Silver Bullet

The game of social media in 2022 dictates that you need to conform to the rules. You need to have an account on every platform, make reels, have a TikTok account, stagger your posts so that you don't 'Blow the beans' and annoy people with too much rambling for fear of losing reach, engagement and those all important followers!

Normally, I like to abide by the social media commandments and do as I'm told and rarely does a car come along that would make me think 'Fuck it, I'm going to let loose on this one' and I use the word 'rarely' very seriously. Rarely is something so cool and elusive and rarely does a shoot go so well(Apart from my Ronin-M deciding that it didn't want to function properly. which turned out to be my fault) that I fire it straight to the top of the list of content I need to show people.

But those days do come around, even if they're set in one the hottest weeks I can remember. Where the wet sponge that is the country of Ireland got hotter than the French Riviera. Where the pastiest of men daren't venture outside for fear of instant atomisation. Where the thoughts of bringing my S13 to this shoot quickly turned into me robbing the keys to my better-halfs new and air conditioned Corolla.

Rumoured to be an ex-Revolver demo car and sold on the Revolver website back in the day, this 86 is on its third owner in Ireland having been imported by Brendan Ellis back in 2015, it didn't look too disimilar to now only for a set of narrow SSR Longchamps and an OEM bumper. Under the bonnet though has seen quite a few changes including a couple of engines after an extremely quick and powerful 16-valve went knocking(This is all from memory and not actually confirmed so please let me know if I'm wrong!).

After a few years, the car came to be owned by Dave from Hartley Autobody who had it for a year or too, added the GoodLine front bumper and improved on small areas of the car especially from an aesthetic point of view. But I've not known Dave to keeps cars forever and after a while, the temptation for something else came knocking and the car was advertised for sale.

The current owner Darren, is someone I've been pals with for 6 or 7 years at this point, having got to know each other through our mutual love of Hondas and in particular, the EK chassis. This was at a time when the Honda community was thriving as they were still an affordable and easy to insure car, meaning you could probably afford to terrorise housing estates into the early hours of any morning and it wouldnt cost you too much petrol!

But such is life, Darrens eye was always looking at something top-shelf and by that I mean the premium modified cars of this world like JZX's, R-Chassis, AE86s etc. When the EK was parted out I wasn't really sure what way he was going to go but lo and behold here we are after a number of years of ownership I finally got around to shooting it.

Its not a car I remember often for some reason but when i do think about it, it just envokes this feeling of a better time, when these cars weren't insane levels of money and you could drive the shit out of them and still find parts and maybe I'm reminiscing about that time because I was young and free and not a grumpy bastard with a horrible outlook on things?

Either way, I'm happy this thing hasnt changed much, Silver is the mutts nuts when it comes to colours for a Corolla and how there isn't more painted similarly in this country baffles me. I guess that contributes to why this thing stands out so much! The link-powered 16-valve 4age under the bonnet will also soften the cough of anyone thinking this is all show and no go and having somehow been thrown the keys to yet another 86 that I don't own(seriously, these are mortgage deposits now, stop handing me the keys to them!) I'll happily vouch that this thing handles like a go-kart and has the touge shredding power you've always dreamed of.

Rarely have I written so extensively on one of these features and it takes a special car to give me such levels of motivation but this is one of those cars. Maybe its the owner/car combo as well? I've never given that much thought. Earmarking that for one of the fictional podcast episodes....