Kevin’s Dads Be-1 was the real star of the last video. Here are a few photos from that visit to his collection.
Kevin’s Dads Be-1 was the real star of the last video. Here are a few photos from that visit to his collection.
Here are some photos from the time we drove down to Group D. Group D is the brainchild of Darren McNamara, a well-known legend in the Drift scene. Darren has been tinkering with Corollas for a long time, and he developed a rear coil-over suspension for the AE86 with a company from the UK called AVO. You have probably seen the vlog episode from this day, with the old legend and his lovely little starlet. I had a mega backlog of photos from older episodes that I will throw up on the site every Friday. Enjoy the images of the day below.
We are very fortunate to have people like MR X in the car community. For years, he has been supplying the AE86 community with much sought after parts. He has been breaking Corollas for parts for well over ten years, and it is a necessary evil, sometimes it’s sad to see cool cars he has killed, but most of the time, every last piece of that car ends helping another.
If my younger self could see me now! That young freckly fucker obsessing over Gran Turismo 2, sitting in his room listening to that smooth jazz menu music, looking at cars he had never heard of in the used car garage. Here I am, many years later, still chasing the dream, still into the same stuff I was back then! I think my younger self would be buzzing to see the space I have in the shed with sound friends, a few rusty Japanese shit heaps, a few bikes, skateboards and silly bits pushing on into my 30s. It’s not much, but I try not to take it for granted, best to enjoy the ride. This night made me incredibly happy.
I found a photo set from when we brought the March and the Civic to the track day. I’m pretty sure this is from March 2019. This day out was such an enjoyable day with the lads. We had a blast in the Civic thanks to Trackdays.ie, and took the March out just for a laugh,
I’ve gone back through the backlog of photos from the AE86 shell progress. My initial idea was to release all of these when the vlog came out to have a nice behind the scenes photo set to accompany the videos.
Unfortunately, time had been against my so ill post older photos most Fridays from here on out until we catch up with relevant pictures posting Wednesday after each video.
Today we are taking a look back at the weekend we undersealed the car. Barry called down Friday night to finish the last welding, followed by his cousin Jackie, who finished the remaining exposed seals in the arches and under the body. We went complete overkill and sprayed seam sealer all over the high impact parts of the underneath.
I’m playing catchup, editing these photos and chucking them up on the site, but I’m enjoying the process of looking back at the progress so far. You’d miss build threads on old forums. These days it’s youtube for that sort of stuff. Regardless of the vlogs, I’ve still been snap-happy shooting as many photos as possible of the progress.
Man! What an epic feeling it was to finally get the shell’s interior and the bay into the paint. Unfortunately, the loss of my father right in the middle of the project put everything on pause for almost eight months. We had pushed the shell over to Flips in March of 2019, and it more or less sat there until October, gathering dust.
Our trip to Japan was well needed, and when we came back, we decided to crack on with the project.
I was incredibly nervous as we sanded the shells interior for the final time, Jackie had helped out with the sealer earlier in the year, and we had just primed the bay. Flip was giving the engine bay seams a coat of sealer before we covered everything with paint.
A flashback to the time Barry called down to work on Adrian’s Carina, this was the day we shot the photo of Barry’s head for the sticker we ended up making inspired by the Boss coffee logo.
Barry brought his Darth Vader mask to do a bit of welding, I love days like this in the shed, and I’m looking forward to more of them over the next year. It’s great having like-minded immature mates around; we all keep each other in check.
It’s incredible looking back over these photos the past few months, seeing how far we have come with the build as I’m writing this, its just over four years of owning this project. Time has flown by.
This photo set is from the weekend where I conned Josh into helping build the spit, something we should have done at the very start of the build and not toward the end of the metalwork!
Jackie was calling down to seal the bottom of the car, the 86 didn’t even receive any treatment like this from the factory, so it should last a little longer. The idea was to brush sealer into the seams on the bottom, and the entire base of the car would eventually get a spray sealer to ensure the Trueno can withstand miserable Irish weather.
Here is a selection of photos from a typical day in the life at work. Any longtime viewers will know that I work at JDM Distro in Arklow Monday to Friday 8-5 sorting the visual side of the business, shooting photos videos, Instagram, Facebook and everything in between.
It’s one of the most incredible places to work as a Japanese car enthusiast. We purchase interesting parts from Japan and have them shipped to our warehouse in Ireland. They get unboxed, photographed, repackaged and sent back out to many parts of the western world.
It’s a mad setup, but I enjoy working there. It keeps the brain entertained as we are constantly surrounded by the best parts, which can also curse as our wages rarely leave the building. Anyways, here are some photos from back when we did the Juicebox episode on Distro and the container that landed that day.
I will be the first to admit I know nothing about Porsches, which must have been evident from the recent vlog, I’ve always appreciated the shape, but it’s a rabbit hole I’ve yet to fall into. It’s the Japanese car bug that got me, and I’ve tried to fill my brain with as much knowledge on nonsense JDM machines as possible over the years.
I’m somewhat to blame for this car landing in Robs shed as I was sending links to a friend on Yahoo, and he went looking for Japan Porsche prices and ended up with this Work of art. Japan has always had its own Porsche scene, with a few popping up in the Midnight Club or shops like Promodet and RWB, building some incredible examples.
Due to unforeseen circumstances and my father’s death in June 2019, the AE86 project took a bit of a hiatus; we put the build on pause until we felt it was right to get back at it. It wasn’t until we returned from Japan in September until we started to move on with the project again. I was hell-bent on getting this thing finished, but life always seems to throw a curveball when you least expect it, and it reminded me to slow down and enjoy the ride.
Another show we made our way to in 2019, just before we left for Japan, was DB on the quay.
What I liked about this event was the dockside location and the varied mix of cars. Usually, our BBQ is primarily bringing Japanese machinery through the friends we have met over the years. I’ve always wanted to include more variety, but we seem to have a nack in creating bonds with people with the same interest, more specifically Japanese cars.
Ireland has a very diverse car culture, and sometimes it’s hard to bring a mixed bag of enthusiasts together as they tend to stay in their groups. We have a show called Japfest which promotes Japanese cars, and we have VW and old Ford events with a similar style, again usually bringing people from the same crowds together.
