Cars from the movie Grease

Like American Graffiti, a film that was released in the early ’70s but set over a decade earlier, Grease chronicled the early years of the American teenager, a novel new idea after centuries where people finished being children and immediately morphed into working, married adults.

Cars played an essential role in this new teenage lifestyle: they gave characters freedom, mobility and entertainment. And when it came to Grease, they were more than just transport or set dressing: they became their own kind of sport.

Grease’s cars were all designed and built by Eddie Paul, a legendary crafter of movie cars whose work can be seen in Taxi, Cars, The Dukes of Hazzard and the Fast and Furious franchise. But he got his start in the late ’70s when “a guy from the studios” knocked on his door, asked if he could build cars for Grease and offered him a briefcase filled with $100 bills. Two weeks later, Eddie delivered the 48 cars used throughout the film, including two white ’48 Fords that had their roofs removed so the cameras could capture John Travolta (and a few stunt drivers) inside.

Here are a few of those significant cars Paul created for the film.

Let’s start with the white ’48 Fords. Danny’s gang might’ve been called the T-Birds, but the beat-up car Kenickie brought into Ms Murdock’s shop class was a De Luxe. The tyres didn’t match, the headlights were busted and the paint job had seen better days. By the time they’d finished sprucing it up for its debut at Thunder Road, ‘White Lightning’ had a V8 239.4 cid engine, white leather upholstery and, as the song goes, a four-speed on the floor – plus those iconic silver and red lightning bolts down the side that propelled it to victory, despite the deep gashes down its sides.

It was quite literally the car of dreams. While fixing up Kenickie’s scrapheap, the T-Birds imagined it was this “systematic, hydromatic, ultramatic” one instead. And at the carnival in the film’s finale, it’s raffled off in a competition aptly called “Win the car of your dreams”. Greased Lightning’s chopped front fenders, Plexiglass hood and tail fins didn’t keep the 1948 De Luxe from taking flight and transporting Danny and Sandy into the clouds in the closing scene.

Perhaps the most threatening car ever committed to film, ‘Hell’s Chariot’ was the property of Scorpions leader Dennis “Craterface” Stewart – until Danny beat him at Thunder Road and won the papers to the 1949 Mercury Series 9CM. With original Firestone tyres, Touch-O-Matic overdrive and that glossy paint job, the car is literally flames. And that’s to say nothing of the razor-sharp hub-cap spears that did so much damage to White Lightning.

Fun fact: this was one of two versions of Hell’s Chariot that Eddie Paul created for Grease. The other ’49 Mercury used for stunts was originally a hardtop and underwent a pretty huge customisation job from Paul. After Grease, Hell’s Chariot went on to appear in the films Used Cars in 1980 and Streets of Fire in 1984.

While it only has a cameo role in the film, the Pink Ladies’ car is, in fact, the first to appear in Grease. Blowing smoke and sounding utterly clapped-out, this Studebaker Commander arrives on the scene by crawling into the car park for the first day of senior high. The car’s clunky entrance, supplemented with sarcastic groans and giggles, not to mention the ‘joy’ of being back at school, belies their strength and style – so it’s up to Betty Rizzo, played by Stockard Channing, to announce with characteristic swagger: “We’re gonna ruuule the schoooool.” The Studebaker only makes one other appearance in the film – at the pep rally.

Now it's time to get fully nostalgic and look back at the great performance of Greased Lightning!

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