Friends of the Irishman who was killed in a tragic Australian car pile-up have presented his greiving fiancée with a renovated car he was planning to give her as a surprise.
Leitrim man Francis Shanley, 36, sadly died after his car collided with a beer truck when he was heading to work in Sydney.
He had been working on the Subaru WRX prior to his tragic death and his work pals from Vaughan Civil engineering firm decided to finish the project
They completed the Subaru WRX in just nine days, adding custom 'Frankie' plates and presented it to his fiancée Broc Nicholson at a memorial service on Tuesday.
Broc told the Irish Echo in Australia that she was ‘over the moon’ at the kind token.
Jamie Morrissey said his pals at Vaughan Civil “worked round the clock for the past nine days” working on the gift.
He said: “All his close friends came together to work on it – people who knew nothing about cars came to work on it because they wanted to do it for Frankie.
“It was good for us as well –it kept our mind off things.”
Francis was known to buy and renovate old cars and had been working on the car before his death.
Broc said: “He would be so proud and so am I. I know he’s going to be so jealous when I’m driving it instead of him.”
A 53-year-old has been charged with dangerous driving after police believe that he had been driving in the wrong lane and stopped causing the crash.
