10 Random Facts about the First episode of MCM

Its MCM’s 7th birthday, so I decided to compile 10 random facts about our first episode that was uploaded back in January 2008

1) We originally came up with the idea of making a car show in 2007. YouTube was brand new and not many people knew what it was. We’d been experimenting with Flash Video for some other projects and then thought we’d try this new thing called ‘YouTube’ 

2) The show was originally going to be called ‘Clean & Green Car’ and was meant to be a blog style format all about small economical cars, with a focus on small Japanese cars and sustainability. 

3) We called the show Mighty Car Mods not just because we were modifying cars, but because the word Mighty’ wasn’t about ‘expensive’ or ‘fast’ - ‘Mighty’ felt small and courageous and it’s a word that has a lot of heart. At the time we also wanted to buy a Suzuki Mighty Boy. 

4) We were both working full time together in a recording studio making music for TV commercials when we started making the show on the weekends (We both still work full time and do MCM as a hobby in our spare time)

5) I bought the Cuore because I'd just sold my 180SX to buy a Jeep (yeah I know don't even get me started but I had food poisoning at the time and obviously wasn't thinking straight) I kept the Jeep for around 6 weeks before selling it and deciding I would try and find the opposite of a Jeep. The Daihastu Cuore is about as different as you can get and this is what started the show. I bought it from an elderly couple who had bought it for their grand daughter to drive to university in. (She'd since upgraded) If I hadn't bought a Jeep and hated it, we would have never made MCM. 

6) Marty didn’t like the Daihatsu Cuore. He thought the Nissan Micra was far superior. (He’s since owned 6 Cuores/Miras after crashing his Micra into a ditch) and has come around to see that the Daihatsu has way more street cred on the roads of Japan. (In all honesty neither of us knew just how huge their cult following was in Japan until we saw some track cars and seriously modified ones on our way to the auctions to buy my S15 Silvia) 

7) Our video got 307 views in the first week and we couldn’t believe that there were that many people out there who would watch our show. (Still can’t believe it these days that millions of people watch it each week)

8) I was never meant to work on cars! Marty was never meant to be a presenter or do voice over. When we sat down to talk about the format of the show, Marty was meant to be the “technical guy” and I was meant to be the “presenter guy”. Marty would work on the cars and I would come up with a story and present it to the audience. Marty would have to come up with the technical aspects of making the mods work and I would film the videos, edit them, do the music and the voice over. Over time I wanted to do more work on the cars and Marty wanted to learn more about cameras and production so we traded skills and learned from each other. These days we each do a bit of both and sometimes he does the filming and editing while I do all the work on the cars so it's been a really amazing way for us to both learn on the job! We're still learning with every shoot we do particularly when we're around real mechanics and people who know way more than we do.

9) All of the music in EP1 was made on a laptop using Garageband and using the QWERTY keyboard to play the chords using the 'Musical Typing' option on the Mac. 

10) Prices of Cuores have doubled since we started uploading videos about them. You could buy a Daihatsu Cuore in 2007 for around $2500. These days you see quality examples go anywhere from $4000-$7000 (sorry!) 

You can check out the very first episode in all it's embarrassing glory here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj0w0xo2ChY

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