together.
This starlet really caught my eye and I instantly started asking questions. It was this Left-hand drive KP Wagon. Just a few months before, Mr X had brought in a mustard yellow example from Japan and that was my first ever encounter with this peculiar model of an already amazing little chassis. More on this red example further down the article.
The shelves are full of gold. A set of Advan A3A peek out from the top shelf.
This shell looked to be close to the original UK burgundy colour. It was a little worse off than mine, mainly because the surface rust was coming out through the blasted and etched primed areas. I would have been terrified of a shell that looked like this a few years ago but after seeing the stuff we’ve had to do to mine, this actually looks pretty savable.
There are shelves of dead or half-finished engines for various customers. There probably won’t be an AE111 left in Ireland in a few years, the engines are too damn desirable!
Just as we were scoping out the bottom floor, Flo’s friend arrived in this impeccable FD RX7 and we were horribly distracted.
The FD is arguably one of the prettiest body stylings to ever come out of Japan, it usually attracts a crowd no matter where it goes and we couldn’t help but take a closer look.
This example has some very tasteful mods and looked more or less standard on the outside. Ireland is somewhat afraid of rotary engines so its always nice to see one in this condition.
After the RX distraction, we headed back inside. Flo invited us upstairs to see his ever-growing collection of stock.
Right away we were drawn to these brand new crankshafts. An almost impossible thing to find these days he had four casually sitting on the shelf. Bryan laughed as he also has one of these but he’s more on the hoarding side of things and hadn’t even taken his out of the box for a look.
Asides from genuine Toyota bits, Flo has been developing all of his own custom parts in conjunction with companies like Group four and similar (who are in the same industrial estate)
This was the shelf of gold, he has a bigger storeroom in the back but you could pretty much find everything you are looking for right here, Engine bearings, wheel bearings, gaskets, hubs, coilovers the list goes on and on.
And what about those smaller parts?
Well, he has a wall full of little drawers filled with pretty much every single small part you could think of!
Gotta love some shiny grease caps! Had to grab a few of these as its always something Bryan points out when someone restores their car and overlooks…
The small parts are endless. The beauty is all of this stuff is listed on his website www.flos.ie, I highly recommend anyone who is looking for AE86 parts to give his site browse.
From above the 2 door cut shell looked mental!
Just after I grabbed that shot of the wall hanging Levin I looked down and spotted these brand new Kouki Levin Grills. Their cant be too much of this new stock out there, especially after 30 plus years of being in some storehouse. These might have been made over ten years ago due to the Lexus boxes, its hard to know but I’m sure this still is all since out of print.
A quick close up of what’s on the shelves. Its safe to say you are in good hands.
The upstairs is small but don’t be fooled. There really is a lot of hard to find awkward stuff on the shelves, conveniently if you are in Ireland, most of this stuff is next day delivery. There have been at least ten more times since shooting these photos where we had to order something strange. I would have to either go to Toyota and hope they would have it in stock or find it in somewhere in Japan. This makes a place like Flos a dream when restoring the Trueno.
Aside from new parts, a lot of used stuff passes through the shop and either gets reconditioned or sold on again. I’d be amazed if you walked out of here without buying something. Between MR X and Flos, Ireland has to be the best place outside of Japan to build one of these cars.
Downstairs Flo fired up this LHD KP wagon. The little 2k engine chirped to life as he brought it outside for a closer look.
The car was only recently imported from Belgium and was in a remarkable condition for its age. I really wish more of these made it over to this side of the world as they are quite an attractive little machine.
Hard to beat that funky Tan interior.
We did a few laps of the estate, it was hard to wipe the smile off of myself and Reuben’s face. These little honest eighties boxes are too much fun to drive. With very simple modifications you would have a fantastic little practical weekend wagon.
The car came with its own funky logbook that had a heap of info on the specs and basics of tuning and maintenance. A different approach to the owner’s logbook than the Irish two-page booklet.
Flo also had this green machine for sale, a very rough and ready 3 door Levin that would be an absolute blast to own and drive on the track. It had no engine at the time but was packed with every other part you would need to get this going.
The car had already been used competitively for drifting with the gigantic old Prodrift logos on the doors and windscreen.
Everywhere we looked there were 16valves and 20valve engines. Many are too far gone while others were waiting to be rebuilt. I have a strong feeling most of these engines will have an incredibly hard life especially if they are for Irish customers. The poor 4A-GE gets a tough life but its a testament to Toyota. The 4A-GE has to be one of the most resilient engines to ever come out of Japan.
Not pictured here is the smaller brake booster which you might have seen in the vlog. This enables you to run bigger trumpets without having to cut them up. Flo was using this shell to mock up these and other various parts.
His unit is just the right size, it’s very well laid out and it reminded me a lot of Tec arts or similar in Japan. A small but very functional garage.
Cutting shells up will become a lot more of a common sight in the coming years, especially as more and more people try to restore these cars and parts are getting scarce.
Out in the back room, Flo wanted to show us his pride and Joy, a car we had seen a few times at Mondello but never had a chance to view up close. This is his KP60 5 door starlet powered by a 20valve 4age engine. What a great looking machine. The chrome windows are a nice touch.
This is his newly designed distributor relocation kit which is probably on sale at the time of writing this article. He tested it out in the KP before releasing it to the public.
More engines, more diffs. Flo does a lot of rebuilds and in housework for customers all around Ireland, they can drop their 86 down for maintenance work or upgrades.
He is always trying to come up with new ideas for the 86 community and gave us a look at this HKS large capacity SR sump adapted mated to the bottom of a standard 4A-GE model.
These cars sure do love to rust…
We grabbed our few bits that were much needed and Flo was nice enough to give me one of these custom reinforcement kits to weld into my shell. This was something I was going to do down the line to the 86. It is something we had seen many years ago in on the Drift king Trueno restoration on the Best Motoring 86 series.
The kit was well made and sported some delicious aircraft punches. Barry was pretty excited to weld this stuff in when we got back which you will see in an upcoming episode.
I can’t thank Flo enough for helping out on this build, we will 100% have to make our way up for a second look at his place over the coming year. If you need any bits for your AE86 or KP starlet, I highly recommend checking out his website www.flos.ie or dropping him a message.
We are very fortunate to have guys like Flo here on this tiny green Isle, as I’ve said already it goes to show just how much the Irish love the AE86 chassis.