Back at Japfest last year I had the chance to shoot probably the only Heavily Modified GT86 that will ever be on Irish soild (hopefully not)… Somehow I managed to loose these shots but magically uncovered them in the last few days and decided to throw them up on the site… It wasnt exactly an Irish car, but we couldnt help but take pictures! We intend to get more well build drift and track cars up on the site… something that will happen this year for sure…
This car is awesome…. The Toyota popped up once or twice over the years since it was imported in various magazines and forums and I had always wanted to see it in the flesh. The car just looks gangster like it’s up to no good… but for all the right reasons. I’ve always been a huge fan of the Jzx90 Cresta… it is considered the more gangster of the x90 collection and when Ireland had its import boom not too many of these were snatched from the auctions. Any that actually made it to Ireland were either stock or had light modifications. This one is loaded with goodies, and for a good reason, a nice properly used pimp machine.
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For Ireland, a car like this is somewhat ahead of its time… It’s almost a vision of what someone will do in twenty years from now, when there won’t be a whole amount of these Nissans on the road… Everything about this car is not the ordinary guise for an s14 Silvia… The car is not covered in cable ties, doesn’t have ropey panels and isn’t what you would call a drift slag, which by all means is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but what is awesome about this car is how it was planned out and built, everything is super subtle and looks almost factory.
The one thing that always gets me excited about running this website is the amount of surprise cars which pop up that I just have to see in person. Ireland is action packed full of surprise builds. Owners who really build cars for themselves are what get me excited the most. Similar to the KE70 we featured a few months back, this RX7 appeared on the internet out of nowhere and when it appeared in my news feed I had to find out its story. Throughout the boom Ireland purchased its fair share of these beauties but the common feeling amongst people towards these cars is fear, due to the Rotary engine set-ups which was a relatively new thing to Ireland… Most car enthusiasts would have a fear of these cars because of the high maintenance which would steer people most of them away from ever really touching such an incredible looking chassis.
Ah yes, the Rps13….. a chassis know to pretty much any person who has an interest in Japanese cars, otherwise referred to as the 180sx or the 200sx/240 depending on where you are reading this from. This chassis was made for ten years and has dominated the drift scene for pretty much the same amount of time. I have no doubts that the RPs13 will have as much of a cult following for the next thirty years as the AE86 following has shaped into at the minute, both cars are perfect mascots for the activity we love so much…. The s13 chassis is easily one of the best FR platforms to ever come out of Japan.
Some of the stuff over the last two decades to come out of Japan has left far more of an impact than others. For instance the s13 itself has had such a powerful following pretty much anywhere around the globe that people could get their hands on one. I’ve always been a massive fan of the late 90’s early 00’s drift style, personally I felt that drift car style peaked around this era.. big wheels, over fenders and the perfect stance, if you don’t believe me Google the BN s13 or the 326 power FC that Haraguchi drove or even the works 9 auto salon 13, or even take a look at any of the old D1 option videos on you tube from the turn of the millennium The BN Defend kit was one of those ideas that to quite a few, didn’t sound good on paper, but somehow it ended up being easily one of the best wide body kits for any of the Drift super star cars we know today.
It’s always impressive to see Volkswagens in the south of Ireland which push the scene forward, one of the biggest things we tried to do since the site was created was to showcase cars which hopefully are a sort of a milestone or marker for others to follow or be influenced by. Tommy’s wagon is certainly one of these cars, the first wagon he built which we featured a few months back was his first test, having somewhat of a soft spot for the wagon he managed to make the perfect blend of clean and simple.
It’s obvious to many just how strong the AE86 following is here in Ireland, there was such a ridiculous amount of these cars brought into our little country over the last ten years. Nicky’s 86 was one of these cars; it came in as a slag from Japan, with a collection of desirable goodies. Somehow he managed to build on what many would have called an already awesome car. I have to admit, like many who have seen this car in the flesh, it just makes you smile, it could easily be one of the best looking Trueno’s this little green isle has ever seen.
There is a new breed of car enthusiasts, some of you may be reading this and laughing while others might agree, as Ireland experiences some sort of melt down, which we won’t go on about, a new collection of enthusiasts who are armed with the websites, blogs, and forums are starting to come up through the ranks pretty quickly. The Polo has always been a car which has mostly taken a back seat to the rest of the Volkswagen family, most of the time when these were “modified”… well you can probably picture what it would have looked like…..
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The owner of this car over thinks, but this is possibly one of his best qualities, the attention to detail in this car is stunning, and only get better. It takes Barry a long time to think about where a sticker should be placed, what colour, if it will stick out too much, clash with other colours on the car, look right and be in the right place. I love this about Barry and his perception of how a car should look. The amount of thought that goes into each part of the car would scare most people but it’s what has helped him to slowly craft one of the best EK9’s in Ireland.
This car was something of a rumour, not a whole lot spoken about it amongst the forums or between people, the owner Jason wanted to unveil the car at the right time when he felt it was ready. The car is just another one of these reasons why Ireland can be awesome, sure it rains quite a lot and everyone is miserable, but aside from all this Jason went and built one of the coolest two door KE70’s I’ve ever come across on both the internet and in the real world. I took a trip with a friend to see this car, we drove for miles along tiny little back roads and I wasn’t really expecting anything, which was a good thing. In Ireland you never really know what to expect when someone tells you about a car, as we rolled up to Jason’s house which is pretty much on the side of a mountain, my jaw dropped, I was truly speechless, I hope you can share the same feeling by checking out this feature on one of the coolest well executed Corolla builds this country has ever seen.
The phrase “from rags to riches” was the last thing I wanted to call this feature, but the more Peter told me the story I couldn’t believe how the car had turned out. Eventually I realised after trying to come up with something a little bit more imaginative, this car truly earned the title. The common build we see in the United States of a bog standard civic being converted into a flawless masterpiece in both the exterior and interior is really something that has only started to come around over here in Ireland over the last few years.
We found a nice piece of abandoned road, a perfect location that Takumi himself would be happy with, this car will be completely different soon so we decided it was right to feature the Trueno as it looks now, sporting an Iconic attire. The car is almost looked like a perfect replica of Takumi’s car from the infamous Initial D, a manga cartoon which Takumi Fujiwara, an eighteen year old who helps his father run a tofu shop by making deliveries every morning, the deliveries are made in the AE86 and have spawned an array of stages where illegal street racers challenge Takumi in his humble Trueno. Initial D is one of the reasons why the AE86 has become so popular over the last ten years across the world. The Panda colour scheme of a Zenki Trueno sporting some Watanabe wheels instantly reminds people of Initial D.
I’m certain quite a lot of people know this car by now, maybe in its former blue attire, or maybe from a recent video which we put together for Juicebox called “The Night Life”, either way this is the first time we have done a re feature of a car. We decided that the car deserved a second chance to be talked about on the website, and at this time probably wont understand.
Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming when you think back at all the cars that were bought through auction from one small enough country and sent to another little country. The fact that Japan still has enough of its own cars to enjoy and smash makes you wonder just how many cars they really have. From roughly around the start of the millennium right up until about two years ago the Japanese import business was booming in Ireland. So many snippets of Japanese culture flooded the docks of Dublin. Pieces of someone else life their history, something they had worked hard on and shared memories in right across the other side of the world. So much of what came into Ireland was shrouded with mystery, where I would often finding myself sitting with friends and someone will say ” you would really wonder what happened in this car back in Japan, where it went, what it done” its a piece of conversation that comes up at least once a month.
