Do you love the ‘Greased Lightning’ scene from Grease?

If you ever watched the movie ‘Grease‘ starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, you surely recall the ‘Greased Lightning’ scene. I can’t even recall how many times I have actually watched this movie myself, but it’s got to be in my top ten favorite movies of all time.

I started watching a TV show called ‘A Million Little things‘ recently, and in one of the episodes a character is trying out for the role of Danny in a school production of Grease. Part of the scene includes a bit of the music from the ‘Greased Lightning’ scene and that’s when it occurred to me, there is definitely a Packard reference in there! It’s right at the beginning of the song, when John Travolta (as Danny) says: “This car could be systematic, hydramatic, ultramatic, why it could be greased lightning!”

Ultramatic is a Packard term for their version of an automatic transmission.

Go ahead, I know you’ve got to click on the video to refresh your memory.

If you’re a car person, you might find the ‘installation of the engine’ particularly entertaining!

I think it’s interesting to discover all the ways that Packard technology and influence seems to weave it’s way into the modern culture.

On Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings there is a small group of volunteers that gets together to work on the classic Packard fleet of cars that have been donated to the Packard Motor Car Foundation. This lean, mean, team keeps up with lots of the maintenance and repair work that needs to be done on these vehicles. I bet this ‘greased lightning’ scene is EXACTLY what it’s like back there in the Tank Building – well maybe in the guys’ imaginations sometimes!

Good luck getting this tune out of your head!

If you want to read an interesting article about the making of the movie, check out this link, also photo credit goes to this site for our featured image.