The late Fiona Green’s Ford Mustang is lovingly looked after.
Photo by
Bree Harding
Fiona Green’s Ford Mustang was not your regular stock Mustang.
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But nor was Fiona ‘regular’, according to her husband Craig Green; she was also a custom kind.
Known to him affectionately as FJ, to incorporate the first letters of her first and middle names, Fiona Jane, the late mother-of-two loved her family first and her Fords a close second.
She went from driving an AU to an XR6, before she spotted the stunning grey 2016 two-door coupe online, where she yearned after it for six months.
Photo by
Bree Harding
Wild horses couldn’t divert her attention from the Mustang.
“I found a V8 for her instead,” Craig said, recalling how he’d tried to sway her into doubling her desired cylinders.
“We went to Melbourne to look at it, but she had no interest.
“So once she saw this one, she fell in love and had to have it, so I made it happen.”
Craig called the Ecoboost single-turbo, four-cylinder pony a “V8 eater”.
Photo by
Bree Harding
He said the ’Stanger, with just 71,000km on the clock, was as quiet as an electric vehicle, but full of grunt.
Fiona used it as her daily driver, to get to work, go shopping, and drive anywhere the road took her.
“If we went on holidays, we had to go in her car; it had to be the Mustang. And she would drive,” Craig said.
“No-one was allowed to drive it or touch it. She would park two blocks away to get groceries so no-one would park next to it.
“She was protective of the kids and she was protective of her car.”
Driving it to work and back every day and parking it on a hot, concrete slab in all the elements took its toll.
The paint had started to fade and oxidise.
After Fiona died unexpectedly in February this year, aged just 51, Craig planned to preserve her pride and joy, and had Matt from The Dees Detailing bring the paintwork back to life.
Photo by
Bree Harding
He then fitted it with customised registration plates ‘4MYFJ’ (for my Fiona Jane).
Inside remains a feather Fiona collected in her favourite colour, purple, to match the purple lights she had programmed to illuminate her car’s interior long before her death.
On the dash sits the order of service from her funeral.
Photo by
Bree Harding
Now, Craig keeps the tribute Mustang garaged most of the time, except for one day a month when he drives it from his Wunghnu home to Cobram Lawn Cemetery and back, to visit Fiona’s resting place.
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