It’s no secret that Irelands economy is down the tube, day in day out we hear a new story of something bad, someone losing a job someone forced to sell a car. The truth is, the “glory days” of what will be remembered as that chapter in the Irish car world where the port of Dublin was flooded with a car culture from the other side of the planet. All these “JDM” cars started pouring onto Irish soil, snatched up from the auctions in Japan and shipped the emerald isle. This happened for a good solid 8 years, there had always been the odd few Japanese cars which made it over before, but the major car rush which was witnessed by everyone was truly something special. Ireland immersed itself in the culture, rims, bodykits, seats, drifting, all these goodies which suddenly ended up being everywhere, suddenly Japanese cars were everywhere, it’s the biggest part of the car world in Ireland and has been since they started coming across the seas in the masses back at the turn of the millennium.
The most interesting thing about the Irish car scene is the little niches that lurk in every corner of the country, friends and family which are all tied together by a model of a car or a manufacturer. Many people religiously stick to a company with the same type of passion a person would have for a hurling or football team. One of those people is a friend called Rob, he builds but mostly breaks Mitsubishi’s. He has always been telling me that there isn’t enough Mitsubishi’s on Juicebox.