Almost hidden in the corner of the Toyota gathering a few months back was this AE86. The owner was a little taken back by my interest in it. I tend to obsess over cars with a little character; cars we wish could only speak and share their tales, with faded team stickers, dents holes and scuffs.
It absolutely astounds me just how much of a following there is for Toyota here in Ireland, go anywhere, literally anywhere, in a city or especially in the country side and smaller town and the Toyota has ruled the roads for over 30 years. What better way to greater awareness for Suicide in Ireland amongst car enthusiasts than with an event like this. Held this year in the Cork marts in Fermoy the show really dragged some gems out of the woodwork.
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.
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.
Like we were saying in part 1 it really seemed like the standard has suddenly rose for the quality of cars in the country at shows. Looking around you had a good variety of super clean interesting builds like this IS bagged on SSR Vienna’s. What an amazing car, its nice to see people go down the VIP route, something that hasn’t been explored to much yet in Ireland.
Happy AE86 day! What better way to celebrate this day than with a car like this. The Levin you are looking at is probably one of the most impressive builds I have ever witnessed with an AE86. These days people seem to have the mentality of adding a set of wheels to a car and stance and a couple of stickers and suddenly their car is something special or different. What I love about this car is the fact that pretty much every inch of the car has been changed, replaced or refurbished. This car wasn’t built to be put on a stand at a car show or to be king of the internet. Many people didn’t even know this 2 door even existed, for the people that did it was like an urban myth hearing what was being done and how much was being spent. The biggest thing I love about this Levin is how it was built to be driven and personally enjoyed, the fact Jerry wasn’t bothered if it was exposed to the world or not is pretty awesome.
With the weather being so crazy lately it was nice that on the day this meet was organized, there was a cold winter sun on a nice crisp day. This meet was held in Portlaoise. They had set up a Gymkhana course where you could have a little fun if you wanted. Its great to see that Ireland still has a strong following of the 86 and other early RWD chassis from Toyota and a decent amount of cars made an appearance.
As we arrived down at 9 the fog was not moving . Behind the mist we could see the faint sun . The drivers were called up to the briefing and as they were finished the sun had brunt all the fog away . There are not many days were you can say you have worn a t-shirt in Mondello , as some say its one of the coldest places in Ireland but today was going to be a hot one.The day was as the title suggests about practice and anyone can do it . More>>>
