New York police say they found a Brooklyn teacher's car three years after it was stolen, but she didn't recognize it after it had been souped up like a hot rod.

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The white 1996 Honda Accord was returned to Amanda Pogany with a new V-8 engine, a new leather interior, tinted windows, oversized tires and valve stem caps shaped like bullet casings, the New York Daily News reported.

"When I first saw under the hood, I thought it looked like, you know, in the movie 'Grease?' Like the Grease Lightning car," said Pogany, 31.

When she finally got her car at a Brooklyn impound lot, she said, the automatic transmission had been replaced and a Dominican flag and a big wooden cross hung from the rear-view mirror.

"I'm Jewish and I don't even know how to drive a stick shift," said Pogany, who teaches eighth grade Judaic Studies and Hebrew language at the Solomon Schechter School of Manhattan.

Police told her they found her car during a bust of a Queens chop shop and traced it to her even though the vehicle-identification number had been filed off.

"I was like, 'Shut up!'" Pogany said.