Appreciating Car Culture At The Juicebox BBQ
The Night Before

The Juicebox BBQ has become a regular fixture on the Speedhunters event coverage calendar.

It’s not quite a car show, and not quite a meet either. It’s more of a ‘give back to’ and celebration of Irish car culture. It’s kept mostly private in advance (not out of elitism, but due to capacity constraints at the borrowed venue), and while it’s not limited to any particular type of car or style, it is heavily tilted towards Japanese car culture. It’s pretty much the highlight of my automotive year.

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I dread the time that for some reason or another I won’t be able to make the BBQ, but I’ve a 100% attendance record since the very first one in 2016, and I plan on maintaining the streak for as long as possible.

It’s my direct connection and annual reminder of why cars and car culture are so special. Hint: It’s not the cars, it’s the people.

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While the cars are always changing, evolving and interesting, it’s the catch ups with friends that mean the most.

Cars in isolation are often frustrating and illogical money pits, but add people to the mix and suddenly they make a lot of sense.

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Any evening spent around friends and cars is one well spent. A camera to capture the various moments is optional, but worthwhile.

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However, I do have concerns about the future of car culture, so to prepare you, I’m prefacing these with a picture of Cody.

Should you feel overwhelmed, please return to this picture. Or you can just skip the words and move ahead to the photo gallery and ignore me completely (which is what I usually recommend).

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You see, my worry for the future is that regardless of how wonderful all of this stuff is now, I don’t think it’s going to last forever. I hope I’m wrong.

Home Of The Blaa

The morning of each Juicebox BBQ typically starts in the same slow but steady manner. Arriving at Flipsideauto, cars are moved outside and a rough plan is made for the day.

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The large (and kindly loaned) lumber yard next door is opened and walked about to check for any loose debris and to figure out a rough layout to fit as many cars in as possible, while still allowing cars to come and go as they please.

Each year the layout is slightly different, so allowances have to be made. While things weren’t due to officially start until around 11:00am this year, cars started arriving a lot earlier than planned.

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By 11:17am, the yard was almost full to capacity with just under 200 cars inside. A couple of stragglers were able to be accommodated after this, but everyone else had to be directed into overflow car parks around the industrial estate.

Thankfully, being a Sunday, there was minimal disruption to any non-BBQ-goers in the vicinity.

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The one sole (and entirely selfish) upside to this was that with no room for any more cars to enter, I was actually able to spend a decent bit of time walking about and poring over some of those present.

Neil Sheehan, the primary human behind Juicebox, has a very special ability to attract the very finest JDM offerings in Ireland into one very out-of-the-way location. It’s always an impressive feat.

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As is the way with the Juicebox BBQ, the variety of cars on offer was simply sublime. I saw the JZX81 Mark II at LZ Festival, but was thrilled to get a proper look around it.

It’s interesting to see a lot more S-bodies on air suspension, which makes huge amounts of sense considering the condition of roads in Ireland.

What about that Toyota Sera with Audi wheel trims and an intercooler crudely poking through the bonnet, though? Phwoar.

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That’s not to ignore the amount of inconspicuous looking Hondas with surprisingly large turbochargers, and the occasional AWD swap, either.

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The Juicebox BBQ is typically a short occasion, so you need to decide whether to look at few cars in-depth, or more cars quickly. There’s no right or wrong decision here, because either way you’re always left wanting more.

At around this point in the day, I had a realisation: Everyone present was of a certain age, or older. Now, this observation can be easily dismissed with ‘well, that’s just Juicebox’s target audience,’ which isn’t wrong at all. But, I started to think when was the last time I had seen actual ‘youths’ in modified cars? When we were growing up, there was the usual logical progression of sh*tbox first car at 17, and then something much more interesting once you passed your test.

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When you look at the general cost of anything even slightly interesting, it’s not really surprising that 18-year-olds aren’t buying into car culture. Figuratively or literally. It wasn’t particularly easy for us either, but it’s a whole other level of difficulty these days. What used to be $5,000 cars are now $20,000 or more.

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I do genuinely feel sorry for the young car enthusiast these days, and have all the more respect for those that are still trying to make a genuine effort. I’m not exactly an old man either, but if I was 10 or 15 years younger, I don’t see how I could ever have enjoyed the car life that I have so far.

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There’s no blame or shame to appropriate here, it’s just the world that we happen to live in and which we have very little say in.

While I’m 100% capable of enjoying moments and days like these, there’s still a part of me that is aware that they won’t be around forever and I think that’s a genuinely sad thing. I wish that more people could experience the joy that cars bring us. If the world was full of car enthusiasts, it would probably be a better place.

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For those of us lucky enough to be able to enjoy cars in whatever way we can? Appreciate it, be grateful and do your bit to share that joy of machine with others.

There’s no guarantees about what’s going to be around in the future, just what we can enjoy today.

Paddy McGrath
Instagram: pmcgphotos
Twitter: pmcgphotos
paddy@speedhunters.com

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16 comments

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1

Worrying about the future of cars is a good waste of time. Things will change, kids will grow up and take our place as caretaker. Others will modify the upcoming electric cars and they will slowly become part of the BBQ's and car show meets. We will grow older and remember our time with our cars, trucks and motorcycles, out on the road, in our garage fixing them and the deep connections we had with them.

Author2

You're probably right to a certain extent (at least I hope you are) but those who inherit cars etc. without having the same passion instilled in them throughout their life, do you think they're going to have the patience / understanding / desire to maintain and run them?

3

Paddy, I'm your age and have been going back to school. I have been pleasantly surprised. Frankly, the accessibility seems to have grown. Studying here in the library on campus, I see four or five japanese-car-themed t-shirts at this moment. The parking lots are filled with modified hoopties and tuner mobiles. The enthusiasm for these cars is literally main-stream among the youth now.

At work I've had interns under me for the past four years .... while I believe that there was a generation or two lost (my generation being one) due to the removal of shop classes in high-school, the implementation of "robotics" classes have given the younger generation a hands-on manufacturing/tinkering understanding that hearkens back to the 70's/80's.

I'm not an optimist naturally-speaking, but I do have high hopes for the future of automotive enthusiasts.

4

Younger people aren't going to miss out because of a lack of cars, they will miss out because it's too much effort. Older generations were used to going out and interacting with other people, social media gives younger people the feeling of being involved without leaving the couch.

Author5

I think this whole youth apathy argument is itself a bit lazy, TBH. There's plenty of hard working young people out there.

6

Never said there wasn't but youth socializing has changed dramatically over the past couple decades. Add a culture of instant gratification and easy access to nearly anything and hobbies like this will start to decline. It's a hobbies that requires either alot of money or alot of hard work.

7

You know I was going to say usually I come here on Speedhunters to look at different kinds of builds from different meets and shows and marvel at the spectacular pics taken to capture the moment
But after reading your story, I realize that this is no ordinary commentary to showcase photography here this is more of a perspective of life especially looking at the past, present, and future
Honestly I am not so worried about the future I am more concerned about my career, my family, and my life in general and nothing is really guaranteed the future isn't really defined or official as many people would like to say anything could change now you never know
I just want to enjoy the moment in the present just to be in the moment with my family and friends just enjoying life maybe in the future we will be enjoying the same things maybe it could change
And sometimes we can be hardheads at times especially towards the younger generation we need to be a bit more open and empathetic because children in general come from different backgrounds and upbringings they're not all the same really you'll be surprised at how many times I was proven wrong after having a conversation to some kids who were few years younger than I am (I am 20 btw) and I have actually learned a lot more from them
Sometimes we need to understand that in our lives privately or publicly we go through a lot of things from time to time ups and downs so we should be more understanding because you never know what they could be going through at home and not pressure them and judge them comparing them to different generations we should give them a chance and be more inviting and more open and that can help them come out and be apart of the community to have a good time with us that was something I learned the hard way sometimes we just got to enjoy ourselves and just not take things so seriously and personally sometimes we just need to put social media to the side with all the stereotypes and stigmatisms there's no need to label anyone and bring hate to others especially when they haven't done any harm
I still have hope for the younger generation and we need to realize that they could be the change to help make the world a better place after all we can't be here on earth forever lol we should try to support them to the best of our ability and embrace them in our community to help create leaders of the future
But yeah sorry for the long comment I just wanted to share my thoughts and I hope that this can help create a better understanding for all of us and I hope that this is something that we can all benefit from
Thank you Paddy for sharing this amazing post and here's to many years of Speedhunters! Cheers!

8

"you can just skip the words and move ahead to the photo gallery and ignore me completely" if i'm still a frequent SH site visitor it's because of the words.
I never thought i'll see a jetski in a car meet.

9

Always look forward to your covering of the BBQ Paddy, such quality cars.
As for the young people getting into cars, I beleive it's changing, but not necessarily going away. While everyone may have been skidding Japanese coupes to oblivion in your day, a whole lot of people here in Australia are now moving into old Hiluxes, Land Cruisers and other 4x4s. Not my scene, but they certainly seem to be the majority at my age. I dont think there is less people, they're just choosing different cars and blending in more. There's still a strong contingent of drift/skid cars at the bottom of their depreciation curve however. For example, I managed to score a VZ Commodore wagon for $400, have it running for under $1000 and on the road for under $3k as my first car recently. There are still deals to be had! Getting into the cars that were around when you were young is certainly more expensive, perhaps impossible now, and not everywhere has cheap RWD gamily cars to fall back on like Australians do, but I'm not overly worried.

10

I mean, young enthusiasts turning down an interesting car for the prices is one thing, but most of my age group drop a lot of money into quad tips, riviera r4’s, tinted tailights and a ‘reek’ map for their 1.9tdi, amongst ever single lip, skirt or decal they can get hands on. Never mind actually trying to be different from each other either, they’re all mostly done the same way.

I honestly wouldn’t mind it too much if they didn’t just do the same thing and cruise a 5km circle around MacDonalds.

‘agri spec’ is the way of my age group now.

11

I mean, young enthusiasts turning down an interesting car for the prices is one thing, but most of my age group drop a lot of money into quad tips, riviera r4’s, tinted tailights and a ‘reek’ map for their 1.9tdi, amongst ever single lip, skirt or decal they can get hands on. Never mind actually trying to be different from each other either, they’re all mostly done the same way.

I honestly wouldn’t mind it too much if they didn’t just do the same thing and cruise a 5km circle around MacDonalds.

‘agri spec’ is the way of my age group now.

12

sorry for the double post, internet acted up!

13

I don't know if it's just the younger generations that aren't as car mad. I'd say in my life I've only met maybe 1 or 2 other people that are into the car scene as much as me and I'm in my mid 30's. What I do know is though, my 9 year old is just as much a petrol head as me and is already making plans to buy his first car at 15 to start modifying. my 5 month old is already showing interest so I hope I've done my bit to carry it on.

14

"If the world was full of car enthusiasts, it would probably be a better place" Quote of the week for me

15

Always fun to see people reach an age where they start repeating concerns the generation before them had for the future.

16

Impressed by the article and commentary it generated! Such a broad spectrum to generalize in, this might be a solid case of "everyone is correct". Just adding that as Robotics and AI begin to functionally replace the more mundane aspects of progress and productivity, earning/getting a start on affording this new car marke- I mean- "Culture" becomes married to what happened to art and music. Everyone participates virtually, but then after seeing your millionth quad-charged whatever with all the trimmings bolted on, all the "culture" will be left with boils down to the mere driving experience. That experience will be a sort of entertainment as BEV/hybrid/complex mobility solutions and newborn infrastructure won't allow for a practical, sense-making daily "drive" (if we are even driving at all). Urban density still shooting up as more and more look for higher and higher paying jobs, commute might begin to eliminate the car altogether for the kids already born now.

In the end, these ICE sports cars are now just toys, and it's nerdy to obsess and collect any toy when you're an adult. Gonna have to pay to play so the soul is already gone now that buying a solid driver means a year of the average salary... It's now a game of balance and responsibility, especially when what you buy keeps on appreciating and "going for a spin" means you're bleeding hard won money by the month-loads (time=money). It's too much, no longer simple. No mystery "car culture" is mainstream, and anything mainstream is "boring" simply because it all meets the same fate... "The Thrill is Gone..."

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