Left panels: examples of likely major merger remnants in our proof-of-concept sample (see Table 1): ESO474-26, NGC 655, NGC 3303 and NGC 7288. These were identified as massive merger remnants based on the similarity to the outcome of idealised simulations: see right panels. Right panels: simulation snapshots of galaxy mergers evolved for 2 Gyr (see Sect. 4.1). Each corresponds to different initial conditions: rows show different orbital eccentricities given by their circularity L/L_c as defined by Hendel & Johnston (2015); columns show different progenitor stellar masses. The 5 × 10⁹ M_⊙ progenitor corresponds to a major merger with a mass ratio ∼1:3; the other two models are for minor mergers. Progenitors were initialised on the size–luminosity relation of Local Group satellites (McConnachie 2012). The colour bar shows the surface brightness of the tidal debris in mag arcsec⁻².