To most people, the Mustang Mach-E is an electric SUV, but to my 6-year-old son, Oliver,  it’s  much simpler than that:  It’s  “Daddy’s  car.” And for me,  it’s  much more than any other car  I’ve  owned.  It’s  a rolling testament to the man I loved, a symbol of his passion, and a tangible piece of his life’s work that he left with  us.

My late husband,  Clayton, was a tech nerd in the purest sense. I learned that on our very first date back in 2007.  We went to a local restaurant, and he  was so nervous he talked for  nearly three  hours straight. I barely got a word in, but I  didn’t  mind. He was so passionate.

That love for technology was a constant thread through our  life  together. A few months after we met, the original iPhone had just been released. He, of course, had waited in line overnight for  his. I simply walked into a store on release day and bought one.  I’ll  never forget him showing me all the amazing things his new phone could do, only for me to pull out my own and say,  “You mean like this one?” The look on his face was priceless.

His fascination with gadgets was his calling. So, when he saw electric vehicles  emerging, he viewed them as the ultimate gadget. He was an early adopter, owning a series of five different electric or plug-in models over the years. He took immense pride in driving his first hybrid-electric vehicle  almost exclusively  on electric power.

That personal passion eventually merged with his professional life.  Clayton  worked for a  technology company  that  collaborated  with Ford  on the  SYNC  Navigation  System for a vehicle that was still  under wraps: the Mustang Mach-E.

He had worked on automotive projects before, but this was different.  He’d  tell me stories about the frustrations of working with older, limited hardware on other projects. The Mustang Mach-E was new and exciting. It was a blank canvas.

Clayton was obsessed with user experience. He believed technology should feel intuitive, almost invisible. I remember him spending countless hours thinking through the intricate details of Mustang Mach-E's navigation system. He would labour over how to design a system that  lets  you plan a multi-stop journey seamlessly.  He’d  say,  “It’s  gotta  just work.”

He  was trying to solve problems most people never even  consider.  He’d  explain how an electric vehicle driver’s mindset is different from a gas car  driver’s. You  don’t  drive the vehicle until  you’re  empty. He was designing logic that would tell the driver to stop and charge for only 15 minutes because the battery was in the  optimal  state to get the fastest boost.

He thought about drivers ending their day somewhere without a charger, and he worked to  design  a  system  that  would  calculate  and  guide  the driver  to have  enough range to get  to the next charger.  He even started working on the system for the F-150 Lightning, figuring out how to calculate the battery drain from a trailer’s weight and how that  impacted  trip planning. It was a puzzle he delighted in solving, knowing his work would help someone, somewhere have a better day.

So, when  the Mustang  Mach-E was finally released, I should have known what was coming. He had just gotten  an  electrified vehicle  he loved, but one night, he came to me and asked,  “What would you think about me getting the Mach-E?”

Thinking purely from a practical standpoint, I told him I thought it was a bit impulsive. He had  a car  that was only a few months old. Why  another  one so soon? He dropped it, but I could tell he was disappointed. The next night, he was genuinely upset, feeling like  he’d  missed his chance  at  his dream car.

“It’s been my life for five years,” he told me. “I feel like I need to have it.”

In that moment, I understood completely. This  wasn’t  just another car. It was his work, his passion, his baby, all brought to life in metal, glass, and code. I told him if it  was  that important, he should go for it, and he found the perfect one, configured even better than the first one  he’d  seen.

From the day it arrived, he was totally enamored. He babied it, getting it ceramic coated and having protective film applied. He even got a personalized license plate that read  “MODEL E.” It was a clever, nerdy nod to the internal Ford department, a piece of trivia he absolutely reveled in. He would talk to anyone who would listen about the car, and his enthusiasm was infectious;  a number of  our friends bought one shortly after he did.

Today, that electric SUV is so much more than a car.  It’s  a rolling collection of memories, a symbol of his passion and pride. For our son, Oliver,  it’s  a direct connection to the father he sometimes struggles to remember, but he knows that’s Daddy’s  car.

Clayton passed suddenly and unexpectedly a little over three years ago, and I briefly debated what to do with it. But the thought of selling it felt wrong.  It’s  a piece of his legacy.  It’s  a symbol of the love and meticulous care he poured into everything, whether it was his work, his family, or his passions.

I decided to keep  it.  It’s  a fixture in our garage and in our lives. Every time Oliver and I get in, I feel like  we’re  taking a drive with him, his spirit right there in the passenger seat. His journey continues with ours.

Todd Messenger is a loving father to Oliver and the owner of “Daddy’s” Mustang Mach-E.