When the Athens Lions Club president asked the collision repair class at Limestone County Career Technical Center to repaint the pedal cars for the Kiddie Carnival, he expected a quick coat of paint.

Instead, the students went all out to repair and refinish the darling little cars.

“Before they were painted yellow, green, orange, blue and purple, and they were full of dents,” said teacher Mike Raney. “Me and Keith Barksdale (Lions Club president) decided to make it into a little contest. He bought new tires, and we redid the suspensions and added new tow bars on the fronts and redid all the steering wheel rods. Then we painted and clear-coated and put little details on them. We used a wrap machine to create the logos, which are made of vinyl.”

After removing the wheels and everything else from the cars, the students sanded, primed, painted and sealed them. Because there were eight cars, the students used six cars to reflect the six Limestone County high schools and added LCCTC as the seventh. Athens was included as the eighth car because there are so many students from the city who attend LCCTC, Raney said.

They painted the cars in each school’s colors and even created vinyl logos to spell out the names and in some cases, the mascots.

“They had a great time,” Raney said of his 40 students. “They really enjoyed it.”

The work took about a month and a half, though the students had to pause at one point to paint car prototypes for the Mazda Toyota Manufacturing U.S.A. plant coming to Limestone County.

Raney declined to say how much it cost to refurbish the Kiddie Carnival’s cars, which are more than 50 years old.

“Costs were kept to a minimum because donated materials were used in the repair and refinishing process,” Raney said.

He said fully restored old model pedal cars can fetch $800 to $1,000 for their sellers.

But these cars aren’t going anywhere except back to the Kiddie Carnival, which opens June 27 at 309 E. Forrest St. in Athens, across from the old Athens Middle School. The pedal cars are a favorite at this carnival for kids, which includes kid-size versions of the scrambler, rollercoaster, Ferris wheel and other carnival rides.

Proceeds go to the Lions’ charitable causes.