Where to begin really? This whole thing started as an idea few weeks back, well a concrete idea that is. This plan literally fell into place in less than ten days.
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.
For Ireland, a car like this is somewhat ahead of its time… It’s almost a vision of what someone will do in twenty years from now, when there won’t be a whole amount of these Nissans on the road… Everything about this car is not the ordinary guise for an s14 Silvia… The car is not covered in cable ties, doesn’t have ropey panels and isn’t what you would call a drift slag, which by all means is awesome, don’t get me wrong, but what is awesome about this car is how it was planned out and built, everything is super subtle and looks almost factory.
Ah good old Japfest… where to begin, this is the third year we have covered this event on Juicebox. It’s sort of the be all end the entire car scene as a whole at the end of every year. Everything and anything can come out of the woodwork and be on display, many a time I’ve been shocked, left scratching my head wondering where the fuck that did car come from. That feeling is one that I’ve always loved about the Irish car scene, we as a tiny little country was saturated with awesome cars from Japan that you never actually know what’s hiding down a dodgy little back lane, or hiding in some farm somewhere in Kerry…. With the “road car” scene falling down around us… it’s ironic that the drift scene is flourishing, we are spitting out some of the best drivers ever… going up against some of the world’s best.
Just before round three of Prodrift this year I got a phone call, now if you are from Ireland you know the deal with the weather, It has been easily the worst summer in History, you can probably count the summer days we have had on one hand, on the other end of the phone was Dean Kearney, he had been asked to do a Demo down in the south of Portagul at one of their biggest car events. This was not the first time the Irish had gone down to do this type of demo, it had been on going year after year but this time around I was asked to document it. A small look out the window and I was already convinced to pack my bags and get in the van.
After a somewhat silent winter it was nice to see the crowds and drivers arrive at Ennis. We all know what the recession is doing to the car scene, every Evo, skybus and Silvia has been replaced by TDI power, which in ways has brought some interesting stuff as people explore new car platforms but the fuel prices and Tax has and loss of jobs has crippled pretty much a mega chunk of the Irish scene. This is why I have to give the utmost respect to any driver competing this year….
Sunday the 15th of January saw another drift practise day at Mondello park. The best thing about these drift days is pretty much any type of contraption can be seen on the track along with skill level.Pretty much anyone with a rear wheel drive car can enjoy an open pit all day and a tyre changing service. With the rising cost of tax, petrol and pretty much everything else in Ireland, we are seeing more and more cars hitting the track never to return to the road again.
Its hard to think that another year of Prodrift has passed us so quickly. To be fair we were off to a fantastic start with Ennis weather wise. The typical Irish early good weather which results in a summer of rain as punishment, this didnt stop competition and even though Juicebox didnt make it to two of the events the finale in Mondello more than made up for it.
So it has to be openly said this was one of the best events the country had seen in a long time. The most important part was the amount of effort people put in the make it to the show.The recession was winning the battle and probably still is in many minds when it comes to cars. Things were looking very gloomy but I have to admit, heatwave and then Japfest brought a very positive vibe back into the scene.