The power of driveability is one of those hidden factors within the modified car community that really deserves more appreciation. Its something that, especially with the condition of most roads where I live, you could trade it like currency if you could bag it up!
Theres big pressure these days from all sorts of angles, mostly social medias, to have the best parts and the shiniest or rarest of bits on your car.
But money doesnt always buy reliability and I’ve definitely succumbed to the ‘everything has to be the best’ mantra. Some times these parts or services are necessary, a lot of the time they aren’t.
So, what if your shit just works?! What if you just maintain your vehicle, drive it for the 6 months of the year where the weather isn’t complete dogshit and take it to loads of nice places and get more drive time in a month than most track or show cars will ever see in a decade.
As I drive over the humps and hollows of the Wicklow Gap in a Rav4, I glance into the rear view mirror and Paddys Red PS13 is charging along with me, followed closely by his buddy in the Red Carina. A good road surface all things considered and one of the most scenic roads in Ireland but somewhere a fibreglass-rich S-Chassis would wince at the thought of traversing as we made our way from Hollywood over the top of the Wicklow mountains towards Glendalough.
A road I’ve travelled a number of times, I knew the spot I was looking for, on an evening that started with a great sky but slowly turned to patches of light shooting through an ever-darkening landscape. Planned shoots are cool but somewhere rural like this always appeals to the ‘leave it where you left it’ in me so, as we pulled up to the spot thats exactly what we did.
A number of other cool machines passed as I began shooting including some lifted Hilux’s and any amount of motorbikes, with the lads egging on the riders to go faster as they passed. The light was at its best as I started so I decided to grab some video first, something I would never have done at a previous shoot like this but such is the nature of social media now that I’ve noticed my own priorities shift in the last 12 months towards producing more video.
Chasing the perfect photo is still a real passion and its a shame to see platforms like Instagram show priority towards video now as it chases the attention of the TikTok generation but I’ve put that on my list of ‘Topics for another day’.
One thing capturing video gives me, is the ability to take in more of a cars features and focus on what makes each car unique. Too often, have I come away from taking photos of a car and have little to no recollection of the experience because my sole focus was to get the best pictures possible. Memorable scenery normally does wonders to jog the memory of moments in time and I’ll remember this particular Friday evening for some time.
Cruising through the mountains with both an iconic chassis in the PS13 and something I’d deem to be equally as cool but way more obscure in the form of a TA63 GT-TR Carina
will live with me for a while and when you can enjoy it with your friends, have some laughs and share your love for 90’s Corollas then that sits right with me.
If you want to see my video from this shoot then click the link below!
No Bad Vibes! 
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