The first thing I will stress is that Mustard is not – and never will be – going anywhere.

The story’s been referenced many times (and repeatedly made fun of by friends who find the car’s transition hilarious) but what started out as my simple daily driver – expected to be in my garage for 5 to 7 years as something to see me through the rest of my university career and then out into the “real world” for a few afterwards – has since become what I consider a forever car.

I look back on the (almost) 8 years now and all of the memories associated with this car – the accomplishments, the friendships made along the way because of it, and opportunities that have presented themselves because of the decision I made to buy it way back when – and it was clearly one of the best decisions of my life if not THE best, but it was never my dream car. It was my dream build.

Tracking cars is fun but not only was it not as feasible (we’ve not had a local track in years) it was riskier too; however the main factor for wanting to use the Focus the way I have was that as a kid it was the show cars I’d always followed and their builders that I’d looked up to; people and groups like Neil Tjin, Bob Mull, ATS Garage, and Team Emotion were the ones I watched. I certainly never aimed to build the craziest car of all time, instead just something that could hold its own at events and bring home some awards here and there, with a magazine feature being the top honour I figured.

In the last several years, that’s exactly what we’ve done. In the grand scheme of things this is of course nowhere near being the most in-depth build; even just within our city it’s not even close, but the results of the work my friends and I have put in are still a car that is far beyond what any of us originally expected. fifteen52 accepted it as one of their official project vehicles, some amazing companies have supported it via sponsorships to help it progress as it has, and we secured the achievement of the country’s first ST-swapped sedan. It has brought home many awards from various events including both Driven and Sunday School, been featured in THREE separate magazines, made a brief appearance in a TV show, and I even had the opportunity to discuss it with executives from Ford Canada – answering their many questions – as they looked through it in person at a gathering here a couple of years ago. I’d say we can call that childhood wishlist more or less completed.

However, over the last several years while we were working toward achieving that dream build, the dream car was always a separate item on the bucket list. Obviously both could have been the same vehicle but timing led to them being two different cars. When I initially bought the Focus I’d already spent many years waiting for the dream car, but even by that point it still wasn’t possible to own said vehicle in Canada; that has since changed though.

I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise what my dream car is – anyone who has followed this site for any length of time will know what it is – but what may be a surprise is that one is now sitting alongside the Focus and Grand Prix in my fleet; and it has been for two months.

As it happened, the day that our Driven Setup Day post went live I went to look at one which Dustin (makemeasandwich) had found for sale and told me about. 3 days later, it was dropped off at my house.

-Bill