The story that was spun went something along the lines of purchasing a cheap simple car for his friend to get more experience as a learner in. Its now sort of morphed into a cheap as chips fun little project shoebox, involving lots of stickers mainly. It's a Diahatsu Mira built under licence by the Malaysians.
The proper Miras can be heaps of fun so I imagine the bootleg version might be too, with the right approach.