PHASE_01: THE HUSTLE AND THE HARDWARE
The hunt began in February 2023. I was dead-set on finding a Volkswagen Golf GTI—specifically a clean, low-mileage Japanese import. At the time, my daily driver was a 2018 Skoda Octavia vRS Estate. I’d bought it mid-pandemic to serve as a reliable cross-country workhorse while travelling to install software for hospitality customers. But when my role shifted to remote-first, I was left sitting on a heavy monthly finance bill for a car that only stretched its legs on weekends. It simply didn't make sense anymore.
Trading the vRS in against a lower-value GTI proved incredibly difficult; dealerships simply didn't want to swallow the price gap on a trade-in. Eventually, I spotted an ad from Dunne Motor Services in South Dublin. It was a placeholder image with a price tag of €21,500. I fired over photos of my VRS. My estate was no standard family waggon—it was completely blacked out, aggressively styled with a full Maxton kit, 19-inch alloys, and a Thule roof rack. It was the ultimate "dad version" of the Batmobile, factory-specced with every single optional extra available that year. In fact, two days after I bought it, the original owner tracked me down and offered to trade his brand-new Mk4 vRS just to get it back. She was an absolute minter.
Dunne Motor Services made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I drove down, took the Golf out for a spin without ever having driven a Mk7 before, and fell completely in love with the 2.0-litre turbo petrol engine. The deal was done. That Friday evening in March, my youngest brother came with me to collect it. As we arrived, watching my VRS being driven away by one of the mechanics gave me a sudden pang of devastation—had I made a massive mistake? But the Golf instantly lived up to expectations. I immediately ordered a few small, subtle modifications—paddle shifters and a panel filter to let it breathe. I knew right then I was in this for the long haul.
PHASE_02: THE CARPARK REALITY CHECK
I ran the Golf for months in absolute bliss. The speed, the handling, the sharp DSG farts on the upshifts—I was hooked. To match that aggressive VRS energy, I ordered a full Maxton body kit and dialled in the exterior stance. I started picking up cheap cosmetic bits off AliExpress, thinking that’s what everyone did. Cars & Coffee became a regular weekend staple, filled with endless chats about what modification was coming next.
Then came the first major setback. We headed down to Mondello Park for the LZ World Tour. I didn’t think the car was ready to be displayed in the actual show because the wheels had a bit of curb rash, but it was set to be an incredible family day out. Drifting, cars, coffee, food—the atmosphere was unreal. But on the way into the venue, we hit a massive dip in the grass parking field. The front splitter smashed violently into the ground, fracturing into pieces.
I tried to push it to the back of my mind, but leaving the venue, the car was undriveable; the splintered plastic was dragging heavily against the concrete with a one-hour drive back home ahead of us. We tracked down a track marshal, pulled behind the grandstands, and borrowed an 8mm socket. Jacking the car up on the grass using the basic emergency jack from the boot, I ripped the broken splitter off in absolute frustration and threw it into the back. To top it off, as my wife closed her passenger door, the wing mirror glass fell clean out of its casing—a notorious Mk7 issue. I was at my absolute wits' end.
AliExpress called again. I ordered a replacement splitter, canards, and a few secondary pieces to patch her back together. I glued the mirror glass back in with Tec7—and to be fair, it’s held perfectly ever since. The car was feeling dialled again, but deep down, I knew it wasn't enough. It didn't stand out from the crowd. I remember watching a podcast featuring Adam from DriftGames. He noted that a standard Golf with a basic lip kit and wheels simply isn't unique enough to make an impact or make it into elite car shows. It needs to be special. Adam’s relentless attention to detail on his personal MX-5 build was a massive inspiration. Right then, the concept of the true JDM GTIR was born.
PHASE_03: THE FRACTURE AND THE MANUAL OVERRIDE
This was the exact genesis of OVER[RIDE]. It was the birth of the mentality.
It started on a normal Saturday evening at 7:14 PM, putting the kids to bed. My brother called, screaming down the phone line. Our mother was completely unresponsive at home. I bolted to the car. Living exactly three minutes away, I hit speeds completely unknown to our quiet country roads, hazards flashing, determined that nothing would stop me. I burst through the front door. At 8:01 PM, my mother was pronounced dead.
My heart shattered, but the survival mechanism kicked in. I had to manually override the grief and take total control. My younger brothers, just 15 and 17 at the time, had completely lost their mother. I gathered them up and brought them straight into my household. In the midst of the chaos, I had to be the anchor—calling her brothers, her sisters, her father, her neighbours, and friends to deliver the breaking news. It was the heaviest weight I've ever carried.
By Monday, we were out buying suits for the funeral. Afterward, we jumped into the Golf to head down to the venue to finalise the arrangements. Blaring through the speakers was Whitney Houston’s "I Wanna Dance with Somebody"—my mother's absolute favourite track. We stopped at the traffic lights, tears streaming down our faces, singing at the absolute top of our lungs. I wanted to hear the car roar. I wanted the echo of heavy DSG farts bouncing off the tunnel walls up ahead.
I launched it. The car slammed into second gear, violently kicked back down into first, and went BANG.
I managed to coast it to the side of the road, initially thinking the splitter had just caught a severe pothole. It hadn't. The engine had completely windowed the block, throwing rods through the metal casing. I phoned my uncles, pushed the car into a safe spot, and walked away. I had infinitely more important things to take care of that day.
Later, the car was recovered by a low-loader and dropped to AutoBay in Drogheda. A brand-new replacement GTI engine from Volkswagen was quoted at a staggering €9.5K. But the team at AutoBay were incredible. They sourced a pristine, second-hand heart from a 2018 Audi S3—the exact high-output EA888 engine utilised in the Golf R—for just €3.5K. It was an absolute no-brainer. It was time to go big or go home. Instead of refitting the standard IS20 factory turbo, I ordered a Garrett Powermax 2260S. The build was officially on. I had another runaround car to keep us moving, so I told them to take their time and execute it flawlessly.
PHASE_04: HARDWARE CALIBRATION
On December 2nd, I went up to AutoBay to collect the car. Barry had fired over screenshots of the final dyno runs. I felt like a proud father heading out to bring his child home. He walked me through the switchable mapping setups and gave me a fair warning: "It's seriously quick now; be careful."
On basic supermarket fuel, the dyno sheet registered a massive 387 horsepower. I immediately set out to burn through that tank. I pulled into a premium station, filled her up to the brim with high-octane Maxol, found an open stretch of tarmac, and clocked a 0–100 km/h launch.
4.1 seconds. 401 horsepower. My mind was completely blown. The JDM GTIR was no longer a concept—it was alive.
PHASE_05: THE INTERSECTION OF FATE
Next came the stance. I obsessed over wheel specs and styles before ordering a set of Japan Racing wheels from East Coast Alloys. True to form, it was another rainy Friday evening when I drove up with my two younger brothers in tow to get them mounted. The fitment looked beautiful.
A few weeks later, my wife started taking her driving lessons. The JDM GTIR was our only household vehicle—not a bad machine to learn in! To help her build up real-world confidence, I took her down to our local Tesco supermarket in the evening to grab a few bits. As we pulled out of the parking bay and navigated toward the exit, a Mk6 Golf packed with four lads came speeding blindly through the lanes, cutting directly across our front end. We T-boned them.
Another devastating blow. The entire front end of the GTIR was structurally wrecked—the bumper, the grilles, the bonnet, and both headlights were in pieces.
But in a bizarre twist of fate, I had literally just booked the car in with VW for a costly €800 adaptive cruise control calibration that had been acting up. Now, the third-party insurance company was footing the entire bill. Our Nextbase front and rear dashcams caught the whole incident perfectly, proving 100% liability on the other driver. The car was away for eight long weeks. I used that downtime to permanently retire the cheap AliExpress parts. I ordered a premium Zaero front splitter—and that high-end execution sparked a bug in me to redo the entire body layout.
PHASE_06: THE FIRST BIG SHOW
When the car returned, it was a beautiful, mismatched warrior of high-end parts and clean wheels, and I couldn't have been happier. Shortly after, I received confirmation for an outdoor display spot at Dubshed. I thought my chest was going to explode with excitement—DubShed was the absolute pinnacle for me.
I spent weeks reaching out to suspension brands looking for a build sponsorship, only to get stonewalled by everyone. Then, SEK Customs stepped up. I had always dreamed of creating a widebody aesthetic, but custom arches cost upwards of €1K. SEK stepped in to sponsor a full set of custom fender flares. We shook hands on a content partnership. (Today, if you Google 'MK7 Fender Flares', my build is the very first image that displays globally).
I ordered a set of BC Racing coilovers. Due to a massive logistics mix-up, a week out from the show, we realised the order hadn't cleared. I dashed down to MCG Autostyling, bought a kit straight off the shelf, and prepared for war. I was supposed to be at Dubshed for the full Saturday and Sunday gates. Instead, I chose to miss Saturday completely to install the coilovers and cut the widebody arches myself.
I did the entire installation on my back, on the concrete driveway floor. It was brutal, exhausting work. Factory bolts had to be aggressively angle-ground off, the steel factory wings had to be physically cut away, and the flares had to be mounted, aligned, and painted. By Saturday night, the car was spotless, slammed, and ready to roll.
The next morning, my younger brother hopped into the passenger seat to head up to the show. Halfway there, his phone rang. It was the news that his father had just passed away after a brutal two-year battle with brain cancer. Both of my brothers had been under my roof since our mother passed. We almost turned the car straight back around to head home. But my brother looked at me and invoked that exact override mentality I had instilled in him. He chose to push forward. We went to the show, locked the pain away for a few hours, and stood by the car. I knew right then this culture was exactly where we belonged.
PHASE_07: THE SYSTEM RESET
By 2024, the build evolved again. The original wheels were tucked too far inside the massive widebody arches, so I upgraded to a set of deep-dish Rotiform LSR wheels wrapped in 30mm spacers to completely fill out the stance, paired with a full, seamless Zaero body kit.
But behind the scenes, my health took a massive hit. A severe flare-up of fibromyalgia completely put me out of action for almost 12 months. I physically lacked the basic energy to clean the car, let alone wake up early to travel to national car shows. The build was entirely sidelined. My last major show was Dubshed 2024; my last casual Cars & Coffee was in April 2025. The car sat hidden away.
In April 2026, I finally mustered up the strength to attend a local Cars & Coffee. The medication was balancing out, and my body felt stable. I arrived late, around 10:00 AM. The reception from the community was overwhelming. People swarmed the car, asking endless questions about where the build had been hidden. It felt like someone had hooked a set of heavy-duty jumper cables directly to my soul. I was completely re-ignited. Why had I kept this machine hidden away? Because I had temporarily lost control of the code. Because I wasn't running the system. Because I had forgotten to OVERRIDE.
That morning changed everything. When I secured a display spot for Drift Masters at Mondello Park, I wanted a way to visualise the deep, hidden story behind this car. I opened up my design workspace and started sketching. Years ago, I had abandoned a formal art college placement due to the sudden breakdown of my family unit. Now, the graphic design fire wasn't just relit—it was an absolute inferno.
The OVER[RIDE] Collective was born. A fully registered business, a dedicated shopfront, custom technical apparel layouts, architectural posters, and custom decals. The system is reset. The manual takeover is live.