With Cars 3 set to hit theaters later this month, the cartoon and animation world will look to Pixar’s creation for another monstrous box office impact. If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ll know that this film looks a little darker than the last, perhaps moving the franchise down a slightly more mature path while focusing on a new race car adversary. apparently hybrid.
While wandering around the Goodwood Festival of Speed, I came across a large Pixar booth displaying life-size models of some of the characters. The main car in the movies is obviously the Lightning McQueen voiced by Owen Wilson and after a little inspection I had a hard time figuring out exactly what car Pixar was trying to portray with his character.
I immediately thought there was Chevrolet in there, specifically a hint of Corvette lines. American cars are really not my strong point, so after some research I found some interesting information to understand the identity of the now iconic red racing car.
The first thing to clarify is that this is obviously a production car. That conclusion isn’t great, considering they run exclusively around the ovals. And that short-track rear spoiler, huge NASCAR-style wheels and striking flash paint all scream stock-car racing.
Regarding the car’s branding, Bob Pauley (one of Cars’ two production designers) said, “It’s the new rookie/veteran, it’s hot, it’s fast, it’s different. So it is invented. We’ve taken the best of our favorite things, from GT40s to Chargers…
The film’s director and screenwriter, John Lasseter, also said that while they wanted to have McQueen as the actual production car, they were a bit boring, saying, “Due to aerodynamics, the shape of NASCAR cars is relatively flat. and not very interesting.
Bringing some relevance to some iconic cars into the mix, the folks at Pixar decided to inject the design “with Lola and GT40.” This realization makes Lightning McQueen a Le Mans/NASCAR mix, which is actually pretty cool if you ask me.
I’m starting to see now…
In other words, he’s a bit of a Frankenstein, but considering the vehicles used to compose his final design, this character certainly has some legendary motorsport pedigree tucked into his pixelated lines.