Andre Gavion Marks Son Sean’s Return Home from Service with Ford Mustang Redo
When patriotic Americans come across a member of the U.S Armed Services, it’s customary for them to say, “Thank you for your service!” And when service members return home from a deployment overseas, it’s also customary for family members and friends to throw a party or do something special for them after being away from loved ones for so long. Well, Andre Gavion surely did something special for his son, Sean, upon his arrival home between deployments: Andre gave Sean’s well-used fourth-gen Mustang a surprise makeover during his absence and surprised him with the results! Check out his Mustang story:
“Hi, my name Andre Gavion, father of U.S. serviceman and Mustang owner Sean Gavion. Here’s the story behind Sean’s Mustang: The car was purchased in 2006 for my ex-wife (Sean’s mother). She drove the car until late 2014 (I believe) when she purchased a new Ford Focus. From then until mid-2019, it sat at her mother’s house, unused and basically dying in the southern heat.
“In 2019 she agreed to let Sean have it after graduation from high school in 2020. That was his junior year. That summer, a friend and I towed the car to another friend’s property so that we could start going through it and figuring out what kind of shape it was truly in. It didn’t take too long to have it up and running again. In March of 2020 during spring break, Sean was in an accident that totaled his import car, so we started to move pretty quick to have the Mustang insured and tagged for him to drive. He drove it for four months before he left for boot camp in July. It sat again from July until December when Sean was finally able to come home for two weeks over the holidays. He returned to base in January 2021.
“In April of ‘21 we got confirmation that Sean was going to Europe for a nine-month rotation and would be coming home mid-May for two weeks before leaving the country again. It was at that point I began to think about what I wanted to do to the car as a surprise for him. I knew I didn’t have time to paint it. It was very rough paint-wise due to years of neglect, but as a vinyl graphics installer I knew I could get it slick enough to wrap in a few hours. After a conversation with my wife and two of my good friends, a plan came together.
"On May 1st we began disassembling the car, and sanding on it. We probably spent the first 12 hours just getting it prepped. Even where we thought the paint was still good if vinyl was applied, it then popped back up for some reason and the clearcoat would peel right off. So, more sanding … and soon we seemed to be going backwards on the project. At at the end of that first weekend, the car was in pieces — and only one quarter, one door jamb, and one fender were in the new color. For the next 11 days, I spent a couple of hours on it each evening after work — getting one panel or just one piece done each evening and doing more sanding as I came across more problems. Friend Tim Asbury spent most of one Saturday just sanding on the car’s FR500 wheels so that we could paint them, and just about every evening helping me on the car. My wife told us to go with a bronze finish on the wheels, but I planned to just go back anthracite. She made the right call, as usual.
“On May 14th at 11:38 p.m., I walked out of the garage after putting the last few parts back on Sean’s Mustang, At 12:30 on the afternoon of May 15th, I picked my son up from the airport. I told him a little fib about the car not being at the house due to an issue we had found while going through it the previous weekend, but that we’d have back by 3 p.m. At 3 o’clock I told him we were going to get the car. When we left the house, my wife gathered everyone in our neighbor’s driveway after two of my friends pushed the car out. My neighbors had allowed us to hide it in their garage that morning. Once everyone was outside, my wife sent me a text, and I turned around to go back home — telling Sean I had forgotten my wallet … ”
(photo credit: Ford Performance)
