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.
Here is Killians Cresta we features awhile back, now in its new skin. Freshened up and looking sharp. Sharleen caught a few nice snaps of this beast fresh out of the oven.
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Entering Mongolia during the Mongol Rally was an exciting moment for us all. We had survived police corruption in Kazakhstan..
Define trust. Trust usually resides amongst family members and long term friends, best friends even. It can also be found maybe in professional practice say a doctor, dentist or child minder. It comes from knowing something is good or receiving an excellent recommendation from someone. We went to Rudskogen Raceway in Norway for Gatebil 2015 where I witnessed trust of a totally different kind.
Ah, the Toyota starlet. Every single person into cars in Ireland is well aware of the starlet. I’m sure many others from around the world know all about these quirky little machines also. For many it was a first car, a gateway into something fast and fun. For others, the starlet was a car many people aspired to have at one point or another. The stigma that came with these is often negative. But lets be honest, the fact that Japan decided to make such an angry, interesting version of a pretty mediocre little Toyota is what makes us love the place so much. There is almost no reason for it to exist, but we are glad it does.
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.
A couple of months ago this little Vitz popped up for sale here in Ireland, at a first glance you could see the little cage peeking out through the back windows so we clicked on the ad to take a look. You just have to love the mystery surrounding many of the cars which made their way out of Japan. This is a classic example of that mystery, this quirkly little white Vitz, or Yaris as they are known here, generally seen outside of Japan as a proper commuting A to B machine has a much cooler story than meets the eye.
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.
Back to the final installment of Gatebil, the complete madness that funnily enough you start to get used to somehow.
The paddock itself is just as impressive as any part of the eventl, the words “that wont work” do not exist in these guys vocabulary!
Once again we were away, out of Ireland the country which at the time we were leaving was experiencing one of the hottest weeks in over twenty years. This was something none of us were going to care about because finally we were actually leaving the country with a plan we had made over a year before.
