Surrounded by Porsches, Lamborghinis and other custom race cars, it was a “Playboy”-pink 1967 Ford Mustang that wowed the crowd in the Canepa Design workshop last Thursday.
When the cover was pulled off the car, Jennifer Ostrowski of Santa Cruz covered her mouth with her hands and let out a gasp.
The rebuilt Mustang was the wish of Ostrowski’s deceased daughter, Briana Clarke, a Santa Cruz High School graduate who died of osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer, on July 30, 2009.
Bruce Canepa started the project last year after he heard from folks at the Santa Cruz branch of the Make a Wish Foundation. When Briana died at age 18 after two years with the disease, Canepa’s crew continued work on the car as a labor of love.
“We just could not let it go unfinished,” said Canepa spokesman Lew Kinst. “Everybody just wanted to see it through.”
The result was a car that would make Henry Ford proud.
Canepa’s crew — including Adam Johnson, Brody Feuerhaken, Chris Fultz, Bob Saldana, Javier Vega, Ryan Thompson, Leo Lopez, Johnny Gonzales, Mike Andrews and Mike Montes — donated work to complete the car.
“We worked after hours, weekends,” said Feuerhaken, a painter. “It was a lot of work. It was for the cause. It sounded like she was a great girl.”
They rebuilt much of the interior, exterior and engine and painted the car “Playboy” pink, at Briana’s wish.
Ralph Newman of Real Ralph Pinstriping added lettering on the back with Briana’s name.
“This is exactly what she wanted to have,” Ostrowski said, noting a picture Briana had on her computer desktop of a late 1960s Mustang with the same color scheme.
“I’ll definitely be cruising West Cliff in Bri’s memory,” Ostrowski said smiling. “But then I’ll have to be blasting that music (she listened to).”
