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MAYODAN — What can be said about teenage boys and cars that hasn’t already been said? How about an electric Mustang?

Coming back from a recent car show, the Advanced Technology Studies students from McMichael High School stopped at a Taco Bell in Durham and noticed a man looking under the rear of their 1992 Ford Mustang.

“He was looking for our exhaust,” said Quintin Dickerson . “We said, ‘You need to come look at this.’ ”

The man, who was driving a Ford Mustang himself, walked around to the lifted hood of the car and was blown away.

“He was like, ‘Wow!’ and just kept looking all over under the hood,” said Hunter Foulks .

Instead of the beloved five-liter engine the Mustang is known for, McMichael’s car sports 12 batteries and a 9-inch electric motor.

The Electric Fox, as the boys have come to call it, is a Fox Body Mustang stripped of its gas engine and converted to electric.

“The whole goal was to get them to that highest level of learning,” said John Butler , the class teacher. “It’s not just knowing a subject but having an appreciation for what you can do with it.”

Butler started the electric car project after seeing a similar one on display at the state fair about three years ago. He spent 2009 and 2010 laying the groundwork for the project, including finding funding and picking the right students for the class.

Finding the car — two cars actually — was the easiest part. Butler is a car enthusiast himself and had two retired Mustangs in disrepair and collecting dust on his family farm.

The class of 10 boys range in age from sophomores to seniors. Butler said he didn’t look for the best grades or the biggest gear heads, he wanted the kids who’d shown him a love for learning and experimenting.

Butler wanted the class to be more than just advanced auto mechanics. He wanted it to be as varied as his students’ interests.

“I wanted that reflected in this project, too,” Butler said. “The boys all had different jobs to do, but each one had the same goal of making the best electric car they could. It’s what you would see with any business today.”

They’re quick to laugh, and still have some of that boyish shyness, but get the students started on the car and they get chatty.

“I want to be a mechanic when I get older and this just expands my horizon. I’m going to be ahead of a lot of other people because of this,” Foulks said.

The boys crowd around the hood and point to each job they did. They laugh about sitting inside the engine bay mounting new brackets and all the wiring they had to install. They argue about which jobs were the hardest or who looked the most tired as they worked long hours after school to get the car ready for a statewide competition.

They also built a website, took and edited photos and videos, and designed logos and signs to promote their work.

So they design the car, build the car and promote the car. Detroit might want to visit Mayodan.

What’s really impressive and gratifying, Butler said, is that the boys are each taking away something from the class. Some, like Graham Beasley, found interest in something entirely new.

Beasley thought he might open a musical instrument store some day, but after shooting and editing videos for the project, he plans to apply to a Charlotte art school next year.

“I’m into this more than I am most other school stuff,” Beasley said. “I mean, who gets to take a Mustang and convert it into an electric car?”

And the boys are quick to point out it’s an electric car, not a glorified golf cart. At this year’s national EV Challenge in Garysburg the team fared well, taking second place in several categories including a slalom race and distance test.

The car can get up to 70 mph, but that’s not fast enough for this team. They want to jump from 96 volts to 156. They’re looking at either adding a larger electric motor or a second one of the same size.

They also want to go lighter and extend their range with more efficient high-tech lithium ion batteries. That could cost about $6,000, so Butler and the boys are trying to raise money.

Butler intends to keep the project going and hopes to recruit new students . He said the school district’s budget concerns make him nervous, but he hasn’t heard about cutbacks to the program.

“Classes like these are so important,” he said. “Kids learn so much and they don’t even realize it. It doesn’t matter what the project is. Any cool project will get kids interested.”

Contact J. Brian Ewing at 627-4881, Ext. 120, or brian.ewing@news-record.com