With the AE86 project finished, what’s next for Juicebox?
The AE86 comes home from paint for the final assembly.
The videos are flying along, I guess because we have met a deadline for the 86 unveil(which is a good thing); Im trying to catch up with that progress, which makes the timeline for the rest of the videos a little weird, but we will figure it out. These photos are from late last year; when the car came out of the booth and received another coat of lacquer, we started fitting panels, and things hit me when the glass was fitted to the back paired with the ever-so-good-looking redline tails. I think I was almost sexually aroused by that rear end the first time we finished it; as strange as that is to say, I’ve probably fantasised about having this look for way too long. It’s been such a fucking journey with this car, and it’s insane to think that the mega building aspect of it is coming to a close; here are a few photos from this time, a bit of Barry welding, Bryan helping put stuff back together and Jackie working his magic on the tail lights.
Bryan and Barry double team assembly on the AE86 while Jackie fixes the redline Trueno tail lights
Here is a massive photo dump from Dorifest last June. Dorifest is arguably one of the most excellent drift events in the world, and it’s very underrated. It’s such a simple formula that places in the US have adopted with Finalbout or halfway hangs in AUs, get some good-looking cars together to do some skids, like a rolling show. We took the plunge to drift land in Scotland to see Josh throw his car about amongst people we were happy to meet in real life. Most of you have seen the video from this event, so please fill in the blanks with the images. It’s a 10/10 trip that we would happily make again. Sadly, there are no hot tub photos from this trip for anyone looking anywhere in the photo dump. Enjoy.
Here are a few photographs of the New K11 March before it went under the knife. Some are from when I picked it up and threw some Drag wheels on it, which came on the black March, an excellent eighties wheel that showed up locally. Then, when we slammed it on the BC coilovers with the Enkei wheels, these wheels are called Enkei Formula J M18’s and were used on open-wheel race cars in the early nineties. Whats also really cool is that most of the March Cup cars also ran these in the ’90s. It’s a wheel I’ve been chasing for many years, as 13 inches is the magic formula for these cars. The Enkeis are just right. The little lip is fantastic. What’s funny is I always end up almost loving this look just as much as the finished product; these cars look great with very little, and even though we did the Tommy Kaira look, this appeals to me just as much.
We modify the little Nissan K11 March/Micra and unlock the car’s potential fun.
This post is a monster photo dump. The 48 hours photographed below were some of the best hours of my life. It’s a corny thing to say, but this intimate object has brought me so much joy and misery over the last seven years, from mega highs to mega lows and everything in between. I felt like this day would never come; there were points in this build where it felt like we hit a brick wall with the progress during the pandemic, times when we hadn’t the money or no motivation or similar.
When this weekend finally came, it felt like a dream; the night before, we pulled a super late one to get as much done as we could, and I’ve said it many times, but Jackie and his level of m motivation, even Dylan, who threw some hands-on whenever he could, made this one of the most memorable weekends ever. You have seen the video so that I won’t ramble too much on here, but I know there are people like me who enjoy looking at the photos. I tried to capture as many pictures as possible; I think I have about 400 photos of the same thing on my hard drive, and I kept shooting the same photo in disbelief. Anyway, I narrowed it down to about 60 from that weekend below. Enjoy the most significant milestone on the build!
The day has finally come! We get some paint onto this AE86 Trueno after six years of work.
I never really appreciated the effort that went into blocking with a paint job because I had picked the best colour for body panels. Jackie was adamant that he wanted this car to be perfectly straight; I even started to lose track of the process, with the Trueno being blocked, spray-filled and then blocked again. Throughout the process, Jackie remained consistent with enthusiasm and attention to detail; most of the time, standing back and admiring his commitment, even after a full day of misery at work, was incredible. It’s been inspiring, and I’ve aimed to keep that mindset in my life as we advance. He wants to do the best he can all the time regarding his craft.
Here are the photos leading up to painting the car. We tried to get the best finish possible because, as I’ve learned, it’s all in the prep.
We take the Crusty Accord CH1 Type R to a Hiro Racing Honda Track day and see if it can survive the punishment.
The TRD wing idea worked out perfectly; it all spawned from having Barry over to gap the panels before we permanently added the hinges and how we would try to make the TRD wing look like it was added from the factory, bonding it on to make the perfect fit was exceptional. These photos are from the excellent weather we had in June last year. It killed me driving up and down to Jdmdistro and then on to work on this, but looking back, Im delighted I committed to the mission; it is all the little things that take forever, but as always, I trusted the process with Barry and Jackie who were always enthusiastic about things related to this car.
Enjoy some photos from that month: Tip led, filling the gaps on the roof, collecting the Goodline bumper and painting the hinges, figuring out the perfect fit for the wing, and Dylan’s virgin S13 purchase; this was a good month!