It’s one of the most famous cars to drive across the stage and screen, and now Greased Lightnin’ is coming to Edison High School! The automatic, systematic, hydromatic hot rod will take center stage in Edison Theatre Company’s spring production of “Grease - School Edition,” thanks to a group of talented students in the Automotive Collision Service class at Edison Academy. 

The collaboration between the class and the Edison Theatre Company started when Theatre Teacher Jeff Walker approached the class with a challenge: turning the weather-worn front end of a 1949 Ford Coupe into a set of wheels fit for the Burger Palace Boys. “When it was delivered, it was in pretty rough shape,” recalled Automotive Collision Service Teacher Charles Cornwell, “but we still were able to take it on.”

The car needed a lot of work. The Edison Theatre Company bought and shipped the parts from a Minnesota junkyard. They were so rusted that, Cornwell said, “[the Company] had to take a few parts from another ‘49 Ford to make a complete front end. The hood was from one car, the bumpers were from another car, and the fenders were from another car.” The students also faced a tight deadline: they only had four weeks to complete the restoration project.

The rust was the toughest challenge for Mount Vernon High School senior Elijah Knight, who takes the Automotive Collision Service class. He explained, “Making sure that all of the rust was taken off so that the paint would stick and look good” was a top priority. 

The students also needed to make sure it was structurally sound, and that meant a lot of challenging welding. “We had to make sure that the welds were strong,” said Edison High School junior Kristian Granado. “With [the actors] performing on it, they’re going to be standing all around it, leaning against it. If one of the welds were to break, the frame could fall apart, so the welds had to be really strong.” 

The car’s hood, which the actors will open and close in the show, was also cut in half to lighten its weight and placed on shocks so it could open and close safely. 

The resulting prop looks like it came straight out of the classic 1978 movie. The car’s sparkling red paint glistens under the slightest light. On all sides, it’s accented with bright white streaks of lightning.

Walker said he was “truly speechless” when he saw Greased Lightnin’ for the first time. “The finished product was like seeing a brand new automobile,” he said, “and it looks more like the iconic car than we even expected, all thanks to the [Automotive Collision Service] program.”

This project was an excellent opportunity for participating students to become better Communicators and Collaborators — both are pillars of FCPS’s Portrait of a Graduate (POG). Annual growth in POG skills is a measure of FCPS Strategic Plan Goal 3: Academic Growth and Excellence. 

The project also taught the Automotive Collision Service students multidisciplinary skills. “It just improved my way of thinking into how I can create things for different types of use,” thought Kristian. “Like, this is an Auto Collision class, it’s supposed to be just for cars, right? Well right now I’m doing [work] for theater arts and I never thought I would be able to do that.” 

Therein lies the beauty of the theater, explained Walker. “Theater is said to be the meeting place of all the arts,” he said. “Sometimes we need some technical expertise to add to the theater magic. Mr. Cornwell and his students have worked their magic this time.”

Elijah understands this lesson well. When he’s not working on cars in the Edison Academy garage, he participates in the theater program at Mount Vernon High School. After he graduates, he plans to study scenic design. “The work I have done in theater translated over into what I can do in automotive and vice versa,” he reasoned. 

Elijah also knows what it means to have an audience admire your work, on full display on a brightly lit stage. “To see that other people enjoyed the piece of work that we took a lot of time and effort to create,” he mused, “and to see that work on stage, is going to be amazing.”

The Edison Theatre Company performs “Grease - School Edition” April 3-5. Buy tickets online.

Learn more about FCPS Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses.