A Hidden shed Tour! We take a look at a freshly built AE86 Levin and a shed full of Japanese classics.
I’m very fortunate to work in a place that imports parts from Japan. It’s as much a blessing as it is a curse. Most of our monthly wages never really leave JDM Distro but working here has enabled me to source some of the best parts for my AE86 build over the last few years.
Being able to drop parts at the depot in Japan was once in a lifetime stuff. Here was a Goodline 86 hood, which I had listed after for many, many years. We barely snugged it into the back of the Alphard and drove halfway across Japan to drop it off just outside of Tokyo.
YES! Parts and magazines Arrive at JDM Distro from our Japan in a Van trip, making it one of the best days ever at work.
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.
We go AE86 parts hunting at MR X’s stash to find the missing bits for the Trueno build. We also get a quick look at MR X’s private collection.
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.
We are back at it in our shed with the Trueno progress and updates on where to go next, with a few surprised along the way.
The AE86 shell is finally back on the ground, rolling on all four wheels, a big step forward in this build. It’s finally starting to feel like a car again.
We break down the cost of our Japan in a Van road trip, give you a few handy tips for embarking on a similar journey and explain what’s coming next for the Juicebox channel.
Drifting Legends! We finish our Japan journey at the Battle Magazine Cup held at Nikko Circuit. We also get caught in a typhoon before heading back to Ireland! It’s been a blast making these videos and reliving the trip. Cheers for tagging along and enjoying the memories with us.
The sleep at Daikoku was pretty rough. Looking back, I don’t think we slept at all. The roads above Daikoku never ease off. It’s a constant stream of traffic 24 hours a day, not to mention people cruising into the car park at all hours revving cars. What did we expect?
Still, it was funny to say we slept there. Originally It Daikoku intended to be a rest stop for people passing by, so it made sense at the time. We needed to get to JDM Distro before 11 am, so here we were brushing our teeth in the toilet area and hitting the road to Saitama to the Distro Japanese warehouse.
That night, we decided we would work out way back towards Nagoya, stopping off in Hamamatsu for the night for a few beers and food and walk the city streets. We enjoyed the slightly slower pace of life this city had to offer.
After Feed, we had a quick stop by a shop called Racing Service Factor. They race in the one-make Civic series and the Vitz cup, and both cars had won the league races not too long before we arrived.
If you are over thirty, you’ll be well aware of Trial for their epic demo cars and long history with tuning. They have one of the largest shops in Japan and have been around for over thirty years. I was first acquainted with them in Max Power in both the magazine and their DVD Japan feature back in the day called “beast from the east”. Max Power was the most prominent UK tuning magazine in the early Millenium.