The 1978 film Grease is a fan-favorite for two die-hard enthusiast groups: musical lovers—three songs from the soundtrack were in the top five simultaneously, and Grease is the highest box-office-grossing movie musical of all time—and car enthusiasts, for whom the 1950s-era leadsleds built by Eddie Paul are some of the most recognizable movie cars in all of automobilia (Grease is broadcast every day on television somewhere in the world, after all). But where are the cars from Grease now?
“Hell’s Chariot”—the chopped 1949 Mercury custom driven by antagonist Craterface, played by Dennis Cleveland Stewart—is the only car with known whereabouts, and everyone is well-aware that it’s about to go to auction at Mecum Auctions Monterey event August 20, 2022. Despite the rumor-mongering and trolling on the interwebs, this is the first time the black-and-flamed 1949 Mercury has been to auction since consignors David DeSure and Scott Byrum purchased the car in early 2013. To quell any more rumors, David and Scott began the consignment process in April of 2022, with Mecum officially accepting the consignment (lot S126, check it out here) on April 25, 2022, well ahead of the untimely passing of one of the stars of Grease, Olivia Newton-John.
For 35 years, no one knew where any of the cars from Grease ended up, and when David and Scott saw a Craigslist ad for a 1949 Mercury leadsled, they had no idea they were going to end up uncovering one of the most famous movie cars in history. The ad was sort of a wild-goose chase; a prank pulled by a bitter person after famous Ford and Mercury collector and parts dealer Bill Papke passed away. But the phone number used in the ad was Bill’s, and the situation intrigued Scott and David enough that they had to investigate further.
The Huntington Beach, California, hot-rodder was known for his one-man operation—Papke Enterprises—that specialized in 1949-1951 Ford and Mercury cars and parts. Anyone who needed hard-to-find parts for their Blue Oval custom knew to call Bill, and he sold parts all over the world. With Bill’s passing, Papke Enterprises was dismantled, and most of the shop contents sold at an estate sale to local hot-rodders who knew of Bill’s treasure-trove of flathead engines and unobtanium Ford and Mercury parts.
Huntington Beach is also the home of legendary car-builder Chip Foose (his shop is still right around the corner from where Papke’s was located). Chip had been at Papke’s shop just a couple days before David and Scott, and he bought up all the flathead engines and vintage speed parts Bill had been collecting and rebuilding, but didn’t pay enough attention to the four-post lift in the back.
When David and Scott got to Papke’s shop, the only things left were pieces of memorabilia like vintage gas pumps and posters, and easier-to-find but project-specific parts like door handles. All the 1949-1951 Ford and Mercury cars and bodies had been sold except one, which was hidden under a cover and stuck in the air on a frozen hydraulic lift. When David and Scott asked the executor of Bill’s estate what was under the cover, he replied, “It’s a 1949 Grease Mercury. “
What’s a 1949 Grease Mercury? they thought. Mechanical design engineer Scott had the lift down in a jiff, and when they pulled the cover off the car they realized what they were looking at: the 1949 Mercury Custom from the movie Grease. The grille was still dented from when Craterface drove the Mercury into the 1948 Ford “Greased Lightning,” driven by John Travolta as Danny Zuko, and the pyrotechnic equipment was still in the trunk and hooked up to the exhaust.
After 35 years, had Hell’s Chariot been in Bill Papke’s shop this whole time? According to the executor, no, Bill had only owned Hell’s Chariot for about two months before he died, and it took Bill over 10 years to convince the previous owner to sell it to him. In the two months he owned Hell’s Chariot before his passing, Bill had already started work converting the 1949 Mercury into a daily driver. But more on that later.
How the previous caretaker of Hell’s Chariot came into possession of the 1949 Mercury is unknown, but with information from the original builder, Eddie Paul, a Paramount Pictures transportation coordinator, and the executor of Bill’s estate, David and Scott have been able to put together a good road map of the Grease movie cars’ journey.
Eagle-eyed fans of the black comedy Used Cars—a Weekend at Bernie’s-esqe raunchy caper involving competing car sales lots that stars Kurt Russell—would have seen three of the cars from Grease in the background of a junkyard scene. The 1948 Studebaker driven by the Pink Ladies, the 1948 Ford DeLuxe known as Greased Lightning, and its on-screen rival, the Hell’s Chariot 1949 Mercury.
After production of Grease concluded, the cars were moved to Paramount’s backlot and stored uncovered with hundreds of other cars until they could be used again, as they were in Used Cars. After David and Scott took ownership of the 1949 Mercury, their first job was to verify that it was the actual Hell’s Chariot from Grease, but to do that they needed to find out who built it.
Yet another famous car builder, George Barris, has built many notable screen-used cars, but he also had a reputation for claiming he built cars that he had no involvement with. Contacting Barris Kustom Industries was the logical first step. David and Scott were able to confirm that Barris did not build the cars from Grease, and that led them to Eddie Paul of E.P. Industries—who also built the cars from Taxi, XXX, Gone in 60 Seconds, and the vehicles used as part of the promotional tour of the Pixar animated movie Cars, among many others.
When David and Scott reached out to Eddie, he told them he had been waiting 35 years for someone to make that call, but it wasn’t until they brought him a binder filled with pictures that Eddie confirmed they had the real Hell’s Chariot. As movie cars often are, Hell’s Chariot was built as cheaply and quickly as possible. Contrary to popular belief, the 1949 Mercury Custom was not a convertible from the factory; in fact, there’s no convertible top under the tonneau cover at all. Eddie chopped the top off the Mercury himself, and fabricated the faux-tonneau out of scrap metal.
When Eddie saw David and Scott’s picture of the scrap metal he had shaped to look like a stowed convertible top and the frame bracing he added after chopping the roof off, he knew it was the real Hell’s Chariot and was happy to sign notarized documents supporting that claim. He even gave Scott and David a reel of old slide photos he took when he built the car in 1977. When Dan Condon, owner and builder at The Shop in Palm Desert, California, completed the restoration, Eddie happily signed the dashboard of the Mercury, as well.
Eddie told David and Scott that he had tried to purchase cars he built for Grease from Paramount at some point in the mid-1980s, but when he went to the backlot to pick them up, all he found were piles of rust. Greased Lightning and the Pink Ladies’ 1948 Studebaker were so far gone, having lived exposed to even Southern California’s mild weather in the rough condition they were filmed in for so many years, the only thing that could be used to make the cars screen-actuarte again was the rust they were turning into. A few short years later, the EPA told Paramount it had to clean up the waste of all the cars on the backlot, so a mobile crusher unit was brought in and nearly 400 cars were sent to the recycler as cubes. But Hell’s Chariot wasn’t there.
Somewhere, somehow, a sticky-fingered employee of Paramount had snuck the 1949 Mercury off the backlot and into their own garage—an experience HOT ROD is familiar with, as executives used to make off with project cars for the weekend frequently. Whether that garage was the one Bill Papke found Hell’s Chariot in will never be known, but when David and Scott found the chopped Mercury at Papke Enterprises, it needed some fixing.
Unlike Greased Lightning, Hell’s Chariot did not suffer the ravages of rust, but its iconic flames were painted over at some point. Dan at The Shop didn’t set about correcting that, however, until he fixed what we consider a faux pas committed by Bill in his effort to make the Mercury a reliable daily driver. Bill had pulled the original flathead engine and replaced it with a small-block Chevy, and the executor sold the original engine at the estate sale days before David and Scott purchased the car.
Chip Foose did not end up unknowingly buying that particular flathead, but another Newport Beach, California, hot-rodder did, and was happy to sell it back to David and Scott when they came asking about the motor. Chip did tell David a few years later at a Goodguys show where Hell’s Chariot was on display (David is a long-time Goodguys Rodder’s Rep) that he wished he had paid more attention to what was on that lift, but he was too focused on snagging as many of the flatheads and vintage speed parts as possible.
Bill had also converted the Mercury’s four-corner drum brakes to discs, a change David and Scott were happy to keep because they intended to drive and show the car. To recreate the flamed paintjob, Dan used a 60-inch high-definition plasma screen TV and bought a remastered copy of Grease on Blu-ray to take detailed measurements off the side shots of the Mercury. But the real trick was using a can of coffee.
Eddie Paul told Scott and David that the flames on Hell’s Chariot almost didn’t happen. Five hours before filming, a producer came to pick up the Mercury from Eddie’s El Segundo, California, shop, but had a conniption when he saw that the car was all black—a color notoriously difficult to film and photograph on a car because of the reflections. The producer told Eddie he had two hours to fix it, so his painter ran to the breakroom, grabbed a can of Yuban coffee, and proceeded to trace flame hooks around it.
Yuban coffee cans aren’t impossible to find, and Dan recreated the technique perfectly. Why didn’t Greased Lightning get any flames? Eddie’s paint shop lost air pressure the day the ’48 Ford was supposed to be painted, and had to use flat white house-grade paint applied with a foam roller. The quick-thinking on both cars paid off, though, and the Grease film crew loved the lack of reflections and glare on Greased Lightning—and what’s a car called Hell’s Chariot without some classic flames? Just a plain, chop-top 1949 Mercury.
The restoration of Hell’s Chariot could not have gone more smoothly. Most owners and builders fight projects for years, but the 1949 Grease Mercury was begging to get back on the road. It only took eight months for Dan Condon to restore Eddie Paul’s famous work. The timing could not have been better for Hell’s Chariot and Olivia Newton-John, as well, as she was just kicking off her Summer Nights residency at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas in 2014. As part of the promotion, David and Scott got to drive Olivia down Las Vegas Boulevard with a police escort. She was surprised when they asked her to sign the dashboard, stating she didn’t want to ruin their car, but they were happy to have the legendary singer add that last special touch to Hell’s Chariot.
David and Scott didn’t want to keep the ’49 Merc hidden away from public eye once it was finished, as they believe the car is an important part of American car culture and movie history and it needs to be shared with as many people as possible. David, inventor of the String Thing (a device tennis players use to straighten the strings on their rackets) was searching for a manufacturing partner, and found Scott through a mutual friend. The two bonded over a shared love of hot rods, and have been best friends ever since, purchasing the Grease 1949 Mercury together a few years after meeting.
Scott and David have always been eager for fans of Hell’s Chariot and Grease to take pictures with the car and sit in it, and have always enjoyed the stories fans and even actors from the movie have shared about the car at various shows and appearances. After driving Olivia Newton-John down the strip, the 1949 Mercury was featured with a number of other movie cars at the Viva Las Vegas car show, but was sectioned off behind cones. As the fans came walking by, David and Scott moved the cones and encouraged everyone to come and sit in the car, while the other movie cars (none actually real besides Hell’s Chariot, just replicas) were closely guarded by the other owners.
Darren Julien tried to convince David and Scott to sell Hell’s Chariot at the Hollywood Legends 2015 auction, convincing them the Mercury needed to make a trip to Ireland to be shown off to European buyers, but the car was so poorly promoted that David and Scott called it off before the auction took place. That hasn’t stopped the trolls from claiming the car sold in 2015, however. August 20, 2022, at the Mecum Auctions Monterey event will be only the second time David and Scott have listed Hell’s Chariot for sale. The first was an eBay listing they never intended on following through with, intended to gauge reaction to the car.
David and Scott have had their fun with Hell’s Chariot, and now want to pass it along to the next Grease superfan or movie memorabilia collector and focus on their other projects. As a special treat to the winning bidder, David and Scott are including the reel of slide photos taken by Eddie Paul (along with all the other documentation and photos). They have never before shown or displayed the reel.
It’s an unfortunate coincidence that Olivia Newton-John lost her battle with breast cancer just 12 days before the Mercury was set to cross the block, and it was never David and Scott’s intention to try and profit off of her association with the car. In keeping with their belief in encouraging Grease fans to interact with Hell’s Chariot in person, auctioning it at Mecum allows more people the opportunity to own this iconic piece of movie history than some secretive private sale would have.
Additional Photos and Videos Courtesy of Scott Byrum and David DeSure
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