We hit the road to Gatebil in Rudskogen Norway in a bad Transit loaded with Reubens C33 Laurel. Enjoy this half hour special documenting our trip to one of the craziest car festivals in the world.
This photo set is from the second trip up to MR “X”. I was going to pile these photos in with the third trip but each time we head up there I always find myself snapping everything in sight. There is something new with every journey, something to leave you either confused or in awe. The little 5 GT Turbo has seen many AE86’s being stripped at this point, I wonder if it ever thinks it’s going to be next.
I’ve been trying to document the whole process along the way Via photo, before the vlogs the site was all about still imagery and its a format many older car guys would get their kicks out of from the days of online forums.
We look at a forgotten AE92 race car on the roof in Flips shed and get some more work done on the AE86.
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.
We head back to MR “X” to shop for AE86 parts. We also clean some 4A-GE valves and Flip gives us an update on his FC RX7
We are quite fond of any excuse to go on a road trip. I was very keen to make my way up to Flo’s garage just outside of Galway city. I needed some brand new essential bits for the 86 and his garage is the best place to find them. For anyone that missed the last vlog, Flos has a very rare setup on the west coast of Ireland. He managed to create a business out of his passion for old school Toyotas, mainly the KP and AE86 chassis.
We go shopping for new parts at Irelands only AE86 specialist shop. Flo Muller has created a very unique AE86 restoration/ spare parts shop in Galway so we head west to take a look at his setup.
To be honest, I wish I took more photos of the car in this form before we tore it apart. I guess when you are in the moment you don’t really think of these things. As the car was slowly being torn apart, a little voice from the future came back to remind me that the 86 was never going to look like this again. As fucked as it looked, the car was already cemented into peoples minds like this and long after its restoration, this version will be the car people remember. It was still running and driving, just missing the dash and seats and cage and well everything from the interior. I quickly placed everything inside and brought it out for its final photo shoot.
Did we just find the rustiest AE86 ever? Barry finds this poor Corolla at the side of a shed and we chop off its chassis leg to use in the Trueno.
Barry chases the last major rust holes in the AE86 and Reuben gets his C33 Laurel back up and running.
I had wanted to see this place for years. We are going to call this Person Mr X as this is what was requested. Being friends with MR X on facebook for a very long time and chatting back and forth about various cars he had imported, we already had a solid relationship. I had shot a few of his cars for the website at various track days over the years but never had the chance to visit his house, I had only seen photos of stuff for sale on Facebook. I was originally going to get a shell from MR X and build on it from there but then a whole other thing happened with the Trueno from Dans Garden.
Let’s get stuck right back into our walk around Japfest 2017. I can’t stress how good this event was, it’s a clear indication that we are out of the dark times. The car scene is booming once again.