We decided to try and make it to the first event on the car calendar this year… round one of the IDC and Modified Live… Mondello’s own idea of a car show that to say the least looked like a bare version of Japfest… Even saying that a few unusual beasts made an appearance that more or less made the trip worth it.
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.
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 We all know what the recession is doing to the car scene, every Evo, skybus and Silvia has been replaced by TDI power, which in ways has brought some interesting stuff as people explore new car platforms but the fuel prices and Tax has and loss of jobs has crippled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….
It’s no secret that Irelands economy is down the tube, day in day out we hear a new story of something bad, someone losing a job someone forced to sell a car. The truth is, the “glory days” of what will be remembered as that chapter in the Irish car world where the port of Dublin was flooded with a car culture from the other side of the planet. All these “JDM” cars started pouring onto Irish soil, snatched up from the auctions in Japan and shipped the emerald isle. This happened for a good solid 8 years, there had always been the odd few Japanese cars which made it over before, but the major car rush which was witnessed by everyone was truly something special. Ireland immersed itself in the culture, rims, bodykits, seats, drifting, all these goodies which suddenly ended up being everywhere, suddenly Japanese cars were everywhere, it’s the biggest part of the car world in Ireland and has been since they started coming across the seas in the masses back at the turn of the millennium.
The life not too many people understand or get outside of the car world.
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.
So we decided to get a bunch of friends together and have a Juicebox BBQ, a sort of thank you to everyone who has been down for the website and what we are doing over the last year or so. Things have been growing strongly with the site and its scary to think of just many people are down with the Box. The weather was on our side in what has to have been the worst summer in a very long time but we managed to get a good cross section of cars which that pretty much represented what the website is all about. As someone stated in the comments from the heatwave coverage, here at Juicebox were all about Photoshopped wheels on second hand cars from a dealership. Take a look and you will see what we mean.
Some footage from the drift day which was held in Mondello the last weekend of July.
With every decent car Event Ireland, it usually means a somewhat decent selection of cars that have been driven to the event by you, the car enthusiast. This time we went lurking the car at Prodrift Fermoy to see what you guys showed up in, its a g glimpse into what the scene is like at the minute and most of the time we find some good and some bad gems lurking amongst the crowd.
Finding an s13 like this in Ireland has started to get rare. Years ago the streets were flooded with s-bodies; everyone and their friend drove a Silvia or a 180sx. The recession kicked in and many who drove these cars were out of work and out of money. This led to a sudden change in the value of these cars, which inevitably led to them, being butchered. Ask yourself, how many nice s13’s are on the road today? On top of that how many of these cars are still daily driven?
Apologies for not making it to the drift practice in Mondello, I’ve missed about 3 of them now and this one was because of some medical problems… next time will be a video like this hopefully! Check the A31 in California! That’s the start of it now…
