"Car Wash" is a hit song by American R&B band Rose Royce. It was the group's debut single and one of the most notable successes of the 1970s disco era. "Car Wash", the theme of the 1976 motion picture Car Wash, was Rose Royce's most successful single and the lead single from their debut studio album, the Car Wash soundtrack. Reaching number-one in the United States on the Billboard pop and R&B charts, "Car Wash" also peaked at number three on the dance chart and reached number nine in the UK Singles chart in February 1977. The song was later covered in 2004 by Christina Aguilera and Missy Elliott, who released their version as the single for the Shark Tale soundtrack.

Former Motown Records producer Norman Whitfield had been commissioned to record the soundtrack album for Car Wash by director Michael Schultz. Although Whitfield did not want to assume the project, he decided to do so, both for financial incentives as well as the chance to give Rose Royce, a disco/funk backing band that Whitfield signed to his own label in 1975, the exposure they needed to become mainstream. Unable to develop a theme song for the film, inspiration finally struck Whitfield while playing a game of basketball, and he allegedly wrote his first draft of "Car Wash" on a paper bag from a fried chicken eatery.

The resulting song set the mood and tone for the comedy film it was commissioned for. Rose Royce lead singer Rose Norwalt (Gwen Dickey), with brief assistance from guitarist Kenji Brown, describes a fun and easy-going car washing business, where everything is "always cool/and the boss don't mind sometimes if you act a fool."

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