“GARY … TOOK US TO A SHED AND, LO AND BEHOLD, THERE WAS A 1967 FASTBACK SITTING THERE”

day well — we met up with a friend, Gary, who took us to a shed and, lo and behold, there was a 1967 Fastback sitting there. I was so excited.”

The car was in a bit of a sorry state at the time, run down and with a very sick motor, but Deirdre had plans — big plans.

As tends to happen when looking down the barrel of very big projects, not a whole lot happened initially. The ’67 sat for the best part of seven years as Mervyn spent some time pulling the car apart and sanding the body back when he could. It wasn’t until 2014, when Deirdre tells us everything went a little pear-shaped, that things finally started to pick up for the Ford build.

“My husband and I ended up separating in 2014,” she explains. “The only things I wanted were my car and one of our businesses.”

A year later, once the dust had somewhat settled, the long process of turning the stock ’67 into a Shelby

GT500 Eleanor could finally begin. The car was quickly stripped back to a bare shell and sent off to Tauranga Sandblasting to give the body an entirely fresh start. There was no hiding any flaws now. With all the imperfections out in the open, the car was trailered over to body guru Brett Forster, where it was swiftly chucked on a rotisserie. “This was the start of my dream becoming a reality,” Deirdre says. “To be honest, the whole way through the build, I would pinch myself because it was hard to believe that this was my vehicle.”

The first big jobs for Brett involved adding chassis connectors to stiffen the body; reshaping the engine bay and radiator support panel; and forming up new tower bracing to support the new suspension system, which, along with a Wilwood big brake set-up, would become the first big purchase for the Mustang.

The car now runs VariShock coilovers and Total Control suspension arms, which were sourced from

Although the name ‘Eleanor’ is almost always associated with the grey 1967 Mustang GT500 seen in the 2000

film, the original Mustang to go by that name was a 1971 second-gen Fastback that starred in the original 1974 movie. Despite the Mustang featuring in one of the most stunt-heavy car chases — and officially the longest — in cinema history, the film’s producer/director/stunt driver/star HB Halicki built only one version of the car, which had to do it all; a stark contrast to most productions, which would see lots full of identical cars ready to take some punishment. Updated to look like a ’73, the yellow Mustang was fitted with a roll cage, a rudimentary Simpson harness, and a special camera mount inside. The 351 was warmed up and the trans chained to the frame — presumably to keep it from falling out. Despite a half-hour car chase scene that used real members of the public, real cops, and a couple of very real unplanned major accidents, the beaten car survived the shoot and now resides in the Petersen Automotive Museum. It’s certainly not much to look at — unlike Deirdre’s sleek and sultry Eleanor — but an interesting piece of automotive history nonetheless.