The 4-Door Life At LZ Fest

Generally you may be so near one thing, with out realising what you’re taking a look at.

If there was one factor extra prevalent at Ireland’s recent LZ Fest than the rain, it was a merely beautiful quantity of saloon vehicles, or sedans as our North American associates name them.

The factor is, I don’t assume I had ever actually seen simply fashionable they’d turn out to be right here till the great Jordan Butters pointed it out. Naturally sufficient, I ignored him (as I like to recommend everybody does), till later within the day after I had the realisation that there have been truly fairly a lot of them in regards to the Mondello Park paddock.

As a descendant of a household with a predilection for saloon-type vehicles, the sudden consciousness that I’m not alone in my appreciation for them was fairly comforting.

My preliminary love for four-door fashions happened courtesy of BMW’s E39 M5, however the (virtually) full takeover of Irish automobile tradition by Japanese imports all through the final 20 years has created a good bigger pool of cool, quick saloon vehicles to study and recognize.

There’s one thing so brilliantly understated a couple of 500+hp modified saloon automobile that was as soon as some boring enterprise individual’s delight and pleasure. It’s wonderful what a tickle of enhance and a locking rear differential can do to a automobile’s character.

Whether or not your personal tastes have you ever gravitating in the direction of the Chasers, Crestas, Crowns and Mark IIs of the world, or in the event you lean extra in the direction of Laurels, Skylines, Presidents and Celsiors, there was one thing for you at LZ Fest.

A few of you’ll recognise Reuben’s Advan-liveried Laurel from a past feature, and can discover the addition of a brand new (and to date, unpainted) equipment.

One other past feature car from the Juicebox steady remains to be going robust. Eamonn’s HCR32 Skyline continues for use as meant, when it’s not holding me up by crawling over speed-bumps…

It could be amiss of me to speak about saloons, and never embody at the least one German instance. I beforehand was by no means an enormous fan of the E34, however they’ve grown on me one thing mighty over the previous few years.

The Chaser has at all times been the preferred of the JZX platform vehicles in Eire, and particularly the JZX100 variant. It has, nonetheless, led to almost all JZX100s and JZX90s being known as ‘Chasers’ right here, regardless if they really are or not. I reckon most homeowners have simply given up correcting folks at this stage.

The JZX81 stays my private favorite of the lot, ever since watching a High Performance Imports DVD that includes Tezuka-san doing follow runs at Mizunami in his 2JZ-powered Mark II. That is what my JDM desires are manufactured from – a Mark II and a few connoisseur rooster and chips.

Is it unusual {that a} Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI feels kind of out place right here? Regardless of being a four-door, Lancer Evos had been purpose-built efficiency vehicles from the manufacturing facility, the place as the large luxurious sedans very a lot weren’t, at their inception at the least.

Right here’s one other Mark II, however with a way more aggressive styling bundle than the black instance on RAYS Volk Racing TE37s at first of the function.

Main bonus factors for the tri-colour Speedhunters sticker within the rear window (no, I don’t have any left, sorry).

This Toyota Crown of a classic period was one other standout of the occasion. In case you wanted an instance of how the proper experience peak and wheels could make a automobile, that is it.

Whenever you consider four-door vehicles, Skylines perhaps don’t come to thoughts immediately, however the R32 and R34 examples are amongst among the best saloon shapes to ever come out of Japan. The ER34 particularly, with the best equipment and wheels, is a timeless wanting automobile.

The usually-derided-in-Eire Toyota Altezza isn’t nearly as good as this. I’ve seen this automobile a number of instances over the course of the 12 months, and I actually want different native Altezza homeowners would take notice, slightly than limiter-bashing their vehicles in first gear round a site visitors cone.

Tri-spokes on a Mk1 Escort? Whereas ATS wheels are very a lot a German model, I can’t assist however get some strong JDM vibes from them. I feel my thoughts has been corrupted by Tremendous Advan Racing Model 2s.

I can’t recall ever seeing a non-Cosworth Sierra of this calibre earlier than. It’s great seeing folks put their very own fashion onto beforehand unloved examples.

This aggressive JZX90 was one other excessive level of a standout collection of vehicles on a really moist afternoon.

I do know for certain I’m lacking a number of actually good vehicles (I’ve an terrible tendency to generally salivate over a automobile after which utterly neglect to take an image), so my apologies to anybody else who was rocking the four-door life at LZ Fest in the event you had been missed right here.

I’ll depart a gallery under with a number of extra examples, whereas I am going to mattress and lie awake at evening praying I haven’t mislabelled a JZX…

Paddy McGrath
Instagram: pmcgphotos
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paddy@speedhunters.com