So a fresh year is upon us with the Irish automotive calendar. We decided to check out what was happening and modified live. IDC was in full swing and as we discussed before, the event gets more than its share of coverage so it’s unnecessary for us to be giving it full coverage.
Off we went, out of Nagoya armed with google maps aimed at Fukushima. For those who don’t know, Ebisu is up in the mountains about 30 minutes away from Fukushima city, which itself is situated about 30 minutes from the coast where the Nuclear reactor is located.
So on Sunday just gone seen the rise of a brand new show to Ireland called xPosed, run by the guys over at Raceism United. Personally I think it was more than a welcome to the automotive scene here in Ireland as we have been lacking a show like this but we will get back to that point later.
It was April 8th 2014; I had completely misplaced myself in a foreign land, which I was going to call home for the foreseeable future. I had always wanted to make my way down to a round of Formula D and after a few talks it was actually happening.
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.
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.
We have seen quite a change in the car scene over the last four to five years in Ireland, the growth of a more European influence on what would have been a heavily saturated market of Japanese imports. Quite a large part of this was down to fuel prices, with this wave of Diesel machines brought a new collection of the good, the bad and well some pretty terribly ugly creations The Volkswagen scene itself is quite reserved, it’s a different take on cars and has to be appreciated when done right like this 2.0 TDI B6 Passat.
Ive always been a huge fan of the Original Miata/mx5 or roadster as it was known in Japan. With such a subtle collection of modifications they can become such an amazing little car to both drive and look at. I got an email a couple of months back about one that was being put together, due to the rise in popularity of these cars (which is always a good thing) I was intrigued as to what pictures lay inside the message.
You just can’t get enough of a good looking 180sx. I don’t care what anyone says but when there is a perfectly styled example in front of your eyes it brings the same amount of excitement as anything else. Over the years Ireland has robbed its fair share of these from Japan, many have been drifted, and others have been butchered, others have been stored away and others have been done like this. The ones which have been styled this good are always a treat.
It’s always nice to get emails about possible features, especially something along the lines of this Subtle Eunos Roadster and other less played with chassis in this country. Once I had seen a few pictures of this coming together over at Team Chihuahua I knew we needed to organise a shoot.
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 yes, the Rps13….. a chassis know to pretty much any person who has an interest in Japanese cars, otherwise referred to as the 180sx or the 200sx/240 depending on where you are reading this from. This chassis was made for ten years and has dominated the drift scene for pretty much the same amount of time. I have no doubts that the RPs13 will have as much of a cult following for the next thirty years as the AE86 following has shaped into at the minute, both cars are perfect mascots for the activity we love so much…. The s13 chassis is easily one of the best FR platforms to ever come out of Japan.
So with an unpredictable Irish summer that we have already been pissed off with, we were very sceptical if it was a good choice to make it out to the V.A.G. meet in Fermoy Co Cork, I’m glad we made a positive choice… If you don’t know this already, or aren’t from this country, in Ireland, the scene is heavily split into a few groups, but it was nice to see the Volkswagen/Audi scene going showcasing some of the best examples this country had to offer all packed inside Cork Marts Car Park, something we just had to cover….
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It’s always impressive to see Volkswagens in the south of Ireland which push the scene forward, one of the biggest things we tried to do since the site was created was to showcase cars which hopefully are a sort of a milestone or marker for others to follow or be influenced by. Tommy’s wagon is certainly one of these cars, the first wagon he built which we featured a few months back was his first test, having somewhat of a soft spot for the wagon he managed to make the perfect blend of clean and simple.