We strike Gold at Tsukuba and witness one of the most incredible classic track days in Japan.
The next stop on our adventure was Weld, a shop we had wanted to see for years. We had a reason to go there, as we would buy some TC stuff. Weld has a huge RC drift presence with its brand Overdose, and we wanted to check out its workshop and pick up some small parts, too. They do officially licensed wheels from work and other companies and brands like Voltex, so it was super cool to see this place in real life.
Once we got back to Tokyo, the most important thing on the list was to slam the Probox for the upcoming event Andrew had organised for us. He had gathered a few people to throw the first-ever Juicebox meet in Japan, which was insane.
Day four of our journey was true freedom; we decided to stay in Gotemba, as it was getting us down the road towards Osaka, and we needed to head down to try to remedy the plan and see where to go next. We didn’t realise that Gotemba was close to Fuji Speedway, so we decided to have breakfast at Fuji as it would have been rude not to. Waking up with nothing to worry about, getting into our newly acquired profession and hitting the road were some of the best feelings we’ve ever had.
The trip was starting to feel like a proper adventure. Our first stop was Breakfast at Fuji, which we hoped wouldn’t take too long, but we got easily distracted.
Our next adventure was to tick a few places off the list. We had never been to Revolver, and the owners seemed hesitant with foreigners. However, we decided to take a look anyway. Thankfully, we had Alex with us, whose presence was instrumental in breaking the ice and making our introduction smoother.
We flew to Japan to pick up my new AE86 but were almost deported and locked in quarantine.
We assemble wheels for the AE86, tracking down a set of used SSR Star Sharks from Japan.
It’s hard to convey here just how happy he was to finish his seven-year itch finally. I’m not going into great detail here. I think we covered it perfectly in the video on the 86, but being able to finally do a shoot like this on an unusual April evening in the same spot I had shot this car seven years before. I don’t think the vehicle will even look this good again, but either way, I wanted to get these photos on the website for some time.
As sad as this sounds, and I know there won’t be a lot of people looking at these, I never thought a time would come when I could finally post my build on Juicebox; doing this blog since 2009, I was always out of capture whatever I thought was cool in Ireland and beyond. I hope to get my car to be proud of up here. By the time I got to it, blogs were essentially dead, so we’ve moved the story to YouTube, but it’s a real sense of achievement to shoot this car and post it on the blog. Please enjoy a generous amount of images from that evening. And as always, thanks for looking.
With the AE86 project finished, what’s next for Juicebox?
The AE86 comes home from paint for the final assembly.
The final paint and AE86 assembly with Jackie and Barry before it comes home
We visit an AE86-only restoration shop, which rebuilds these cars to an incredible factory fresh finish.