We head to the hills and check out a few hidden gems, a stunning Sileighty, and an angry JZX100 Cresta.
The AE86 shell progress moves forward and the shed experiences an unusual level of efficiency, we fix some lights have a BBQ and Bryan pulls his forgotten Trueno out for a wash.
In this episode, I take you to work at JDMDistro where my wheels for the AE86 arrive from Japan.
A few months back, Dan a good friend of some of the OG Waterford guys called down to Waterford for a visit. After a few conversations, I told him I was after buying an AE86 shell and was looking to go down the path of misery chasing parts and doing a restore.
You’re fifteen years of age, your Dad tells you Christmas and birthdays sorted for the foreseeable future, somehow you have ended up with your dream car. You look outside and you are the proud owner of an AE86.
So for the people who have been following our trip to Japan so far, quite a lot of this will be car related (as you may have guessed). This holiday was planned out as a car holiday, so it’s going to be an automotive heavy story throughout.
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’s no secret that we here at Juicebox have a serious love affair with the AE86. There is just something about these cars, the spirit, the reward, and the simplicity, all embodied in a very genuine very simple, honest little chassis.
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.
I’ve always kept an eye on these two cars, two of the nicest AE86’s rolling around the streets of Waterford back when everyone was deep in the fast and furious Max Power world. These cars have been with the owners for years. I decided to feature both cars together fresh out of a restoration. Both owners went completely different directions so it a fascinating story. If you’re wondering why we’ve called this thunder vs. lightning, well because Trueno translates into thunder, and Levin loosely translates into lightning.
Chris Gray just got back from an interesting trip to the infamous Tec Art’s garage in Japan. For those of you who don’t know who Tec Art’s are they are probably one of the most well known ae86 tuners in Japan. Tec-Art’s is a small family-run shop in the outskirts of Tokyo, a place that over the years Kamata-san and his brother have turned into one of the most respected hachiroku shops in Japan, They’ve built some infamous cars, we recently had this video on the site of the Eco 86 which Tsuchiya drove around Tsukubu in video option.
Lets continue where we stopped with part 1, looking at some super nice examples of some of the countries nicest ae86’s.
Hot Version proves yet again that the AE86 can still keep up with the latest cars! While they proved the AE86 could still easily win from several great cars like the Skyline R34 or the Honda S2000 and tuners like RE-Amemiya and Amuse, they now proved it can even keep up with the latest Eco trends: the Tec-Arts Eco AE86 beats a field of Honda CR-Zs (and a Mini)!
This Hachiroku was undoubtedly one of the most well known in this country. The car just had that vibe which made it stand out. It looked so fresh for its age. Being 27 years old the car didnt look one year of it. With its fresh coat of metallic red over black and some shiny work equips with some insane dish on the rear, this car oozed everything an ae86 should carry.