Another Blog post about MR X! As we mentioned in a previous post I always come armed with a charged camera and a pocket full of cash. This place is always full of surprised and someday we will look back on guys like this and think about how crazy it was that he could import these cars from the other side of the world and dismantle these cars to save others.
I must admit it was such a nice feeling being handed the keys to a freshly imported ae86. The fact I was going to have this car for the next four days was exciting. Up until this weekend, I had never actually driven an 86 for longer than a couple of hours. As you might have remembered from the last vlog, Dave threw me the keys while he stood there in full Nicholas cage attire.
Let’s kick things off again with part two of last years BBQ. Like I said in the previous post, we cram as many images as we can into these articles, mainly because the quality of cars that attend the BBQ is truly incredible. We want to show as much of what made it to the event as we can. It’s always a reminder of the thriving Irish car scene.
So many of you have just watched our recent video about our BBQ from last year. Here are some of the photos we somehow managed to get while putting together the event.
It almost seems like I never owned the Trueno, we got it in July 2017 and the car was actually in one piece until October of that year. We brought it to AE86 festival, Japfest and then stripped it down for blasting. Its been a shell longer than a car at this point and as of writing this, it’s a year and five months of metalwork with Barry.
It was August 2018, Ireland was enjoying one of the best summers in almost twenty years. All of our friends were away at a festival for the weekend so myself and Flip decided this would be the perfect time to paint the March.
These photos are from AE86 festival last year. This is easily my favourite event here in Ireland and for obvious reason. The amount of cars that come out of the woodwork for this event is staggering. Ireland is flush with some of the greatest AE86’s in the world and its something we should be proud of. You could very easily mistake these photos for Japan.
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.
This photo set is from the second trip up to MR “X”. I was going to pile these photos in with the third trip but each time we head up there I always find myself snapping everything in sight. There is something new with every journey, something to leave you either confused or in awe. The little 5 GT Turbo has seen many AE86’s being stripped at this point, I wonder if it ever thinks it’s going to be next.
I’ve been trying to document the whole process along the way Via photo, before the vlogs the site was all about still imagery and its a format many older car guys would get their kicks out of from the days of online forums.
I figured this would be a good place to post progress with the little daily nugget. So far as in how far the car has come on the vlogs, I’m trying to keep both the vlogs and blog posts somewhat in date. Most people have already seen the car in it final silly form but ill save that for its own separate post.
We are quite fond of any excuse to go on a road trip. I was very keen to make my way up to Flo’s garage just outside of Galway city. I needed some brand new essential bits for the 86 and his garage is the best place to find them. For anyone that missed the last vlog, Flos has a very rare setup on the west coast of Ireland. He managed to create a business out of his passion for old school Toyotas, mainly the KP and AE86 chassis.
To be honest, I wish I took more photos of the car in this form before we tore it apart. I guess when you are in the moment you don’t really think of these things. As the car was slowly being torn apart, a little voice from the future came back to remind me that the 86 was never going to look like this again. As fucked as it looked, the car was already cemented into peoples minds like this and long after its restoration, this version will be the car people remember. It was still running and driving, just missing the dash and seats and cage and well everything from the interior. I quickly placed everything inside and brought it out for its final photo shoot.
I had wanted to see this place for years. We are going to call this Person Mr X as this is what was requested. Being friends with MR X on facebook for a very long time and chatting back and forth about various cars he had imported, we already had a solid relationship. I had shot a few of his cars for the website at various track days over the years but never had the chance to visit his house, I had only seen photos of stuff for sale on Facebook. I was originally going to get a shell from MR X and build on it from there but then a whole other thing happened with the Trueno from Dans Garden.
If you scroll back a bit you will see the original post where we went to check the 86 out for the first time. Looking at these photos it’s actually hard to believe this is the state the car was in for at least two or three years. I really wanted to shoot as many photos as I could the day we rescued it but to be honest, I was a little wiped out pulling this thing out of the bush. So many things were going through my head as I trying to focus on making some sort of a decent video to kick start these vlogs. It’s funny looking back over a year and a half later at these snaps and take it all in once again. I really had no idea how this was going to pan out.
