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Putting the MIRA back together

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A budget Kei car earns its second life as a JDM turbo tribute.

Marty Mulholland and Blair “Moog” Joscelyne of Mighty Car Mods are back in the shed with the Daihatsu Mira, and this time the little car is coming home from the paint shop looking better than it has in years. “Putting the MIRA back together,” Season 11, Episode 32 of the long-running Australian DIY series, picks up exactly where the previous episode, “Painting the MIRA,” left off — with a freshly resprayed shell that now has to be turned back into a functioning car without a single scratch.

• The episode follows directly on from “Painting the MIRA,” the prior installment where the car was prepped and completely resprayed before returning to the shed.
• The build combines JDM TR-XX turbocharged mechanicals, interior parts, and styling pieces from Marty’s original Japanese-market Mira with an Australian-delivered base Mira shell, used because imported Kei cars face strict local road-registration rules.
• The episode is entirely dedicated to reassembly — trims, weather seals, windows, panels, lighting, interior components, and hardware all going back on the freshly painted body.

Necessity of Second Mira Shell

Marty and Moog’s history with this car goes back to their time driving and modifying a genuine JDM Daihatsu Mira TR-XX turbo in Japan, a project documented across their “Marty’s JDM Turbocharged Daihatsu Mira” series. Bringing that actual Japanese-spec Kei car home to Australia and registering it on local roads wasn’t a realistic option given how tightly Australia regulates imported Kei-class vehicles. Their workaround was to source a locally delivered, Australian-market base Mira and use it purely as the shell, transplanting the JDM turbo mechanicals, interior, and styling pieces from the original car onto it.

That swap is the reason this episode exists at all. Once the donor shell had been stripped, prepped, and sent through the paint process covered in “Painting the MIRA,” the crew were left with a bare, freshly coated body that had to be built back up piece by piece — bringing across everything that made the original TR-XX special in the first place.

The Reassembly Grind

Where the previous episode was about stripping the car down to bare metal, this one is about the opposite job — and arguably the more nerve-wracking one. Every trim clip, weather seal, window, light housing, and interior panel that came off before paint now has to go back on, and the margin for error is razor-thin. A dropped tool, a misaligned bracket, or a careless refit can put a scratch straight into paint that just came out of the booth.

Getting the MIRA repainted was the easy part — putting it back together without wrecking the finish is where the real patience test starts.

That tension runs through the whole episode: fresh paint versus decades-old Kei car hardware that wasn’t designed with modern turbo internals or JDM styling parts in mind. Fitting components that were originally pulled from a different Mira entirely means extra fettling to get panel gaps, seals, and trim lines sitting the way they should on the new shell.

Part of a Longer-Running Build

This installment doesn’t stand alone — it’s one chapter in Mighty Car Mods’ ongoing 2019 series tracking the Mira’s full transformation from a cheap commuter shell into a high-spec tribute to Marty’s original turbocharged JDM car. Fans who’ve followed the channel’s other long-form projects know the format: incremental, hands-on episodes that build toward a finished, driveable result rather than a single reveal. Viewers who enjoy watching a build get chipped away at episode by episode will recognize the same patience-testing rhythm that shows up in projects like Turning $0.01 Into a House in 1 Week: Days 7-28, where progress comes in small, deliberate steps rather than one big payoff.

It’s also a format Mighty Car Mods has leaned on for years — long-haul series content that rewards viewers who stick around for every installment, not unlike the episodic grind documented in 100 Hours In Minecraft Hardcore: Episode 1, where the appeal is watching something get built correctly over time rather than rushed.

With the shell reassembled and the JDM turbo mechanicals back where they belong, the Mira is inching closer to being a running, driveable car again rather than a shed project split across boxes and panels. That’s the next milestone Marty and Moog are chasing — getting the TR-XX turbo motor fired up in a car that finally looks as sharp as it drives.