Brittley, Jane and Daisy: The Mustang Story Behind Project Britney
Two years after winning a one-of-a-kind 2024 Mustang GT created by Ford and Sydney Sweeney, Brittley could have treated the car like a collector’s item.
She could have saved it for weekends, watched the mileage and kept it safely tucked away in the garage.
Instead, she named it Daisy and started driving it.
Today, Project Britney is Brittley’s daily driver. She has personally put around 23,000 miles on the car, driving it to work, across Washington State and almost everywhere else life takes her.
“She’s my daily driver because a car like this with a story just as powerful deserves to be seen and shared,” she says.
But Daisy is actually Brittley’s second important Mustang story.
The first began years earlier with a white 2005 Mustang GT named Jane — and a repair bill that would change the way Brittley saw cars, her father and, ultimately, herself.
Mustangs run in the family
Brittley grew up in a Mustang family.
Her parents both drove Mustangs as teenagers in the late 1970s. Her father owned a 1965, while her mother had, as Brittley remembers it, a 1968.
Years later, when Brittley’s older brother turned 16, their parents bought him a black 2005 V8 Mustang with a custom red interior. It quickly became one of the coolest cars at his high school.
Brittley admits she has always been competitive with her brother.
Her own first car, however, was much more practical: a 1999 Subaru Outback. As a skier, she appreciated its usefulness and safety. But when she went looking for another car at 19, practicality was no longer enough.
She wanted a Mustang.
For days, Brittley visited dealerships. If they did not have a Mustang, she was not interested. Salesmen tried to show her other cars they thought were comparable, but she refused to be persuaded.
She drove automatics. She tried a V6.
Then she fired up a white 2005 Mustang GT with a V8 and a manual transmission.
That was it.
The car came home with her and soon had a name: Jane.
The $10,000 repair bill
Brittley loved driving Jane, but at that point she knew very little about working on cars.
“I knew how to change a tire, and that was about it,” she remembers.
More importantly, she had grown up with an assumption she had never really challenged.
“Mechanics were men, and I was a girl, so how could I possibly fix my own car?”
Then Jane died in the middle of the road.
A shop inspected the Mustang and came back with an estimate of roughly $10,000.
Brittley’s father had a different idea.
“Forget that, bring it home and we’ll do it ourselves!”
The failure was serious. A timing chain guide had shattered inside the engine, sending plastic debris through it and damaging or contaminating many of its internal components.
Brittley and her father removed the engine. The short block went to a machine shop to be remanufactured, with components including the pistons, rod bearings and timing parts replaced.
Then father and daughter put everything back together.
At first, Brittley remembers looking into the engine bay and thinking that what she saw was “like brain surgery and rocket science combined.”
Slowly, that changed.
She began learning what each component did and how the different parts worked together. What had once looked impossibly complicated started to make sense.
And she discovered that she loved it.
The project took several months, but one part of the experience stayed with her more than anything else.
“There wasn’t a second where my dad doubted that I could do something.”
What Jane taught her
Jane became much more than the Mustang Brittley had wanted at 19.
“What I learned not just about cars, but also myself and what I am capable of, truly changed my life and how I tackle things that seem impossible,” she says.
The engine project was only the beginning.
Since then, Brittley has replaced the engine in her Subaru, worked on an old 1970s diesel tractor and carried out numerous repairs and upgrades on Jane, including performance ignition coils, a K&N air filter, an alternator, a starter and a clutch master cylinder.
Her dream is to one day rebuild a 1965 Mustang — the same model year her father drove when he was young.
Jane is still part of the family too.
Brittley says she could never sell her because of all the memories attached to the car. Jane is currently stored while she waits to address some dashboard issues, including a speedometer that no longer works.
Someday, Brittley hopes her own future children might get to drive Jane on special occasions.
By then, the 2005 GT will be a classic in its own right.
Then came Project Britney
Years later, Brittley was scrolling through Instagram when an advertisement stopped her.
On the screen was a custom 2024 Mustang GT created by Ford and actress Sydney Sweeney.
The car was called Project Britney, inspired by Sweeney’s own 1965 Mustang, nicknamed Britney.
Where Did Project Britney Come From?
Before this project, there was Britney — Sydney Sweeney’s light-blue 1965 Mustang. Its GT-style equipment, uncertain original specifications and unusual color history make the classic Mustang interesting in its own right. It also became the inspiration for the two one-off 2024 Mustang GTs created by Ford and Sweeney.
→ Discover the car that started it all: Sydney Sweeney’s 1965 Mustang “Britney”: The Car That Inspired Project Britney
Brittley’s reaction was immediate.
“That is the most beautiful car I’ve ever seen.”
Then she realized Ford was giving it away.
She entered the contest.
What started as a chance to win an incredible Mustang soon became something far more personal.
To write her submission, Brittley began thinking about her own life.
As a child, she had been interested in BMX and dirt bikes. As an adult, she worked as a sous-chef before moving into the video game industry. Outside work, she fixed cars, worked on her horse trailer, remodeled, built things and generally refused to let not knowing how to do something stop her from learning.
Many of those spaces had traditionally been dominated by men.
Brittley is careful about how she describes her experience. She says she has been fortunate not to encounter overt sexism or discrimination.
What she noticed instead were subtler signals.
“It’s the kind of bullying that you don’t recognize in the moment, but compounds until you are no longer interested in something because you have been slowly convinced that you don’t fit in.”
While writing her entry, she also realized how fortunate she had been to grow up around people who never told her she did not belong.
Her father certainly never had.
The essay became what Brittley later described to Sydney Sweeney as “a huge passion project” and “this amazing love letter to women.”
But its message eventually grew broader.
Women and men could both help others pursue what they loved. Someone who felt out of place might unknowingly be inspiring someone else not to give up.
“There is always room for everyone.”
The Instagram notification
Ford received around 5,000 qualified submissions.
Brittley did not expect to win.
Weeks after the contest closed, she would jokingly tell her husband, “I can’t believe I didn’t win the Sydney Sweeney Mustang,” before laughing at the absurdity of it.
Then, one day at work, everything changed.
Brittley was sitting outside enjoying the first real sunshine of the year when an Instagram notification appeared.
Ford wanted to follow her.
She accepted almost instantly.
Then came the doubt.
Was it really Ford?
She went to Ford’s official Instagram account and checked who it was following.
Her account was there.
Right next to Sydney Sweeney’s.
Soon afterward, Ford sent Brittley a direct message confirming that she had won Project Britney.
She told her husband and sister first, then called her father.
He had not even known she entered the contest.
“He got the whole shock at once,” Brittley remembers — and she suspects he may have been even more excited than she was.
A surprise call from Sydney Sweeney
Several video calls with Ford followed.
During one of them, Brittley was told that a guest from Ford would be joining.
Then Sydney Sweeney appeared on the screen.
Brittley admits she was a little starstruck, but what stayed with her most was how kind, intelligent and genuinely passionate Sweeney seemed about encouraging women.
Brittley knew Sydney had been involved in choosing the winner.
Until that moment, though, she had not fully processed what that meant.
Sydney had actually read her story.
And it had resonated with her.
Seeing the Mustang for the first time
Ford flew Brittley and her father to New York for the New York International Auto Show.
It was their first visit to the city.
Neither considered themselves city people, and Brittley admits she was nervous beforehand. She expected New York to feel fast, intimidating and perhaps unfriendly.
Instead, she found the opposite.
Ford put them in a hotel near Times Square, arranged dinner and gave them VIP tickets to a taping of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
The trip lasted only two days, but it gave Brittley another unforgettable moment.
At the auto show, she finally saw Project Britney in person.
At first, she did not recognize it.
Under the lights, the crushed-glass clear coat sparkled so intensely that Brittley thought she was looking at a silver Mustang.
Then it clicked.
“As beautiful as the car looks in photos, it is 10x more gorgeous in person.”
Bringing Daisy home
Ford later shipped the Mustang to a dealership in the Seattle area.
Brittley picked it up and drove it straight back to work.
That first drive was memorable — though not entirely for the reasons she expected.
She was terrified.
Almost immediately, she had to merge onto one of the busiest stretches of freeway in Washington. The visibility and seating position felt completely different from Jane, and Brittley was still trying to understand a car far more technologically advanced than her 2005 GT.
Then she noticed something else.
She felt hot and cold at the same time.
Once safely parked, she started going through the Mustang’s enormous dashboard screen and discovered the problem.
The air conditioning was blasting at her feet.
The heated seat was turned all the way up.
And the seat itself had been positioned for somebody at least six inches shorter than she was.
It took her around twenty minutes to get everything adjusted properly.
The second drive was very different.
This time, Brittley says, she felt like “the coolest person on Earth.”
The Mustang eventually received a proper name.
Daisy.
Brittley now jokes that “Sydney” might have been the perfect choice in hindsight, considering Sydney Sweeney’s Project Britney connection.
But Daisy stuck.
23,000 miles later
Daisy did not become a garage queen.
Brittley has personally driven around 23,000 miles since receiving the car.
Western Washington’s mild climate means she can use it throughout most of the year, aside from a few days when snow or ice make driving it impractical.
Owning Daisy has required a few lifestyle adjustments.
Brittley cleaned out her garage because there was no chance she was leaving the Mustang outside through Washington’s winter rain.
She also parks at the far end of parking lots to avoid door dings.
And she often allows a little extra time when going somewhere.
People stop her constantly.
Some simply love the color. Others immediately recognize Daisy as “the Sydney Sweeney Mustang.”
At a rural gas station near the Cascade foothills, a heavily modified mudding truck circled the station several times before pulling up behind her.
Two men called out:
“Is that the Sydney Sweeney Mustang?! We heard someone in the valley won it, that is so cool!”
They even asked whether Brittley had ever rally raced it.
She had not.
On another trip across Washington with her sister, so many people approached the Mustang that her sister joked about feeling like a celebrity.
A woman once shouted to Brittley from another car on the highway.
And the day before Brittley answered our questions, three more people had stopped her to compliment Daisy.
She always enjoys telling them the story.
To Brittley, knowing why the Mustang exists makes the car even better.
Almost exactly as Ford built it
Despite using Daisy every day, Brittley has changed almost nothing.
There is one exception.
On the back of the car sits a small Grateful Dead dancing bears decal.
Brittley is quick to reassure Mustang purists: it is chrome, it matches the wheels and — most importantly — it can be removed.
“Don’t hate me, Mustang lovers,” she jokes.
Otherwise, she believes the car is already exactly what it should be.
More than a Mustang
Two years later, Brittley does not think of Daisy as a trophy.
She thinks of the car as a responsibility.
For her, Project Britney still represents what the contest meant when she first entered: doing what you love even when you do not fit someone else’s idea of who belongs there, treating people with kindness and helping others pursue their own passions.
That philosophy is now part of Brittley’s professional life as well.
She still works in the video game industry, but today her work focuses on charitable initiatives, including fundraising for children in hospitals, inclusion and equity programs, and humanitarian responses to disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes.
She calls it “the greatest job in the world.”
And every time she climbs into Daisy, the Mustang reminds her of the same responsibility.
“Every time I drive it, I feel that I have a responsibility to uphold what it represents: doing what you love no matter what, being kind to everyone you meet, and uplifting others wherever you go.”
Two Mustangs, one story
Long before Daisy, there was Jane.
A white 2005 Mustang GT once left Brittley staring into an open engine bay convinced that what she saw looked like brain surgery and rocket science.
Her father never doubted she could learn.
Eventually, neither did she.
That experience helped shape the woman who years later would write an essay about belonging, confidence and encouraging others — an essay that ultimately put another Mustang in her garage.
Today, Jane is waiting for her next chapter.
Daisy is out on the road almost every day.
One Mustang taught Brittley what she was capable of.
The other gives her a chance to pass that lesson on.
And with every mile, the story continues.
