In this episode, we experience Kanjo Racing on the Loop in Osaka with the next generation of Loop One racers. This was one hell of an adventure!
So we are finishing our in-depth photo series on the 2019 Okayama Hachiroku festival with the race cars in the pit area and the final parade lap around the circuit in the rain. I’m skimming the words accompanying these features as I feel we have said more than enough in the videos.
The photos are for people to save and hopefully inspire or give fellow owners an idea or two; that’s why we all lurk these photos at the end of the day. It’s hard to stop a video and see all this stuff in one go. I always like taking pictures to further look at the line to appreciate this stuff at a much slower pace. And I’m trying to knock this stuff out whilst finish the video series, its the most content I’ve ever produced for Juiebox in such a short amount of time.
Some people think blogs are dead, but I do enjoy a good blog post about a particular event; it what I spent most of my time doing for the last fifteen or so years when hunting for car-related content, and I hope these articles bring a little bit of that to you.
I think we talked enough about this Truck in the videos so ill just leave the photos to speak for themselves. This was probably the most Japanese Automotive related machine I have ever seen in my life. Something that could only exist in Japan.
Moving onto part two of the “Show” area. I’m not sure what you would even call this. As most of the cars in here were just well put together streetcars. The killer about having this many good cars side by side is you tend to overlook things. Each of these would be worthy of a closer look if they were out in the wild but I felt caught for time, you wanted to try to document as much as you could but you really only have a few hours. Even as I was shooting the cars in this area of the event, people were packing up and leaving.
Let’s move onto the display area that was up in the main entrance. It appeared to be an old go-kart track set up to display a couple of hundred epic road cars. I’m laughing as I put this article together; I can distinctly remember the panic looking at these cars.
The display is hidden from sight as you make your way up from the central car park. It catches you off guard, and you are left trying to figure out what path to navigate 200 plus epic road-going AE86’s. I’ve broken this into two parts so a fellow Corolla enthusiast can digest each piece.
I have hundreds of photos from 86 festival, and to be honest, I’m going to post most of them here on the website for others to enjoy. There’s always a severe amount of cars at these events, and with most other websites, people have a limit or try to cut down the size of a post to keep things to a digestible amount. Not here! I’m going to dump pretty much anything I thought was cool onto the site over the next few days, broken up into six different blog posts. Just so you guys can get a comprehensive look at what was arguably the most incredible event I’ve ever been to in my life.
Hachiroku Heaven! We head to AE86 Festival In Okayama. Japan’s largest annual gathering of Levin and Trueno’s celebrating the AE86 & AE85 chassis. From N2 race cars to Initial D machines, this is arguably the greatest 86 gathering on earth.
After drooling at Endless, we made our way to Impulse. These shops are in the Hyogo area and about a twenty-minute drive from each other.
As we mentioned in the video, taking the back roads is the most fun. You never know what’s hiding down a side street. This AE86 pair was a pleasant surprise; both looked like they hadn’t moved in quite some time, and it stopped us in our tracks. I guess this stuff is still out there to find!
The next day, we were flung straight into the deep end. We hit up an Autobacs, which was just down the street from our hotel room, for a quick look; the car park at any Auto parts shop always has a few gems. Our aircon was broken, which resulted in an incredibly humid night’s sleep, but that didn’t dampen our spirits.
So we were keen to get back to Japan. Our first taste of it was a plan that fell apart back in 2016. We wanted to get back out there and give ourselves plenty of time to try and do whatever we could. We had a very loose plan, go to 86 fest in Okayama on the third day, meet some Honda guys, collect some 86 parts and catch up with the CSS crew; we would make the rest up as we go along.
In 2019 we went back to Japan. Hungry for more after “Japan Without a Plan”, we aimed to seek out AE86’s, Street drifting, Kanjo culture, tuning shops and much more.
In this eleven-part special, we buy another van and travel up the east coast, documenting as much as we could, getting ourselves into some hilarious situations.
Enjoy our journey through Japanese car culture over the next few weeks. This one has been a long time coming.
Another show we made our way to in 2019, just before we left for Japan, was DB on the quay.
What I liked about this event was the dockside location and the varied mix of cars. Usually, our BBQ is primarily bringing Japanese machinery through the friends we have met over the years. I’ve always wanted to include more variety, but we seem to have a nack in creating bonds with people with the same interest, more specifically Japanese cars.
Ireland has a very diverse car culture, and sometimes it’s hard to bring a mixed bag of enthusiasts together as they tend to stay in their groups. We have a show called Japfest which promotes Japanese cars, and we have VW and old Ford events with a similar style, again usually bringing people from the same crowds together.
Ireland has a very diverse car culture; in this episode, we head to two shows back to back featuring Escort Cosworths, MK2 escorts, Golf GTI’s and much more. These two shows give a glimpse into the incredible stuff dotted around the Emerald Isle.
This episode is packed with unique cars, a wild Japanese Altezza Demo car survivor, a timeless Evo III and the Perfect 500bhp FD RX7. Enjoy a little slice of the madness hidden away in the rural Irish countryside.
Josh gets his S50 M3 powered E30 up and running, and we take it for a quick lap. Also, some bonus street action accompanied by shenanigans in Fast Barrys shed. Good times.