I spotted this funky thing around town about a year ago. It wasn’t until we were out having a few beers one night did I realise an old friend of mine had actually bought this as a family machine. Richie was one of the OG heads in the Waterford car scene back in the day and always had something cool, from built Vaxhaul Novas to Silvia’s and Legacy’s, he’s had his fair share of cool cars.
We look at a forgotten AE92 race car on the roof in Flips shed and get some more work done on the AE86.
I figured this would be a good place to post progress with the little daily nugget. So far as in how far the car has come on the vlogs, I’m trying to keep both the vlogs and blog posts somewhat in date. Most people have already seen the car in it final silly form but ill save that for its own separate post.
I remember the first time I saw this beauty, it rolled into our first proper BBQ back in 2016 and I literally could not take my eyes off of the car, It had just been freshly imported from Japan and it literally stopped the show.
We head to the hills and check out a few hidden gems, a stunning Sileighty, and an angry JZX100 Cresta.
I try to make it to this meet every year as it brings the most interesting cars out of the woodwork. This has been an annual event at Ford Bolands in New Ross Co Wexford and it always reminds me of the vibrant car scene which we aren’t exposed to as much due to most of our friends being in such a “JDM” specific bubble. Before the love for Japanese cars, I loved Fords and whatever was local around us so I’m always happy to see what’s on display at non-Japanese car events.
The AE86 shell progress moves forward and the shed experiences an unusual level of efficiency, we fix some lights have a BBQ and Bryan pulls his forgotten Trueno out for a wash.
In this episode, I take you to work at JDMDistro where my wheels for the AE86 arrive from Japan.
We head back to MR “X” to shop for AE86 parts. We also clean some 4A-GE valves and Flip gives us an update on his FC RX7
Just by pure chance after the shoot with the AE111 Levin, a fog rolled in that evening and Barry had just put the finishing touches on his freshly painted R32 Skyline. We were cooking on the BBQ and I felt it would be rude not to grab some shots of this beauty while we had such an epic background.
There was a time in Ireland where the AE111 Levin was one of the most desirable machines to own amongst the younger car enthusiast. To be somewhat precise, that was about fifteen years ago, a time when fresh new imports flooded the country, people had lots of disposable income and prices were sky high, especially for the Levin, about eight to ten grand to be exact.
We shoot a stunning Blacktop 4A-GE AE111 Levin, a somewhat forgotten chassis and the guys go drifting their Datsuns at Mondello Park.
Barry welds the chassis leg we pulled from the bush into the AE86 and we ruin the Nissan March K11 daily driver.
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.
We go shopping for new parts at Irelands only AE86 specialist shop. Flo Muller has created a very unique AE86 restoration/ spare parts shop in Galway so we head west to take a look at his setup.