Ireland’s Forgotten JDM Boom: Where Thousands of Japanese Legends Went to Die
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- This is the story of Ireland's Forgotten JDM Car Boom. We take a deep dive into why so many Japanese legends ended up in Ireland and what happened to them.
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Sorry for the late one here guys, I got way too into making this, digging for pictures and old videos. If you are in it, I hope you enjoy it. There are some pics over stuff I'm saying and it doesn't mean I meant that person at that time. It's just that I needed imagery to keep things moving. I also want to thank anyone who helped by contributing footage and stories. This is such a fascinating story in Irish car culture, and I hope people from this era will comment below, I would love to hear more from you and your stories. Cheers for watching, as always, guys! Also count how many times I say a car, would make for a dangerous drinking game
Great documentary Neil and thanks for taking the time and the effort, David Attenborough would be proud !!
Class lad. It was a very cool time. Few clips there of me in the Bn s13. Real good times. Still love the jap stuff 20yrs on😂✌
Another great production Neil! Fair play 👏🏻
Neil we could never be upset for more amazing pictures thanks for making my night as always
My dad had some amount of car he had
1. Nissan 200sx
2. eg d16
3. Eg6 sir ii
4. Subaru b4 wrx sti x4 ( he owned 4 of them)
5. Bl5 sti wr limited it ate its turbo
6 now he has an a4 b8 3.0 tdi quattro 275hp
I read a comment once that said "Neil is the David Attenborough of jdm car parts"
I think that has to be said again.
Great job on this video, it really was a crazy time to grow up in Ireland
I’m a Canadian and I had an Irish boss for a bit and I went for my interview in my Type R Impreza and he raved about it. Sent pictures of it back home to his friends and told me about these days growing up and now it all makes sense.
You're one of the only people who could deliver this video with such authentic passion and that's special. Thanks Neil
Far out man. I've been a professional TV journalist for years and this was truly a great piece of work. Killer storytelling.
2:02 my father filmed this video. We have plenty more of meets if you want I have a look at them
I bought my Integra DC2-R in late 2007 and was incredibly lucky to be able to keep it through the economic crash. It was my daily driver for a few years, until rising petrol prices made it unfeasible. The calculated that the amount of petrol I used each week covered all costs of a diesel Avensis (both a loan for the car and diesel!). I took the decision to park the car up in late 2011 and by not driving my own car, i got a free car. makes no sense, but I was determined to not sell it unless I absolutely HAD to. 14 years later, I still have the car, but it barely sees the light of day. Kids, house, life... everything got in the way of re-living the golden era of JDM.
Maybe we'll see what the summer brings!
Love the video #juiceboxfor you, please keep them coming. Keep giving life back to the scene that made us.
well well well we meet again 😎
You sound like a mirror image of me and a parked up jdm car that hasnt seen the road since 2016. I had 4 Teg R’s and would love to drive one again.
I thought for a second I had written this comment without remembering .
I took bought a DC-2 Type R in 2007 and daily drove it for 7 years racking up 475k KMS on it. Never missed a beat. Ate a few drive shafts and a clutch or 2 but engine and gear box were still tip top. I only let it gomas it got harder and harder to get parts by the mid 2010's and the body work was getting tatty. Didn't have the heart or patience, time or space to pull it apart and do a big refurb on it , which I now regret as it would probably be worth twice what I paid for it at least.
I still think about it often when I'm on a nice winding back road, my Volvo v50 is a great reliable economical car but it has never put a smile on my face the way that they could.
I really hope you get to put yours back on the road and enjoy it.
You definately could mention about all the forums: Cruise IRL, Racershaven, Midnightclub etc etc they were a key part into knowing what was going on. What a time to be alive it was mental looking back on it.
Definitely a huge part of it all. Without the forums, we'd not know what cruise or event the lads were going to. I'd think nothing of doing the 4 hours from South Galway to Tramore to watch lads block public roads and do rings.
Racers Haven! What a time to be alive!
Honda haven and DTD !
Manic Motorz, DTD and many more. The true glory days of the Irish car scene. Made many good friends from there!
Shout out to the Astra Paul! 😂
Grilled cheese, tomato soup, and a juicebox import mini-documentary is really the most ideal Tuesday afternoon I could have imagined. Epic surprise to see on my feed, cheers!
Hope you get some value out of it. I put a silly amount of imagery and videos from back in the day in here
Damnit, where's the cheese🤤
i got coronation chicken and a slice of jamaican ginger cake.
I had a sandwich of rashers, cheddar cheese and ballymaloe relish on sourdough bread with chicken vegetable soup for my dinner while watching this masterpiece. Felt I had to share due to the similar choice of food haha
@juiceboxforyou what was the name of the importers on the old kilmeadan road in a small industrial estate out by non stop karting? Surely ya can dig out pictures of that place, they had an impressive line-up
Big nostalgic vibes. I happen to have the flames FC at 18:30. She's still 90% as she looked back then. A few stickers missing, different wheels, an s13 dash, but the flames are still there. Not bad considering it competed in D1SL back in 2006. I bought it from a fella called Stavros aka Stav (Stav-tech), who imported in 2009. He's put loads of stuff on the driftworks forum about it. Did loads of stuff with it. it even had an OM606 at one point. I bought it in 2018. I'd only just got into drifting the year before and at my second event at rockingham I followed one of the sickest things i'd seen... Adam Magic-Jetski's slammed red FC on advan sa3r's. They hadn't really been on my radar, but following those quad tail lights lit up on one of the last dusky drift trains of the day had me jonesing for an FC. This one just happened to be for sale a few months later. No engine, but no rust. It took me a while but I eventually got it going with a 13bt and had it on the road for a bit of the summer in 2022. Id actually planned to use a turbo zetec that I was building, with a bmw box. The 13b just happened to pop up on market place, with a very suss 19k worth of unprovable milage. Hopefully back out on the road this year
Wow, what an absolute solid chunk of history this video is!
I often talk to people in other countries and they're always baffled to find out so many JDM cars ended up on this tiny little island. I'll be sending them this video as a response from now on
The amount of ''on the book'' in the ads is hilarious haha
The owl insurance work around was the shit , I couldn't get insurance on any Japanese imports atall back then so I bought and Irish starlet 😉
Non turbo on the book 😂
I'd a couple of non turbo starlets...even a non turbo impreza...which was actually a 2 door sti😅
Not jdm but Doing the leaving cert., I'd a e30 316 with full 325 running gear. Couldn't afford a piece of it now 🙈🙈
I grew up in that era and its only now we get to see how lucky we were. I still have my qualitat altezza that will eventually get the love it deserves and hopefully get on juicebox
Had my drivers license in the mid 90’s. It was quite the time to be in. We got to do a lot of stuff kids now don’t get to do without being arrested.
Such a great video Neil! I was very very blessed to be a part of this scene back then, brought back a load of memories. If you ever start a podcast id love to come on and tell you my account of the times back then :)
Big up the buttsy lad! Sick driving man seen ya at Mondello, didn’t realise how far back ya were in the scene seeing you in this vid 😅🔥
The amount of content you’ve acquired is amazing. And the way you’ve editing it makes this probably the most fantastic tribute of Ireland’s car culture history. You’re an Irish national treasure Neil. 🇸🇬
This is peak juicebox, the memories unlocked🤯 the flashbacks of being there and having those cars at that time, right down to hanging around the docks gran turismo spotting😂
Incredible!
Thank you
But too young to have lived through this era but im 20 now and going to santapod and having magazines like 2011-14 this is so nostalgic,
Definitely had a impact on me, managed to scrape enough apprenticeship wage up at 18 to buy a dc2
Lovely video Neil. I’d argue that Ireland experienced a boom that wasn’t and never will be replicated again anywhere else in the world. Not for the price points at least. Truly a bygone golden era of performance, tuning, and style. Thanks for this culture piece.
Looking forward to the next piece. A lot of the truly “halo” builds out of Japan are still sitting in sheds. Great to see they were rode hard, put away wet, survived, and are now being revived. Saw some lads out in the UK just redid the SuperLemon R33 not too long ago.
This is peak juicebox. After watching the video wanted to add, one of the cars that you posted on instagram ended up in Lithuania, the yellow make up drift team ps13. It was around 2008 and it was immediately stripped for parts including numerous other cool cars that were used for local drifting
This is so cool anything else of note that made it to Lithuania??
@henno.666 yeaah, Yashio factory lhd 240sx. It was used for drifting for many years untill it got crashed beyond repair. All of those cars were exported through power vehicles
Great video Neil. bringing back so many great memories 🙌 luckily enough I remember the boom well and taking out a loan for my first integra type r back in the day it all went down hill from there 😂, I see the cruise demo s15 a few times in the video, my wife and I were the first owners of that car in Ireland imported by wes at WKD Imports, still one of my favourite S chassis to this day and I believe it's still on the go but unfortunately not in the cruise pink. My wife used the cruise s15 as a daily for a little over a year. I need to dig out some old videos and photos. But yeah what great times they were.
If you have anything, please send it to me on Facebook / Instagram, I would love to add it to the next video. I have it on the list of cars for the top 40 for next Mondays episode! It always was and always will be one of my favourite s15s! Cheers for commenting
surreal scenes here jheez
Such a wild demo car as a daily for the wife, it´s hilarious. 😂😂 Wild times man.
@juiceboxforyou I sent some pictures to you on messenger on Facebook, but i can't send videos for some reason 🙃
@ankracing yeah even when I think about it myself back then it was quite crazy using the car as a daily driver and it wasn't just driven a few kms down the road she was doing over 120kms a day to work and back and across some crappy little Irish back roads as we lived in the country then lol, definitely a car we both regret selling.
I wish the government would chill on the VRT a bit. Don't see what the point is now post Brexit when it's already incredibly expensive to import cars. Our second hand market is massively distorted price wise due to limited supply.
It’ll never be decreased because it’s a money spinner for the government and it’s protects dealerships and allows them to charge outrageous prices.
@@MANTHELEXUSI’m not sure I’d agree as the dealerships have to pay the VRT on new cars also making them
More expensive
VRT is technically illegal is it not?
@@sejn2587 People have to buy cars either way. Dealers have a captive market here.
The EU has ruled VRT is illegal and fines Ireland every year for it. But the revenue generated is way more than the EU fines so the Government has absolutely zero incentive or reason to change it.
On the upside anything over 30yrs is a flat rate of €200 so it is getting easier to import a lot of the icons, anything older than 1995 is more or less vrt free now
Thank you for documenting this. You're a pure asset to the community ❤
My da had bought a Toyota Soarer 1J in 2005, dailyed it until 2011 and had it sitting in the garden until 2021. He sold it to the ESB meter man, I was absolutely raging. Engine was perfect, was just parked up due to cost of tax.
Though I'm from the states, growing up in the same generation and culture has me deeply connecting to so much of this video as it's tugging at my nostalgiic heartstrings.
Only the second video I've seen of yours, and I'm sub'd for good.
I had no idea this boom in Ireland existed until this video, and I'm slightly jealous you got to enjoy them so well and purely during that era we grew up in, because in the US, we're just now (legally) getting the leftovers of a lot of the jdm legends at insanely marked up values because of their rarity and value by now.
Thanks for such great content, shedding light and backstory on your scene with such thorough and passionate explanations/information, and overall passion for the culture. 🙏
This sounds exactly like New Zealand’s story with JDM cars and drifting, sadly I was a bit young to truly experience the times of $5,000 R32 GTS-t Skylines, I grew up with NZ Performance Car magazines
Another kiwi here, same story. Got my licence in 2011 and it was just a tad too late.
Was thinking this exact same thing - awfully similar to NZ back in the day. I managed to be born too late to really enjoy it as well - should have bought all those $2k Skylines and Silvias when I was 8😂
Another kiwi here. So much like the Nz seen in the golden years. I was around to catch the tail end of it all in the Christchurch scene. Every weekend the streets were swarmed with imports of every kind. Back then you thought it was cool but man, looking back on it 15 years later we didnt know how special that era was. The cars were used and abused not knowing that it wouldn't last forever and cars wouldn't be made like that forever. Im fortunate to still have a few of the cars from the era but the scene is a drop in the ocean to what it used to be. All of the cars that are of any interest spend there lives in sheds only to come out for a warrant every 6 months as there of to much value now to drive all the time.
I'm Irish living in NZ. I can confirm a lot of imports but the difference is Nz got very few legit "Tuner cars" from Kazama etc that made it here. Heaps of Fd's ,Cefs ,skylines etc though which is awesome. Another big difference is Aunty cruising in a 32 4 door is still something you see here 😂
@ Yeah we definitely do lack the OG Japanese TAS/Demo/Comp cars - one thing I wish there was more of here. We do have the OG D1NZ cars cruising around track events here and there though
Fantastic documentary work Neil. The Celtic Tiger was a wild time. To folks outside of Ireland, all these wild cars used to be mostly daily driven. You'd see Skylines or Supras getting the food shopping. College parking lots would be packed with Starlet Turbos, Civics, Integras, you name it. I knew people who turned 18 and bought MR2s, Lancers that were engine swapped to turbos, Skylines insured under the parents name, and daily drove them everywhere. 16/17 year olds working part time and building these wild Civics and CRXs. I was a VW guy at the time and had no idea how unique these cars were outside of them being fast and cool.
You couldn't give these cars away after the 08 crash. Upkeep in Ireland is seriously expensive. For many of these you'd be paying €1000+ road tax and €1500+ insurance every year, on top of rapidly increasing petrol prices. When people were unemployed or taking huge downgrades in pay, it was just impossible to keep the cars.
It's worth noting that the Juicebox blog was a game changer in this time too. For many people it was the first time seeing the Irish car scene photographed so professionally and accessibly. I was a VW guy and was so impressed, like woah, these cars and these photos are up there with the US blogs like Stanceworks that were exploding at the time. Irish car culture had loads of amazing builds but they were mostly built for their own enjoyment. Lots of owners didn't post photos online or go to every show. I knew builds in the VW scene that were on par with stuff you'd see in UK and US magazines and blogs, but the owners had no interest in pursuing that. They just wanted to build and drive a car they liked. Juicebox was a major home-grown way of showing people what's out there just out of genuine interest.
An impulse purchase of an EG6 SiR in 2006 is what fuelled my love for JDM. Even now as a married father of 2, both the family cars are Honda. Our JDM scene in the UK was on a smaller scale than Ireland, so I'm grateful to see the Irish scene being so well documented.
I’m from Texas and grew up in this era and I wish we could go back. I didn’t realize Ireland had such a big JDM scene, thank you for sharing with us. It was a great video and really takes me back.
We had a similar scene in Australia. The importers here and Ireland must've been fighting it out hard on USS auctions!!
Alot of jdm goodness hiding in sheds in Aus luckily!
Ireland would have about the same number of JDM cars as Tasmania. They have No idea what the real JDM...and other, scene is like. The scene now is way bigger than the 90s/2000s for JDM. We have a scene they could not even Dream of.😆
@@kramrollin69how do you even know? You sound like a clown
@@kramrollin69you are incorrect. Ireland had one of the best jdm,modified car scenes for a long time.
@@kramrollin69 Nigel no clue
Neil mate you have given me such a deep and genuine look into Ireland as a country and its culture, and I thank you for that. Never stop seeking out new stories!
Brilliant work neil. I enjoy these deep dives into our past. Some times we need reminding of the good times with some of the shit that happens these days.
Great video as always Neil. Another major point to mention about the recovery years - it's not just the issue of the price of the cars going up between nostalgia and VRT and all that, but actually being able to legally drive them in the first place. The days of lads getting insured on a Glanza or Silvia as a first car are long gone, 95% of current companies are going to run a mile when they hear any older Japanese models. I imagine most took a good few hits back in the day with the amount of ‘non-turbo on the book’ going on etc, but the result is that it’s nearly impossible to insure JDM performance stuff these days. If you don’t have a trade policy, your only chance is a classic one which need you to be 30+ years old, have a shed to store the car overnight, own a second ‘main’ car that’s also insured in your name, and so on and so on.
Without a doubt one of the most interesting stories in the car scene worldwide. The more I learn about the Irish car scene, the more I see myself moving to Ireland one day.
Please make more videos about the Irish car scene Neil!!!
Please don't move here for the "car culture" - Ireland doesn't have one, the fad has long passed. The kids of the early 2000s ruined it for everyone else, giving the insurers a reason to apply heart-attack inducing premiums to anything that's more exciting than "diesel Passat".
What passes for "car culture" nowadays are a bunch of teenage kids with orange girlfriends bringing their fartcan-equipped diesel Golf to a Tesco car park. Occasionally they'll have LED strips on the underside. Rarely, you'll spot a non-orange girl bringing her own car to these meetups 🤣
All you'll find here are cheap cars that aren't even sold in the rest of Europe (intended for lower-budget markets like Latin America and South East Asia; Ireland is one of the richest countries in the world, but people want as-cheap-as-possible cars that then they'll fail to maintain to decent levels) and absolute masses of bland diesel econoboxes or "premium" cars in their lowest possible spec. If you look in the right places, you can occasionally spot some relatively recent BMW 318d with STEEL wheel rims and plastic covers.
For their part, the government has been doing anything it can to literally erase cars from Ireland, from insane sale and import taxes to road infrastructure to letting insurance companies run completely out of control.
Anything vaguely interesting is A-rare; B-clapped out and C-sold at insane prices.
@ it‘s the same here in Germany man.
What do you mean with Orange girls though? 😅
What a great video.
I'm from New Zealand and I feel like it was a very similar story there around the same time.
I bought my first car, An R32 GTST for 3k nzd in 2007 and thrashed the guts out of it! Haha We really didn't know what we had or how lucky we were at the time.
my dad was hugely into the max power stuff at the time and he was showing me what he owned while going trough this video. its great to have someone like yourself who is able to document such an amazing time for motorheads in Ireland.
Man that black Trueno drift video brings back memories! ❤
Wow brought back so many memories! Thanks a million! Great episode! I had to pause and rewind so many times lol soo many good cars! Well presented Neil! Looking forward to the next one
really enjoyed this upload as i wasn’t old enough to experience this scene back in the day can’t wait to see the follow up video
Its mad seeing soo many cars that you would of recognised back in the day, starting to make me feel old 😭 this was well put together and essentially is the story of juiceboxforyou ❤
Great video! Nice time capsule for the ages! Loved being part of the scene, would love to see this scene coming back…
So much nostalgia in one video, had me reminiscing my whole life and where my obsession began all those years ago. Couldn't have been delivered better by anyone, thanks Neil 👍
Wow what a video, so much work and love has been put into it! For me, a foreigner who moved to Ireland 4 years ago and being passionate about drifting , this video is an eye opener really. Now i get it a bit more of what has shaped the drifting community. It is very sad to comprehend that we are now pretty much enjoying the leftovers of the JDM cars here in the country.
NEIL!! THANK YOU! For all these awesome vids you make. they mean alot to most of us and it makes are hearts happy.
This was a great watch Neil! Looking forward to that next episode
Neil thanks so so much for your time and effort in putting this video together. Really appreciate it. What fantastic memories I have of the jdm times gone by. I was and still am a starlet gt man and I even use a starlet gt turbo for my work car for the last 10years. My wife is from abroad and was super excited to show her this video. Us jdm lads are really fortunate to have the likes of you to keep the memories fresh in are minds of times gone by. Thos cars are naturally coming more rare as times go on with are climate in Ireland so we really have to look after them. Anyways Thanks again pal. Keep up the good work 😊
This was such a wonderful nostalgia trip for a fellow Irish man myself. I hadn't seen your channel until UA-cam recommended this to me but I'll happily sub and binge your videos now. I'd give anything to go back to these days...
What a great video Neil! This is history! Thank you for this content!
Absolutely fantastic video mate, so interesting! Honestly feel like this video has sparked my love for cars yet again after losing a lot of love for them recently. Keep it up mate, smashing it as usual!
I absolutely love the shift in editing and overall quality in your videos. Going full time was a brilliant idea, Neil. I highly appreciate your work, sir.
Just to say, this was one of the best videos I’ve seen on the history, so much footage and research.
Absolutely deadly video Neil, can only say thank you 🤘
This video is so nostalgic. I still remember meeting Buttsy and O'Sullivan in the old ProDrift days. Man those were the days.
Amazing video love how well put together it is
This is peak UA-cam. Love it. Thank you
Always enjoy your videos. It's unfortunate how many of these cars saw their ends. I think another reason a lot of JDM cars get wrecked is because there aren't that many people who actually know how to make a modified car work when it's having issues.
Neil you absolute legend this is top shelf content i just cant believe you dont have more subs!
That's a fantastic video lad.... Some amount of nostalgia from when I was just getting on the road 👌👏
Stumbled upon your channel by chance, and what a gem! Thanks for sharing this. I'm from France and had no idea about this vibrant jdm culture in Ireland in the 00s. You explain it with such passion and great content, it's amazing ! I only got to experience the later part of your story as we went to the UK and Ireland to pick up cheap cars in 2016-2020 for export to France. At the time the value was amazing ! I understand now that it also had its drawbacks as it essentially lowered the number of cool jdm cars in use in Ireland...
Pretty much the same story here in the U.K.. once all those cars were here and then they were just gone. At the time I had a highly modified ST-185 that I sold to put a deposit down on my first house. These days, or for at least the last 10 years I have been the happy owner of a Pulsar GTIR. I’m never selling it. It reminds me of that golden era. Thank you for your memories that resonate with so many of us from that time who were lucky enough to be part of it.
Its frustrating to be a car lad in Ireland tbh, VRT and VAT on top of the insurance regime makes it nearly impossible for the working person to own a decent or half JDM
AMAZING! THIS is what the internet and social media are for. Absolutely brilliant- keep up the good work!
Finally. I am french and it's been 6 months that i say to my friends that ireland had an incredible jdm scene, but i hadn't enough knowledge to exlplain deeply, so i was waiting for an irish guy to publish a video about the irish jdm scene. And then you came, the video is perfect, and gosh i envy all of irish jdm fans, the scene is so much better than here in france
Great video would love to see more deep dive history videos. I already tought ireland had so many jdm cars but the amount of cars you guys had is insane and to hear that 80% of them were scrapped is so sad to hear.
Brilliant episode. A real flashback to great times with the magazine and all the great people I met along the way including yourself. As gran turismo was where my love of jdm cars began I totally get that. Keep the great work going. Look forward to part 2.
Amazing work Neil. Loved every minute
Fantastic documentary Neil.
I grew up in Ireland in the 80/90s, here's my take on the two main reasons why the Irish import scene blew up shortly after that time:
1) through the 80s/90s, Japanese manufacturers were selling loads of cars into the Irish market, and the brand recognition went up massively. Toyota was the big player, they really cornered the market for quality daily drivers at that time. My family owned Carinas (II and E), Corollas, RAV4 and probably other models in that time, a lot of buyers were now trusting Japanese brands and had ditched the Fords and Vauxhalls of earlier times. Travelling to England in the 90s, it was striking that UK buyers were buying Ford, VW and French brands but Irish buyers were much more focused on Toyota and Japanese brands.
2) Irish buyers were already used to the idea of imports. Grey imports from the UK in particular were very common, everybody knew someone who drove an import, although most were run of the mill UK spec cars. We thought nothing of taking a day trip across the border to buy a new car, as the UK stuff was cheap and better spec than Irish cars, which were almost always pov spec. Import taxes were also low. As a result, there were already a lot of import companies in Ireland, coupled with buyers who wanted their products. This (and rally) also partially explains the glut of UK spec twin cams at the time - importing was just so easy.
With both those factors in play, once the economy was strong then it was a natural step to start looking for Japanese cars at the source. The rest is history.
Absolutely one of the best videos to date
Amazing video as always. I want to chime in from America, the JDM market has drastically come to a slow pace. Cars sit on marketplace for months, sometimes a year, parts not selling, I see history starting to repeat itself as you've covered in the 2008-09 segment. I do wonder when it'll pick up again. Without videos like this, it's hard to explain how good we had it. Long live juicebox
Holy moly thanks Neil. That was real fun and informative.
Woow 🔥🔥🔥🔥 what an incredible episode Neil, loved being able to see the jdm boom and how it all started, I 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Thanks man. That was a blast from the past. Well done.
I remember being able by clean S13 shell for 1500 bucks. Wish I had more money back then. Loved living during the peak days of JDM. 43 now and drive a heavily modded NB Miata daily. True car enthusiast never surrender,I'll drive low, loud, JDM when I'm 80 and can barley climb into it.
More than just a trip down memory lane this, it reminds me why have what seems nowadays as this totally irrational love for 90s JDM, for rear drive, VTEC and that unmistakable sound of a 2JZ with a big single turbo. I met and made friends with a lot of great people in the video too.
Great memories, but more than that you've captured the essence of the time we were in back then. Crazy days. Brilliant film.
Andy (RMS).
I grew up through all this, it was great fun, feel sorry for kids these days not growing up with the same. First car was a K10 which I made into a super turbo replica during the max power era, second car at 18 was an Integra and the Honda obsession started from there...
Video brings back memories of Glanzas “1.3 non turbo on the book” and Colt Mivec RS’s… anyone else feel old 😂
Never diffed😂
Grew up in that era in cork, I remember the amount of cars that used be cruising around, I had civics,integras,Silvia’s,evos the lot,and so did all my buddies, god i wish we knew what we had then! In Australia 12 years now and have an ae86 in the garage that I shipped over from Ireland last year, the good old days dohc vtecs and Nissan turbos Everywhere! Great video man keep up the good work
Proud to be a part of the very early car scene with Tom in MAD Racing. They were great times. Family, life and responsibility meant I stepped away far sooner than I'd have liked. I'm still working with cars though! Great piece well done.
Great video guys ! So many memory’s !
@10:08 I feel so sorry for that lad... when he hit the tire wall I said to myself 'ah he got away alright not too bad just a bumper' then the lightpost fell and smashed the window and dinged the roof, a rotten bit of luck for him. Great video, first time watching this channel but I have now subscribed and intend to watch more as its well put together and has some really class footage from back in the day.
I've literally just bid on and won a GTO today (probably not hard to find on ebay) and seeing that just felt like a bad omen haha
What a serious effort creating the video, loved seeing all the old footage from 20 years ago. I genially think that deep down the genuine enthusiastic will never die!!
I remember Callaghan's in Burt co. Donegal used to be fully booked out on Saturdays with people buying new rims, exhausts etc, anything from Honda's to evo's/STI Subaru's / Skylines.
I suppose that why it was called the boom (the good times)😎
Amazing video this & explains the process for someone even just over the pond in England,
I loved the JDM scene just as much but never quite understood why you guys in Ireland had so many of these Legendary cars for such a small place ,
Genuine passion over there & love / appreciation for the scenes unreal 👍👍❤
Some memories from flicking through the auto trader as a kid drooling over the imports then buying my own on Gran Turismo 😂😂
Thanks for putting this together 🙏
Crazy video, as someone that is not from ireland I didnt know that soo many important cars ended up there, now with this video you have motivated me to look for information about the beginnings of jdm scene here in Spain and see if any important cars were imported here. Keep it up man¡¡¡
Neil you’re the car guy I need in my life (UA-cam will have to do) , your collections and knowledge of JDM cars is great. Thanks for this video. Brings back the memories l also grew up loving and still love, JDM cars of the mid 80s to early 2000s!
Such a well made and informing video! Thank you
This was unreal! I remember buying my first import back in 2005 which started me off down a slippery slope into JDM obsession. You captured the buzz of the car scene from back then perfectly, I remember being able to go for a drive any night of the week and you would always bump into other car enthusiasts parked up or racing around the streets. We could drive to certain car parks and be sure to have a steady stream of modified cars to watch drive by. Central Scotland never grabbed on to the JDM thing as much as Ireland I feel. Although there were lots of JDM cars around, they were definitely in the minority. Juicebox was one of the very few websites I could go to each week to see JDM car photos. And it always confused me that it was Irish. So to have this explanation nearly 20 years later is amazing! 😂
It's mad the amount of jdm cars you would meet on the road everyday not knowing some day it will be a rare sight to see one, 😢
Great video, crazy to see some of the prices back then
A lot of effort putting this together. Well done. Thanks. 🤙
Sick!!! More of this please! Keep it up 🤙
Greeting from Southwest Texas
Awesome content great story telling from a time long ago looking forward to the next chapter 👌
8:34 Top Garage Silvia I think has been imported here in the Philippines. Not sure if it's the only Top Garage Silvia, but it's been here for quite awhile before they "officially closed importation"
If it's not the only one, then I'm pretty sure it had the same livery and color palette as well.
21:54 is my R33 😅
Must have been a lot of work putting that together man, loved every second ✊️👊👊
Incredible job on this video!
Fantasitc video. I can't imagine how fierce the scene was when thousands of affordable performance cars were flooding into Ireland when young enthusiasts had money to buy them. Any scene, whether it's cars, scooters, motorcycles or music eventually dies out. If you find yourself involved at the peak, enjoy it as much as you can, make the effort and go to every meet and event. For me it was motorcycles in London at the back end of the 00's. There were rideouts on Friday night, Saturday day and Sunday day. You could spend the whole weekend on your bike with the club and upwards of 30 people turned up for most rides. It was phenomenal. Of course it didn't last but we had 3 good years before the main players moved on to other things. But at the time it was my lifestyle. I was living for bikes and the weekend. I was living fast. Well at least I thought I was. And I felt alive.
Great video, was lucky enough to have experienced this era, the yellow s14.5 at 31:10 was mine before it went to France selling it is still one of my biggest regrets
That was a fantastic video Neil, loved every second of it, was delighted to be able to own some of the cars at the time, but also makes me sad to know it will never happen again, and the chances of me owning another Skyline outside of winning the Lotto are slim to none. Was delighted to see that Google street view of mine from the quay.
Great video Neil on the history of the Irish car scene, like you I was just a kid when modified cars would fly around small rural towns in the 00’s and it all disappeared.
Thank you for just perfectly encapsulating a bit of my childhood and reasoning for being such a car enthusiast, especially for "japcrap", I absolutely love these nuggets and couldn't have said it any better myself.
I'm a bit younger than you Neil, but I've always felt older than my age 😁 this is a lovely video and thanks again for making it.
amazing video brother.. Ireland has so much in common with New Zealand.. we had the same import boom here!
Perfectly researched, probably because you lived through it, and produced documentary, man. Top notch. I followed your Blog back in the days, sadly quite a few japanese Blogs were taken down. You should totally do a Video about them and the start of Videos
Excellent video! So many great memories from back in the day captured perfectly here. Even managed to spot my own R33 at the skyline meet around the 21 mini mark and I still have it 17 years later on the road 😊