Photos Unboxed: An AE86 Drive
I had been meaning to shoot these cars for quite some time now. During the week when I’m working up in JDMDistro, I’ve been trying to make my way out to certain cars or groups of mates with interesting sheds. These lads are all local to where I’m living midweek so we managed to lock in a date after work last year and head for the hills.
Sometimes you get lucky with the weather. The day we organised to shoot the AE86’s for the recent vlog, the guys wanted us to drive to the top of Mount Leinster for the views.
When we got to the peak, we were greeted to a moody low flying cloud. The lads were a little upset because they thought the views would have been epic, but the low clouds worked out much better.
There are many routes you can go with the 86, each of these cars was a Levin, but each of them had their very own personality.
It was a little overwhelming shooting all of these Hachis at the same time. I’d ideally like to spend a couple of hours shooting each of them individually but we were caught for daylight on our first outing.
I couldn’t help myself, I must have snapped over 60 photos of pretty much the same thing, each of these Levins would have been good enough but I had four of the best this country has to offer and a dream backdrop. Mt Leinster was damp and a little dark and moody, the top of the road looks like something from a Japanese touge but it was the perfect backdrop.
Sean’s Levin has always been a favourite. I remember seeing this car years ago and thinking rolled straight in from Japan with this look. It was cool to find out this was a track car in Japan. The 14 inch SSR MKIII’s and OEM two-tone bumpers. This is such a perfect look.
It’s mad to think this is the same chassis and has the same body style as Seans yet both cars have a completely different look. The bumpers, colour and wheel choice gives this 2 door Levin a different personality. I find it fascinating that these cars can take on so many personas.
I’m a sucker for that late 90’s early millennium look. Shane has similar tastes and rebuilt his 86 to look like one of the earlier Run free Levins. What is it about random companies nicely spaced out that gets us that excited? Those Watanabes too, sitting snug under custom arches. What a great car.
Keith’s 86 came in the iconic two-tone black over graphite from factory and is arguably one of the coolest paint schemes to ever come out of Toyota. He decided to keep this colourway and fit some mega sizes 15×9 Equip 40’s under custom arches. A Goodline bumper compliments the front end.
We made the most of the fog, I got the guys to drive past with their headlights on so I could capture the mood, I didn’t want to miss this unique opportunity.
Foggy weather complimented was the perfect setting for these angry AE86’s. The guys wanted to do some rings for the video. Its become an endless meme for the Juicebox vlogs at this stage!
I could have stayed up there till it was pitch black. It’s not often you get a bunch of Levins and an empty mountain, anywhere they parked up was a photo opportunity. 
We started to make our way down the mountain to try to catch the last bit of daylight in a car park below. I was on my own, trying to snap photographs in a bouncy K11 March and simultaneously capturing video. It didn’t work out to my advantage, although I did manage to snap a few decent-ish images.
This was such a cool sight to drive behind.
There was something very fitting about a bunch of Japanese Levins cruising along the side of an Irish mountain. After all, these cars have been tearing up Irish back roads for over thirty years. By the time we got to the bottom of the mountain, the day was against us and darkness fell pretty quickly. We would have to reschedule the rest of this meet over the next few days.
Two days later, the weather was on our side. We managed to get one more local 86 onboard for our take two adventure. The RYO AE86 was here to join the already well-stacked collection.
We decided to get a few quick snaps on the docks of Arklow, across from JDM Distro and then make our way out the road.
It was already peak golden hour in Arklow and the backdrop of those old containers was perfect for this collection of shiny eighties metal. If those Irish license plates were missing, you could easily mistake this for Japan.
When the sun comes out in Ireland, it’s a real treat, this weather was the very tail end of Ireland’s best summer on over twenty years and it made for some fantastic lighting.
The cars roared up the narrow main street of Arklow. I’d love to have been just walking down the street when a convoy of five angry AE86’s roared up the street. These days you don’t see as many modified cars on the roads. The 86’s stopped people in their tracks.
That lovely sound of four-cylinder Toyota’s screaming through the valley on a summer’s evening. I never wanted it to end.
We were heading out the lovely twisty roads to Avoca, to a car park not too far from Arklow to take a closer look at each of the 86’s.
Once we rolled in, we found a disused part of the car park and lined each of the Levins up side by side. Seeing five of Ireland’s finest AE86’s all lined up was hard to process. You might have noticed in the video I tried to get through them as briefly as I could, but to be honest I could have talked about each of them for another twenty minutes.
Regardless of how long it took, the lads were just happy to be out and about with their cars on a warm summers evening. We spent hours sitting around sharing old stories and chatting about each other’s cars.
That’s the magic of owning an AE86 or a modified car, it brings so many people together from all walks of life that share a common bond over these inanimate hunks of metal, something I’m very grateful to have in my life.