We are very fortunate to have people like MR X in the car community. For years, he has been supplying the AE86 community with much sought after parts. He has been breaking Corollas for parts for well over ten years, and it is a necessary evil, sometimes it’s sad to see cool cars he has killed, but most of the time, every last piece of that car ends helping another.
We go AE86 parts hunting at MR X’s stash to find the missing bits for the Trueno build. We also get a quick look at MR X’s private collection.
If my younger self could see me now! That young freckly fucker obsessing over Gran Turismo 2, sitting in his room listening to that smooth jazz menu music, looking at cars he had never heard of in the used car garage. Here I am, many years later, still chasing the dream, still into the same stuff I was back then! I think my younger self would be buzzing to see the space I have in the shed with sound friends, a few rusty Japanese shit heaps, a few bikes, skateboards and silly bits pushing on into my 30s. It’s not much, but I try not to take it for granted, best to enjoy the ride. This night made me incredibly happy.
We are back at it in our shed with the Trueno progress and updates on where to go next, with a few surprised along the way.
The AE86 shell is finally back on the ground, rolling on all four wheels, a big step forward in this build. It’s finally starting to feel like a car again.
A big moment! We finally start assembling the AE86 shell. This weekend was probably the most exciting part of the build. The plan was to get it rolling in Flips after paint and wheel it back to our shed.
Fitting new parts onto the shell was one of the greatest feelings. Everyone was buzzing to help, which made for a hilarious weekend of assembly craic with the lads. It was a huge milestone, it felt like we had reached the peak, and everything was going to be easier from here on in. After looking at the 86 as a bare shell for so long, I was starting to wonder if we would ever get to this stage. Out of nowhere, the body went from looking more or less the same for two-plus years into pretty much a rolling chassis in the space of two nights. It all happened so quick that it took a week or two for my brain to catch up.
I found a photo set from when we brought the March and the Civic to the track day. I’m pretty sure this is from March 2019. This day out was such an enjoyable day with the lads. We had a blast in the Civic thanks to Trackdays.ie, and took the March out just for a laugh,
We find a famous AE86 and the perfect KE70 Corolla hidden in the Irish countryside.
I’m playing catchup, editing these photos and chucking them up on the site, but I’m enjoying the process of looking back at the progress so far. You’d miss build threads on old forums. These days it’s youtube for that sort of stuff. Regardless of the vlogs, I’ve still been snap-happy shooting as many photos as possible of the progress.
The AE86 gets its first coat of paint! We finally paint the interior and the engine bay on the Trueno before we begin assembly. A massive step in the right direction!
Man! What an epic feeling it was to finally get the shell’s interior and the bay into the paint. Unfortunately, the loss of my father right in the middle of the project put everything on pause for almost eight months. We had pushed the shell over to Flips in March of 2019, and it more or less sat there until October, gathering dust.
Our trip to Japan was well needed, and when we came back, we decided to crack on with the project.
I was incredibly nervous as we sanded the shells interior for the final time, Jackie had helped out with the sealer earlier in the year, and we had just primed the bay. Flip was giving the engine bay seams a coat of sealer before we covered everything with paint.
A flashback to the time Barry called down to work on Adrian’s Carina, this was the day we shot the photo of Barry’s head for the sticker we ended up making inspired by the Boss coffee logo.
Barry brought his Darth Vader mask to do a bit of welding, I love days like this in the shed, and I’m looking forward to more of them over the next year. It’s great having like-minded immature mates around; we all keep each other in check.
It’s incredible looking back over these photos the past few months, seeing how far we have come with the build as I’m writing this, its just over four years of owning this project. Time has flown by.
This photo set is from the weekend where I conned Josh into helping build the spit, something we should have done at the very start of the build and not toward the end of the metalwork!
Jackie was calling down to seal the bottom of the car, the 86 didn’t even receive any treatment like this from the factory, so it should last a little longer. The idea was to brush sealer into the seams on the bottom, and the entire base of the car would eventually get a spray sealer to ensure the Trueno can withstand miserable Irish weather.
The AE86’s engine bay gets sanded down for its final coat of paint, we get distracted by a Rally, and we check out a freshly imported ’78 911 from Japan.