Daihatsu Mira

Daihatsu does not build many cars like the Daihatsu Mira: a 3-door hatchback/van / 5-door hatchback with 547&nbsp, built from 1980 to 2018 in the age of turbocharging and the first electronic engine management.

The story

The Daihatsu Mira (also known as the Cuore, Domino, and more recently Charade) was a kei-type city car built by Japanese car maker Daihatsu. It was built with a variety of options and chassis variations, with the latest variant having four models: Mira, Mira AVY, Mira Gino, and Mira VAN. The Mira is the latest successor to the line of cars begun with the Daihatsu Fellow of 1966, and was originally introduced as the commercial version of the Cuore.

Outside of Japan, the Mira has also been offered with larger 850 or 1000-cc engines. In Australia, the two-seater version was marketed as the Daihatsu Handivan and later as the Daihatsu Handi. The term mira means "look (at)" in Spanish and "goal" or "purpose" in Latin.

What is underneath

Under the skin sits 547  other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. Kerb weight is 560 -. The gearbox is a 4/5-speed manual / 2-speed Daimatic / 2-speed automatic. The wheelbase is 2150 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.

Its place in the line

Where it sits in Daihatsu's history is not in doubt: the Daihatsu Max Cuore came before it; the Daihatsu Mira e:S (passenger car) / Daihatsu Hijet Caddie (van) / Daihatsu Ayla (Cuore/Charade, indirect) / Daihatsu Mira Tocot (passenger car) followed it; it was built at Ikeda, Osaka, Japan. On a showroom list of its day it stood against the Audi Quattro, the Dodge Ram, the DeLorean Motor Company DeLorean DMC-12. Nearby in the Daihatsu catalogue sit the Daihatsu Applause and the Daihatsu Atrai.

The money

MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Daihatsu Mira has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.