It was 5am on a Saturday morning and the phone was vibrating with a text from Martin Ffrench. Walking out of the house and seeing his Altezza all loaded up on the trailer looking gleaming and ready for action was enough to wake anyone up. The car was ready for the first round of Prodrift which was to be held in Ennis Co. Clare. Hopes of a dry weekend slowly started to fade as we made our way through the Tipperary countryside and darkness started to disappear and reveal some horrible Irish clouds . This was looking to be another typical weekend just like the one at Ennis back in 09. To our surprise we drove right through the rain and out the other side…. mother nature was down for some drifting on that weekend and gave us Ireland some of the best weather it could have ever asked for.
A new year, a new round of Prodrift and another Look through the car park to see what you drove to the event!
The starlet has always been known for a reliable little run around. The 70 series like the silver model pictured above has been well established as a cheap A to B run around and a nice little car to use for Auto testing and hot rodding. In the last few years we have seen the love for these little starlets grow more and more. One of the reasons would be the fact they are cheap for the younger generation to insure and they are starting to get rare. The cars can be seen on websites like donedeal and similar and in some cases people can look for up to 2000 euros for them!
For anyone who is staring at the screen and wondering what the hell is going on, allow me to explain. This is a 2002 Toyota bB. The car is based on the Yaris/Vitz chassis and was targeted at the younger generation in their early to late 20’s. These cars are hugely popular in Japan as the bB and in the US where it went under the name of the Scion xB. For anyone who has wondered why these are so insanely popular, we’ve also asked the same question every time one appears on the internet. In America where these little crazy box shaped Toyota’s have a huge following, people could easily pour thousands of dollars into an xB/bB to create their perfect vision.
It was only about 20 or so years ago the E70 was a common sight on Irish roads. Finding one these days is as rare as an Irish summer. Lets face it back in the day these cars didn’t look this appealing. In fact they were pretty a pretty basic saloon from Toyota. They got people from A to B and back again in a reliable Toyota fashion. As time went on, general wear and tear accompanied by great Irish weather took its toll on the E70 and many of its old friends. Most of what was left has either been left to return to the soil while the others have been long crushed.
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Tom and Ryo from Titan have just sent on some nice pic’s from a 1jz meet at the Chiba Circuit just outside of Tokyo.
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Damn this is hilarious. Don’t you just want one after hearing Eddie talk about the “super super styling”… haha
Many people have affection towards the kp series starlet in Ireland. Mostly due to the fact they were one of a rare breed of rear wheel drive hatchbacks from the late 70’s and early 80’s which made them extremely popular in rallying and hot rodding due to their FR layout which along with rust was one of the main reasons these cars disappeared, well that and the evil scrappage scheme. Most examples around Ireland have the usual superlites and mudflaps so it’s always nice to see a properly done version from the motherland.
Not much of a car update but I thought this JDM Hiace was quite interesting while I was waiting on some Pizza Hut. We always see the Perfomance cars that come into the country but sometimes some of the more unusual boring shit can be quite interesting. This Hiace is one of those things. It stuck out like a sore thumb in the car park so I went over for a sniff, turns out its 4×4 and has a bit of a suspension kit and two piece rims, it even has some arches, amazing haha. Someone loved the life out of their Hiace back in Japan!
The weather had managed to hold off, all it needed to do now was stay dry for just another couple of hours and everything would work for the better. The clouds were getting darker and it looked like mother nature was going against everyone but then Aaron came out blasting the Foo fighters and everything seemed to be just fine!
Lets continue where we stopped with part 1, looking at some super nice examples of some of the countries nicest ae86’s.