These photos are from AE86 festival last year. This is easily my favourite event here in Ireland and for obvious reason. The amount of cars that come out of the woodwork for this event is staggering. Ireland is flush with some of the greatest AE86’s in the world and its something we should be proud of. You could very easily mistake these photos for Japan.
AE86 festival Ireland, arguably the largest collection of AE86’s outside of Japan. Last year we hit Mondello for one of the biggest gatherings of square old Toyotas RWD Toyotas.
I had been meaning to shoot these cars for quite some time now. During the week when I’m working up in JDMDistro, I’ve been trying to make my way out to certain cars or groups of mates with interesting sheds. These lads are all local to where I’m living midweek so we managed to lock in a date after work last year and head for the hills.
I love Ireland’s hidden car culture. I always found myself abroad telling people about all these cool Japanese cars that end up in the rural countryside of Ireland and its always met with confusion or disbelief. The car pictured above is an A60 series Carina which used to roll around the streets of Japan. This Carina more than likely spent its time revving and hanging out with people who would consider themselves to be part of Shakotan/Bosozoku culture. Now the car resides down a back road in rural Wexford.
We check out five of Irelands finest AE86’s and uncover some old photos of my Trueno.
The A31 Cefiro is somewhat lost in the noise when it comes to RWD Japanese four-door sedans. It was released at a time when Toyota had a fully stacked roster of cars, the Chaser, Cresta and Mark two, these were their flagship mid-sized Sedans. Nissan was feeling a little threatened by Toyota and decided to do something about it.
Shed distractions, rings, A31 Cefiro’s and old stories with very strong Irish accents.
The Irish motor festival was the brainchild of the guys at Drift games, they managed to secure Punchestown as a Drift venue once again and use of the massive exhibition hall which is right next to the drift track. It’s great to have another show on the calendar each year and we’ve always loved Punchestown.
With the freshly painted Calsonic March, a few AE86’s, a couple of Nissans and a pair of starlets, we hit the road for the Irish Motor festival. This episode was supposed to be uploaded last week but Japanese Jet lag won the battle.
The Trueno gets neglected as we give the k11 March its final form. Rob has a Mitsubishi BBQ and we go off-roading.
The Trueno enjoys a little progress until we are distracted and rip apart the daily driver K11 March to unleash its final form!
If you watch the vlogs, you are probably aware of how this shoot came about. Just after we finished up taking photographs of Johns Sileighty, he mentioned his friend Padraig who had a pretty tasty selection of cars not far from the photoshoot location.
We hit the road to Gatebil in Rudskogen Norway in a bad Transit loaded with Reubens C33 Laurel. Enjoy this half hour special documenting our trip to one of the craziest car festivals in the world.
This photo set is from the second trip up to MR “X”. I was going to pile these photos in with the third trip but each time we head up there I always find myself snapping everything in sight. There is something new with every journey, something to leave you either confused or in awe. The little 5 GT Turbo has seen many AE86’s being stripped at this point, I wonder if it ever thinks it’s going to be next.
I’ve been trying to document the whole process along the way Via photo, before the vlogs the site was all about still imagery and its a format many older car guys would get their kicks out of from the days of online forums.
