A couple of months ago this little Vitz popped up for sale here in Ireland, at a first glance you could see the little cage peeking out through the back windows so we clicked on the ad to take a look. You just have to love the mystery surrounding many of the cars which made their way out of Japan. This is a classic example of that mystery, this quirkly little white Vitz, or Yaris as they are known here, generally seen outside of Japan as a proper commuting A to B machine has a much cooler story than meets the eye.
A few months ago a few mates had come across the Ocean from France to pick up this beauty. I decided to grab a few snaps before she made her way back. I’ve always enjoyed this car. It wears the Garage Masa have the M kit which adds the strawberry face to the s14. Sometimes 15 front on a 14 doesn’t work too good as a conversion as the strawberry front is a little sharper towards the more relaxed lines of the s14, but Ive always like the Masa kit conversion, its a pretty beefy aero kit which doesn’t look out of place.
Back to the final installment of Gatebil, the complete madness that funnily enough you start to get used to somehow.
The paddock itself is just as impressive as any part of the eventl, the words “that wont work” do not exist in these guys vocabulary!
Once again we were away, out of Ireland the country which at the time we were leaving was experiencing one of the hottest weeks in over twenty years. This was something none of us were going to care about because finally we were actually leaving the country with a plan we had made over a year before.
It’s always nice to receive emails about potential car features, with the whole Juicebox deal there has been quite a lot over the last few years. Every now and again you will come across something that is totally unique. Take this black AE111, first of you are thinking this is not that unique at all, we have hundreds of them floating around the country waiting to be stripped of its heart and the engine used for an AE86.
The EP91 certainly flooded our shores over the last ten years, such a love/hate car with many people. Its difficult enough to come across one that is is truly outstanding, as most of them are usually bone stock or have more stickers than modifications.
Sadly in the middle of a cold winters night shooting this car, after trying to track it down for a shoot for a year or so, my batteries died and these are the only two shots I walked away with. In a country where the car scene is so unpredictable and cars change hands like the weather, hopefully we will have a full feature of this little chunk of awesome over the coming months. Until then ill leave you with two pictures I didn’t want to vanish on my hard drive forever.
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.
One of the sheds residents, the KE55 came out for some air today. You sometimes forget its beauty, living mostly for the cold months under covers.
We decided to try and make it to the first event on the car calendar this year… round one of the IDC and Modified Live… Mondello’s own idea of a car show that to say the least looked like a bare version of Japfest… Even saying that a few unusual beasts made an appearance that more or less made the trip worth it.
I honestly didn’t know what to expect when approaching this car.. Pictures do not do it justice. In Ireland, we don’t exactly have much of a VIP scene… there may be about two to three proper VIP styled cars amongst a sea of everything else. Even though I tried to take decent pictures I couldn’t help but think about just how impressive this v300 was in real life.
The JZX100, a car that has always been at the top of the list of four doors to own… for some reason the idea of owning any of the Chaser, Cresta, or Mk2’s line has always appealed more than owning a Mercedes or BMW FR platform. The fact that Japan even created the cars and built each of the three with the same chassis but top half for a different reason is too awesome. They are just bad ass… simple as, in any colour or form. This example ticks all the right boxes…
