I’ve been trying to document the whole process along the way Via photo, before the vlogs the site was all about still imagery and its a format many older car guys would get their kicks out of from the days of online forums.
We look at a forgotten AE92 race car on the roof in Flips shed and get some more work done on the AE86.
We head to the hills and check out a few hidden gems, a stunning Sileighty, and an angry JZX100 Cresta.
The AE86 shell progress moves forward and the shed experiences an unusual level of efficiency, we fix some lights have a BBQ and Bryan pulls his forgotten Trueno out for a wash.
In this episode, I take you to work at JDMDistro where my wheels for the AE86 arrive from Japan.
We head back to MR “X” to shop for AE86 parts. We also clean some 4A-GE valves and Flip gives us an update on his FC RX7
Just by pure chance after the shoot with the AE111 Levin, a fog rolled in that evening and Barry had just put the finishing touches on his freshly painted R32 Skyline. We were cooking on the BBQ and I felt it would be rude not to grab some shots of this beauty while we had such an epic background.
There was a time in Ireland where the AE111 Levin was one of the most desirable machines to own amongst the younger car enthusiast. To be somewhat precise, that was about fifteen years ago, a time when fresh new imports flooded the country, people had lots of disposable income and prices were sky high, especially for the Levin, about eight to ten grand to be exact.
We shoot a stunning Blacktop 4A-GE AE111 Levin, a somewhat forgotten chassis and the guys go drifting their Datsuns at Mondello Park.
We are quite fond of any excuse to go on a road trip. I was very keen to make my way up to Flo’s garage just outside of Galway city. I needed some brand new essential bits for the 86 and his garage is the best place to find them. For anyone that missed the last vlog, Flos has a very rare setup on the west coast of Ireland. He managed to create a business out of his passion for old school Toyotas, mainly the KP and AE86 chassis.
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.
Did we just find the rustiest AE86 ever? Barry finds this poor Corolla at the side of a shed and we chop off its chassis leg to use in the Trueno.
Let’s get stuck right back into our walk around Japfest 2017. I can’t stress how good this event was, it’s a clear indication that we are out of the dark times. The car scene is booming once again.
This article was lost when the website went under. I managed to recover most of it and felt it was right to get these photos up here from what was easily one of the best Irish car shows to date. This will be coming in two parts as there is a huge photo dump with this feature. I’ve left the original writing intact so it might sound a little weird as those were supposed to be posted back in 2017.
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.