“This is my happy face in the happy place” these were the exact words Reuben shouted as we shot his pride and joy on the large bend at Ruskodgen. Back in 2013, we took a trip to Gatebil to see what the fuss was all about, and it blew our minds. It was like nothing we had ever seen before.
I never thought this day would come. After nearly ten years of writing articles about other peoples cars on this website, I never thought id be putting together a feature about one of my vehicles. Its a little strange to be honest, I’ve spent years travelling around Ireland trying to root out the better side of Irish car culture and its funny to see this little blue nugget getting some attention.
The Trueno sees some progress as Barry calls down to hack out some of the final rust. We also check in on Flips RX7 which has a fresh coat of paint.
It almost seems like I never owned the Trueno, we got it in July 2017 and the car was actually in one piece until October of that year. We brought it to AE86 festival, Japfest and then stripped it down for blasting. Its been a shell longer than a car at this point and as of writing this, it’s a year and five months of metalwork with Barry.
It was August 2018, Ireland was enjoying one of the best summers in almost twenty years. All of our friends were away at a festival for the weekend so myself and Flip decided this would be the perfect time to paint the March.
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.
