page_title: Sally Carrera
section_title: Character
hierarchical_section_title: Sally Carrera / Character
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Voiture du film Cars English: Eddie Paul Porsche 996 customisation as Sally Carrera, an animated cartoon motorcar from Pixar's Cars.
context_page_description: Sally Carrera is a fictional character in the Pixar computer animated film Cars. She is Radiator Springs's town attorney and protagonist Lightning McQueen's love interest. She is voiced by Bonnie Hunt.
context_section_description: Sally is instrumental in convincing the local judge to direct McQueen to repair the town's Main Street, a section of the now-bypassed U.S. Route 66, as a community service obligation upon his conviction in traffic court. Sally often calls Lightning McQueen "Stickers", at first because of his fake headlights and later as a friendly nickname. Her desire that McQueen stay to assist in rebuilding the town places her at odds with Doc's intransigence that "I want him out of my courtroom. I want him out of our town!", motivated by his desire to break all ties with a racing community which once abandoned him.
  Sally leads McQueen on a leisurely drive on picturesque but serpentine mountain roads through Tailfin Pass to the vacant Wheel Well Motel, an abandoned motor court and filling station near a scenic lookout point with a wide panoramic view of Ornament Valley, Radiator Springs and the entire surrounding region (including US 66 and I-40). Surrounding scenery strongly resembles Arizona landmarks such as Havasu Falls near Grand Canyon National Park or Monument Valley. She also appears to be able to speak Italian at least when she sometimes talks to Guido.
  She explains the history of the town with a nostalgic flashback, describing the two-lane Route 66's busy heyday and the construction of the parallel but unconnected six-lane I-40; the fact that it would not connect with Radiator Springs was unknown to the excited locals, who were expecting a new influx of visitors. The disappearance of cars from Main Street on the new highway's completion is every bit as abrupt as that (described to the film's makers by Arizona business people Angel and Juan Delgadillo) when I-40 opened in Seligman on September 22, 1978. When Interstate 40 is completed, US 66, Radiator Springs and Ornament Valley are all seen to simultaneously vanish from road maps as all highway traffic on 66 disappears and local businesses close, their business names fading into the underlying brickwork.
  Forty years ago, that Interstate down there didn't exist. Back then, cars came across the country a whole different way. Well, the road didn't cut through the land like that Interstate. It moved with the land, it rose, it fell, it curved. Cars didn't drive on it to make great time. They drove on it to have a great time.
  — Sally Carrera
  Lamenting that "the town got bypassed just to save ten minutes of driving", she often wishes to have seen the community in its heyday. Her efforts are devoted to historic restoration and tireless promotion of "Radiator Springs, the glorious jewel strung on the necklace of Route 66, the mother road". The town has been without clients for years, even though there are no services on the new road. As the task of rebuilding is huge (the Rock Café, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, represented a $60,000 restoration effort) she needs to convince a long-demoralised local populace not only that the town can be fixed but also that "we're a town worth fixing" and that "someday, we'll find a way to get this place back on the map".
  Her ultimate objective is to get the once busy and neon-lit 1950s main street rebuilt to its former historic glory and obtain much-needed publicity for the town to restore "Radiator Springs" to highway signage and "Historic Route 66" to standard printed road maps. Sally serves as a vehicle to deliver a message which individual small towns, historic preservationists, route 66 associations, chambers of commerce, route 66 businesspeople and various long-time fans of the mother road have tried to convey for many years since US 66 became a decommissioned highway in 1985, largely removing the route from maps.
  After the big race is complete, McQueen and Sally rebuild and reopen the Wheel Well as a bed and breakfast, restoring the historic 1930s fuel pumps to its forecourt. (A third motel in the area, the long-abandoned "Glenn Rio Motel", is shown briefly but does not return as a motel. She also appears in Cars 3 and attended the race at where McQueen had his crash.
caption: Sally as Eddie Paul custom vehicle for Cars promotional tour
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