With all this COVID 19 stuff, I’ve been going through all these photos recently, finally having time to sort them out and upload them on the site. One thing I’ve noticed is just how little time I have these days to do articles on the website.
Now that I have a bit of time to go back over these photos, it’s funny how optimistic I felt as we collected the shell from Sandblasting.
We finally figure out the official Toyota AE86 production numbers on a Toyota parts Database CD and we head to Ace Motorfactors to get some parts blasted for the Trueno.
Late one evening, a message landed in the Juicebox inbox on Instagram, it was from a Scottish chap called Michael. He was heading to Ireland to pick up a few bits for his 86 and wanted to swing by the shed.
This time two years ago, we had just ripped the Trueno apart to send the shell down for sandblasting. The 86 was being brought down to Ace Motor Factors in Newbawn co Wexford. We brought it down on a Saturday’s it was going to get blasted on a Tuesday morning. I ensured to get that day off of work to document the entire process; this was something I didn’t want to miss.
Another Blog post about MR X! As we mentioned in a previous post I always come armed with a charged camera and a pocket full of cash. This place is always full of surprised and someday we will look back on guys like this and think about how crazy it was that he could import these cars from the other side of the world and dismantle these cars to save others.
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.
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.
If you watch the vlogs, you are probably aware of how this shoot came about. Just after we finished up taking photographs of Johns Sileighty, he mentioned his friend Padraig who had a pretty tasty selection of cars not far from the photoshoot location.
This photo set is from the second trip up to MR “X”. I was going to pile these photos in with the third trip but each time we head up there I always find myself snapping everything in sight. There is something new with every journey, something to leave you either confused or in awe. The little 5 GT Turbo has seen many AE86’s being stripped at this point, I wonder if it ever thinks it’s going to be next.
I spotted this funky thing around town about a year ago. It wasn’t until we were out having a few beers one night did I realise an old friend of mine had actually bought this as a family machine. Richie was one of the OG heads in the Waterford car scene back in the day and always had something cool, from built Vaxhaul Novas to Silvia’s and Legacy’s, he’s had his fair share of cool cars.
We go shopping for new parts at Irelands only AE86 specialist shop. Flo Muller has created a very unique AE86 restoration/ spare parts shop in Galway so we head west to take a look at his setup.
To be honest, I wish I took more photos of the car in this form before we tore it apart. I guess when you are in the moment you don’t really think of these things. As the car was slowly being torn apart, a little voice from the future came back to remind me that the 86 was never going to look like this again. As fucked as it looked, the car was already cemented into peoples minds like this and long after its restoration, this version will be the car people remember. It was still running and driving, just missing the dash and seats and cage and well everything from the interior. I quickly placed everything inside and brought it out for its final photo shoot.
Another weekend working on the AE86, Barry finds some tricky stuff, we find some more spidery surprised and playing with fire goes a little too far!
In this episode the AE86 gets the front chassis leg straightened out. The Trueno was in a bit of a smash somewhere on its timeline in Japan and the left chassis leg is a little wonky. The progress is always accompanied by a bit of nonsense.