YES! Parts and magazines Arrive at JDM Distro from our Japan in a Van trip, making it one of the best days ever at work.
Here are some photos from the time we drove down to Group D. Group D is the brainchild of Darren McNamara, a well-known legend in the Drift scene. Darren has been tinkering with Corollas for a long time, and he developed a rear coil-over suspension for the AE86 with a company from the UK called AVO. You have probably seen the vlog episode from this day, with the old legend and his lovely little starlet. I had a mega backlog of photos from older episodes that I will throw up on the site every Friday. Enjoy the images of the day below.
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.
A photo flashback to the night we fitted the bus in the shed. This night was such a funny moment. We had no idea if it would fit through the door or even slot into Reubens space in the shed.
When we were backing the bus in, we thought it would be a perfect time to sort the broken front light on the shed, so Barry (Other Barry) climbed up to replace the bulb.
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.