Car Wash is a 1976 American comedy film directed by Michael Schultz from a screenplay by Joel Schumacher, and starring an ensemble cast.

Originally conceived as a musical,[citation needed] the film is an episodic comedy about a day in the lives of a close-knit group of employees at a Los Angeles car wash.

It features Franklyn Ajaye, George Carlin, Irwin Corey, Ivan Dixon, Bill Duke, Antonio Fargas, Jack Kehoe, Clarence Muse, Lorraine Gary, The Pointer Sisters, Richard Pryor, and Garrett Morris.

Despite lukewarm commercial performance on initial release, the film received widespread positive reviews from critics and has developed a strong cult following.

It alarms employees, customers, and the owner of the car wash, Leon "Mr. B" Barrow, but the strange man's "bomb" turns out to be simply a urine sample he is taking to the hospital for a liver test.

Mr. B's son Irwin, a left-wing college student who smokes pot in the men's restroom and carries around a copy of Quotations from Chairman Mao, insists on spending a day with the "working class" employees, whom he considers "brothers" in the "struggle."

A taxi driver searches fruitlessly for a prostitute named Marleen, who stiffed him for a fare earlier and has her own hopes shattered later on as a customer with whom she apparently has fallen in love has given her a false telephone number.

Abdullah Mohammed Akbar, formerly known as Duane, is a tall Black revolutionary and recent convert to Islam who dismisses Daddy Rich's preaching when the quartet visits and collects donations from the employees.

Middle-aged ex-convict Lonnie, the foreman of the car wash, tries to mentor Abdullah while struggling to raise two young children and fend off his parole officer.

An employee named Justin clashes with his girlfriend, Loretta, who wants him to return to college, but he declines, feeling that a black man like him will not get anywhere in the world with any kind of education.

Other employees include womanizer Geronimo ("married three and a half times"), a thin African-American with feathers in his hair; cowboy Scruggs, the gas pump operator concerned about having caught a "social disease" the night before; overweight, good-natured Hippo, who is constantly listening to his transistor radio and hooks up with Marleen; a scheming, jokester Latino named Chuco; a Native American named Goody, who wears a home made hat with pig face, tail, and pointy ears; scruffy, middle-aged Charlie; con artist and bookie Sly, who later gets arrested for a series of unpaid parking tickets; and the "holier than thou" Earl, who sees himself as superior to his colleagues because he does not get wet (since he waxes the cars).

Later, Abdullah, after being fired by Mr. B for his unexplained absences from work for the past several weeks, appears in the office with a gun while Lonnie is closing up, intending to rob the business.