Those crazy cats in the Electric Mayhem band gave Fozzie Bear’s 1951 Studebaker Commander its last paint job – and that was 45 years ago.

The car, one of two used in The Muppet Movie to transport Kermit and Fozzie as they sang “Movin’ Right Along” and criss-crossed the continent on their way to Hollywood, sat in a Warner Bros’ studio backlot for years, and lost a lot of its luster, including most of the paint added to the car by Dr. Teeth and the gang.

In 2004 it was acquired by a Studebaker Drivers’ Club chapter and gifted to the Studebaker National Museum, located in South Bend, Indiana, where it received only some light cleaning and maintenance, remaining on display there ever since, with the museum quietly raising money towards a restoration.

Now RazorFly Studios, an Academy Award-winning prop house and custom car builder has agreed to partner on the project and provide restoration services. RazorFly has done this sort of thing before: they built a recreation of Marty McFly’s Back to the Future time-traveling DeLorean and a Jurassic Park Explorer.

The South Bend Tribune reported that the Sylva, North Carolina-based studio took possession of the car last week. Workers carefully loaded the Commander, wrapped in protective tarps and blankets, onto a trailer to take it south for work that could take up to 16 months. 

This Studebaker was used in the close-up shots that required puppeteers to fit themselves under the dashboard in order to operate Kermit and Fozzie. The other car, which was used for long shots, has been lost to time.

RazorFly plans to make the car drivable so it can be appear in parades and special events, which will entail returning the driving controls back to the original steering system rather than the special rig devised for the puppeteers, who drove the car unseen.

The studio also plans to restore the psychedelic paint job done not by a band of musical muppets, but by a movie studio art department employee who has since passed away.

The museum has raised about $60,000 of the $175,000 it needed before RazorFly stepped in, and is still seeking donations for custom components for the car as well as for the new exhibit they will build to showcase the vehicle once it is returned, which is estimated to be some time in 2025.

South Bend, Indiana, the home of the museum, was the home of the Studebaker company until its dissolution in 1967. The Studebaker National Museum has been in its present location since 2005. Anyone interest in donating to the restoration project can follow this link to a webpage that the museum has set up for the project.