You’re fifteen years of age, your Dad tells you Christmas and birthdays sorted for the foreseeable future, somehow you have ended up with your dream car. You look outside and you are the proud owner of an AE86.
Off we went, out of Nagoya armed with google maps aimed at Fukushima. For those who don’t know, Ebisu is up in the mountains about 30 minutes away from Fukushima city, which itself is situated about 30 minutes from the coast where the Nuclear reactor is located.
It has been exactly one year today since I returned from Canada. Before I left, the car scene was in the bin, quite literally. Everyone around me was packing up and heading off all over the world to escape the gloom. The country was a shattered and although things aren’t back to 100% the entire country as a whole is in a much better shape than when many of us left.
After a day of car hunting, we had to make our way back down to Himeji. We would be pimping out the van with some ordered parts in Up garage the following day.
So for the people who have been following our trip to Japan so far, quite a lot of this will be car related (as you may have guessed). This holiday was planned out as a car holiday, so it’s going to be an automotive heavy story throughout.
We found it hard to sleep the first night. The anticipation was a little overwhelming. I haven’t had that many situations as I grew old where I had butterflies like being a kid, excited about the unknown of what you may encounter the next day, imagination was running wild.
Where to begin with this one? Without going too turbo on the intro to this experience I’ll give a brief introduction and a back story as to how this adventure came about.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been into cars, primarily Japanese cars. With the site, I’ve always tried to showcase a little slice of everything and grew up in a family full of Ford and Volkswagen heads. Let’s just say my pier family members weren’t so keen on my growing love for the Japanese car. Gran Turismo really didn’t help either.
The more I dug the more gold I found, it started with the Supra, then the AE86, and from there the hunt to find out more about this fascinating car culture led me on a long road to build a website, meet people around the world who share a similar passion, and spend countless hours shooting photos and talking about the stuff.
A quick glimpse at Aidan’s dream machine, a forever work in progress. This Levin is his Sunday beast, a square machine comes out for a thrash and a spin on a weekend and puts a permanent smile on his face.
Nothing major update wise this week, had a bit of an issue with the site but its all sorted now…. lots to come next week.
– Neil
Time has become quiet precious over the last few years, coming home from nine to ten hours a day of commuting and work and then finding the enthusiasm for sitting down to edit photographs and articles for this site has certainly been a challenge, I have to sacrifice a few things, but I really believe its worthwhile.
The Irish car shed doesn’t get as much credit as it deserves, Sheds are the backbone of our car scene, the anchors to every good build.
What started out as a bit of a Joke on the Internet the other day ended up luring us out on a freezing Friday night standing around in the dark with friends. We were almost excited at the fact this “Cruise” was going down.
“Cruises” have been a part of car culture for as long as I can remember, in all shapes and sizes they have always happened. Its a different kind of nightlife.
I love cars that literally appear out of nowhere. This KE70 appeared in some photos online one day and literally blew us away. At First I thought it was just another really well put together Corolla from the Internet, little did I know this was actually on Irish shores. I was pretty eager to take a closer look.
Almost hidden in the corner of the Toyota gathering a few months back was this AE86. The owner was a little taken back by my interest in it. I tend to obsess over cars with a little character; cars we wish could only speak and share their tales, with faded team stickers, dents holes and scuffs.
As most of us tend to stay in our circles amongst the scene, a lot of cars never really come out of hiding for us to be exposed to here at Juicebox. This little B series is stunning.
Being away for a few years I really didn’t know what top expect at Japfest this year, if you were following the nonsense on the Instagram story, we went a little over board but it was with no regrets. Japfest an end of year calendar for most of the stuff we are into and most of the cars either come off of the road or go into hibernation for the winter.