A Hidden shed Tour! We take a look at a freshly built AE86 Levin and a shed full of Japanese classics.
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.
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.
So these snaps are a little later than I expected, I’ve been swamped the last month juggling stuff for the site, life and the new child aka the JB vlogs. Between doing those and trying to find time after working a nine to five and still have somewhat of a life has proven to be quite the task.
What makes a great RPs13? The 180sx has been around for over a quarter of a century, a car that is loved by so many it is essentially a mascot of the drifting world and we still just cant get enough of these things.
So its been enjoyable recapping when I get the chance, putting together these side stories on where I have been at since I departed Ireland over two years ago. For many longtime readers of the ramblings on here, you are aware that one part of Juicebox (Neil) is living in Canada and sort of taking a break from things. In the last one of these posts I was living in Edmonton, so about this time last year I made my way over to Vancouver, I couldn’t hack the snow. I decided to take the train back across Canada, something I would highly recommend to anyone, the scenery is almost too much to process.
This country is incredible at surprising us. I remember the first time I seen this Laurel, probably the first time I had ever seen a Laurel… it was dark down at the infamous port road,ill never forget the angry of this screaming monster sliding sideways up the road. There was just something so enjoyable about such a huge machine going sideways four deep. It just looks badass, the presence was insane.
So here I was, completely out of my comfort zone making my way across Canada, looking out the window of this chrome train at possibly one of the most epic and somewhat alien landscapes for this little Irish mind. Heading “up north” as its put, not really knowing what to expect. It was incredibly exciting but at the same time pretty scary, I’m sure many of you have that feeling once or twice in your life. This was one of those completely unforgettable life moments, so far removed from everything I had called life back home. I sat there taking snaps out the window trying to process nature on steroids.
It has been almost four years since the tragic disaster in Japan. As a car head, like many of you reading this, apart from all the chaos and sadness that followed the disaster on March 11th 2011, we cant help but be fascinated by all that radioactive Japanese metal that was left behind. Google was kind enough to creep in and drive the streets year after year, which is amazing. I have spent hours cruising the streets looking for stuff but I have to give credit o my little brother for hunting out a lot of these, both of us would spend hours cruising down streets spotting stuff. We did one of these posts before and people really enjoyed it, so here is another collection of Cars that will probably never move again.
I’m pretty excited that some how I can finally write about a public event we put together. Juicebox has been going for about four years now and well it has been an absolute pleasure being able to capture the car scene and chuck it up here on the website. We had toyed with the idea of putting together something like this for a long time, possibly holding a show, or doing another BBQ, the main fear was that no one would turn up, or if something did it would be a disaster.
Let’s face it some of the 90’s cars that rolled out of the Nissan factory have aged perfectly, others are still questionable. Take an R33 Gts-t for example, not many of you will be quick to say they looked or aged as well as similar chassis from that era. On top of that for some reason, Ireland, Australia and the UK just couldn’t get enough of the 33 GTS, we just loved them. We loved putting horrendous wheels and bad body kits and questionable parts in them, pretty much a large portion of R33 GTS’s which exist outside of Japan just don’t do it for people as much as an R32, s13 or an s15, or any of the GTR’s for that matter.
It’s nice to see this car in its current guise. This was actually a car imported by a couple of friends in Waterford city. The car came to Ireland as a half loved Nissan, just like most RPS13’s their story is always a mystery. This example was bright pink, had over fenders, standard ae86 front wheels and a Bomex whale tale. Back then this car was laughed at, a bit of an ugly duckling. Like many cars at that time it vanished, many had thought it was dead forever, just like the fate of many Nissans but somehow it came back out of the wood work, and damn did it look good.
Another absolute beauty of a car, tucked away alongside the Cruise AE111 we featured last week is this Kazama Auto RPS13. I love these stories, this car has been in hiding for quite some time, bought in the boom for over fifteen grand and then hidden away as the owner was forced to head to the upside down land of work outside of our failing country. This car is pretty amazing in the flesh, and in the right hands, an immaculate white time capsule of Japanese built goodness, unmolested by the usual unaware Irish man.
Sometimes you never know what you are going to get in an email. A couple of months back we received an email from a young fan of the site telling us about how his father owns not one but two Nissan GTR’s. In Ireland the GTR is not exactly a common site to begin with so after a quick exchange of details we decided to pack the car and head to Cashel to check this out for ourselves. I really couldn’t believe what I was seeing; this was a pretty awesome sight to behold.
A few months ago a few mates had come across the Ocean from France to pick up this beauty. I decided to grab a few snaps before she made her way back. I’ve always enjoyed this car. It wears the Garage Masa have the M kit which adds the strawberry face to the s14. Sometimes 15 front on a 14 doesn’t work too good as a conversion as the strawberry front is a little sharper towards the more relaxed lines of the s14, but Ive always like the Masa kit conversion, its a pretty beefy aero kit which doesn’t look out of place.