To polish a turd or “The act of trying to make something hopelessly weak and unattractive appear strong and appealing. An impossible process that usually results in a larger, uglier turd’. From the outside looking in, sometimes our way of spending money and spending time may look like a lost cause to the outside world.
Entering Mongolia during the Mongol Rally was an exciting moment for us all. We had survived police corruption in Kazakhstan..
It’s very seldom that I consider taking a day off from work during the week to attend a drift day at Mondello. Most of the big events there happen on the weekend which is very convenient and other drift days, well they have been a little unchanged in the last while. Now don’t get me wrong, all these practice days are extremely appreciated as it gives budding drivers a chance to hone their skills and get as much time in their car as possible.
So here I was, completely out of my comfort zone making my way across Canada, looking out the window of this chrome train at possibly one of the most epic and somewhat alien landscapes for this little Irish mind. Heading “up north” as its put, not really knowing what to expect. It was incredibly exciting but at the same time pretty scary, I’m sure many of you have that feeling once or twice in your life. This was one of those completely unforgettable life moments, so far removed from everything I had called life back home. I sat there taking snaps out the window trying to process nature on steroids.
I never really had a chance to say goodbye to this car, a car that for some reason I had such a love for. Its strange when someone finds themselves becoming so attached to a purple piece of metal. On paper it shouldn’t have worked, its colour is ridiculous in real life, its life was sort of a mystery to many. With a little digging we found out that the car was an ex J-blood demo car, by the looks of it, it was the first car to rock those pretty infamous over fenders and wings that the entire world has used over and over.
Another year another Japfest, the time when anything can come out of the woodwork to say hello.
Dave has had this car for almost ten or more years. In this world we never really own our cars, if the car is maintained well it will eventually pass hands when we are gone. This car has always been special to me because it gave me such inspiration over the years, back when the car scene was infected with filler and ICE installs, this Corolla had come in from Japan land stripped out with Advan A3A’s at the back and Longchapms at the front. Straight away it looked cool, a little track slut with odd shoes, something I had never seen before. It was silver low and ignorant looking, the complete opposite to every Max Power machine around at the time.
Dave’s car is well known amongst the 86 community in Ireland. Being one of the founding members of Garage Hachi, quite a hot blog up until a year ago, the guys have always had a serious eye for the right parts and have a true love for the 86 chassis.
So it’s the third birthday of Juicebox… a website we created back around three years ago with a mission to showcase the Irish car scene to the rest of the world, to show them all the good things that are hidden away down country back roads in sheds and barns and other places you would never expect to find rare metal on four wheels.