Lightning McQueen

Montgomery "Lightning" McQueen is a car from the Cars theme of the same name. He was first released as a DUPLO version in 2010, but was later remade as a standard brick-built system car in 2011. To date, Lightning McQueen has eight designs, both System and DUPLO.
== Description ==
To date, LEGO has made 11 variants of Lightning McQueen over the three years since LEGO Cars and Cars 2 were released.
===DUPLO Cars racing variant===
In June 2010, LEGO made their two first Lightning McQueen cars in DUPLO. One of these was the Cars racing design. This variant had two pieces. One was the basic DUPLO Cars wheel piece, and the other was the DUPLO Lightning McQueen mold that fits over the wheels. This piece had many markings including a smile, lights, '95' printed on flames and exhaust pipes on the side panels, 'Rust • eze logo, eyes, and windows among other things.
===DUPLO Radiator Springs variant===
Of the two variants of Lightning McQueen that were made in June 2010, the second of these was the DUPLO Lightning McQueen Radiator Springs variant. This variant featured McQueen's Cars Radiator Springs design. This variant had the same basic mold as the racing design, but the Radiator Springs design had different markings. This variant had white-wall tires instead of red, a smile, lights, 'Ka-ciao' stickers, eyes, windows, exhaust pipes and other side panel printings.
===System Radiator Springs 1st variant===
Hotshot rookie race car Lightning McQueen didn’t care about anything but fame and racing…until he got lost in Radiator Springs and met his new friends!–LEGO.com 
Lightning McQueen's first System variants were released in May 2011. There were many System variants released at this time. The first of these was his Radiator Springs design from 8200 Radiator Springs Lightning McQueen. This variant features many sponsor stickers, red wheels, as well as his other printings–smile, eyes, windows, '95,' lightning sign, exhaust pipes, and lights. His back tail is hinged up vertically, and he has no backlights, given the make of the tail.
===System Radiator Springs 2nd variant===
Hotshot rookie race car Lightning McQueen didn’t care about anything but fame and racing…until he got lost in Radiator Springs and met his new friends!–LEGO.com The second System Radiator Springs variant of Lightning McQueen was released in 8487 Flo's V8 Café. While this variant outwards looks the same as the one from 8200 Radiator Springs Lightning McQueen, it is not completely the same. The difference between the two is while the Lightning McQueen from 8200 Radiator Springs Lightning McQueen had light grey 1x4 pieces helping to connect on the side panels, the Lightning McQueen from 8487 Flo's V8 Café has dark grey 1x4 pieces. Otherwise, the two Lightning McQueens are the same.
===System Cars racing variant===
With his shiny new red rims, Lightning McQueen is back on the racing circuit and ready to burn rubber. Can he beat the odds and take home the championship?–LEGO.com 
Another of his first System variants is Lightning McQueen's Cars racing variant. This variant featured an open mouth, '95' printed on flames on his side panels, exhaust pipes, lights, eyes, and windows. This variant, like the radiator Springs variant, has a hinged back tail, but unlike the Radiator Springs variant, McQueen has markings on his tail.
===Ultimate Building===
One of the first System Variants of McQueen is an "Ultimate Build", 8484 Ultimate Building Lightning McQueen. For information about this variant, please see the set.
===1st System Cars 2 racing variant===
Fitted out with golden rims and new body paint, Lightning McQueen is in for the biggest, toughest race of his life! He’ll have to out-drive his rivals all over the world if he wants to win in the World Grand Prix!–LEGO.com 
Lightning McQueen has three Cars 2 system variants. The first of these was released in 8423 World Grand Prix Racing Rivalry. This variant has a red 2x8 baseplate with a blue 2x6 baseplate on top, and green 1x2 inside pieces. In this variant, McQueen has a redesigned tail than from his Cars variants. Lightning McQueen in this variant has back red lights, a flat 1x4 red brick, with 'World Grand Prix' printed on the top as his tail. He also has another 1x4 flat red brick on his back, this one printed with 'Powered by Allinol.' The wheels of this variant are white, rimmed with gold. McQueen's side panels are printed with '95' printed on flames, and exhaust pipes. He has lights, a frowning mouth, 'Hudson Hornet Piston Cup' printed on his hood, side windows, half-closed eyes, and printings on his roof.
===2nd System Cars 2 racing variant===
Fitted out with golden rims and new body paint, Lightning McQueen is in for the biggest, toughest race of his life! He’ll have to out-drive his rivals all over the world if he wants to win in the World Grand Prix!–LEGO.com 
The second of Lightning McQueen's Cars 2 variants released in 8679 Tokyo International Circuit. This variant has a red 2x8 baseplate with a blue 2x6 baseplate on top, and yellow 1x2 inside pieces. All of the three early Cars 2 variants have the same printings.
===3rd System Cars 2 racing variant===
Fitted out with golden rims and new body paint, Lightning McQueen is in for the biggest, toughest race of his life! He’ll have to out-drive his rivals all over the world if he wants to win in the World Grand Prix!–LEGO.com 
The third of Lightning McQueen's Cars 2 variants released in 8639 Big Bentley Bust Out. This variant has a light grey 2x8 baseplate with a black 2x6 baseplate on top, and green 1x2 inside pieces. All of the three early Cars 2 variants have the same printings.
===DUPLO Cars 2 racing variant===
In May 2011, McQueen was also released in his Cars 2 DUPLO variant. While the same two molds were used, this variant had different printings. These printing consists of eyes, mouth, windows, 'Hudson Hornet Piston Cup', lights, exhaust pipes, light grey/silver, black, and yellow wheels, along with '95' printed on flames.
===4th System Cars 2 racing variant===
McQueen is not about to let Francesco steal the victory that is rightfully his. So if Francesco wants to insult him, McQueen is more than ready to get him right back with a bumper sticker of his own! “Ka-ciao, Francesco!”–LEGO.com 
In 2012, LEGO released a final to-date system Lightning McQueen. This McQueen was a newer Cars 2 variant. While it was similar to his older Cars 2 variant, there were a few changes made. The wheels in the old variant had gold hubs, whereas the wheels in the newer variant had red hubs. This variant also had a new face expression, the lights are turned on, and he has a plate displaying 'Ka-Ciao, Francesco!' at his rear. Lightning McQueen's tail in this variant was also built differently to the one from the last variant.
== Background ==
===Cars===
In Pixar's Cars movie, Lightning McQueen, a young Piston Cup race car, dreamed of becoming the first rookie to win a Piston Cup title. He was haughty and stuck up in the beginning of the movie, and didn't like his sponsors, and wanted everything to go his way. He competed in the last race of his rookie season, which, after having refused help from his pit crew to change tires mid-race, ended up in a three way tie between him, the seven-time Piston Cup champion, Strip "The King" Weathers, and Chick Hicks, a race car who has cheated his way into more second-place finishes than any other car and has counted down the number of seasons to The King's retirement so that he can take over the prestigious Dinoco sponsorship.
A tiebreaker race was declared, and Lightning McQueen departed from Motor City to California where the race was to be held. Chick Hicks challenged him to a race to California to see who can arrive at the speedway first, and Lightning accepted it.
 
After being refused by McQueen to take a nap, Mack, Lightning McQueen's hauler, slept in the middle of the highway and veered to the side of the road. All the bumping around accidentally opened the door of Lightning's trailer and made him fall out without Mack noticing. Lightning woke up and raced after Mack, but he noticed he had followed the wrong truck, and was now lost. He tried to drive all the way to California by himself.
As he was driving in the night without headlights, he came to Radiator Springs, where the local police officer, Sheriff, tried to pull him over for speeding. Sheriff was an old car, and because he wasn't used to driving that fast in years, he started to backfire. Lightning thought that Sheriff was shooting at him, so he didn't stop. As Lightning rushed through the town, he accidentally knocked over the statue of Stanley, the town's founder, and dragged it along the main street.
Sheriff eventually caught McQueen, and took him to court, from which he was sentenced to fix the road, thanks to the town attorney Sally. The process was slow, and McQueen hated it, even more so when he heard from a radio that Chick Hicks had arrived at California. He tried to pave the road as quickly as possible, but had to do it again, as the road was now covered in molten tar instead of asphalt.
 
He eventually finished paving the road, and befriended all of the other cars at Radiator Springs, especially Mater, a rusty tow truck, whom he became best friends with, and Sally, who became his girlfriend. There was one car, however, who was the last to befriend him: Doc Hudson, who turned out to be a three-time Piston Cup champion in the past, the Fabulous Hudson Hornet. Doc Hudson called the press to notify about the whereabouts of Lightning McQueen, and they all invaded Radiator Springs in order to get him to California in time for the tiebreaker race.
Lightning arrived at the racetrack, and the race begun. But Lightning couldn't concentrate: he missed all the new friends he made in Radiator Springs. Suddenly, Lightning heard Doc's voice through his pit crew radio and realized all of the Radiator Springs residents (except for Sally, Red and Lizzie) came to be his pit crew. During the final lap, Lightning McQueen was in the lead when Chick Hicks intentionally bumped The King into the infield and made him crash as he went airborne and tumbled over near the finish line. McQueen saw what had happened, and remembered what happened to Doc (he crashed in a similar fashion and was forgotten by the racing world). Lightning McQueen, to everyone's surprise, braked right in front of the finish line, letting Chick Hicks win in the process. He then reversed into where The King had crashed into and pushed him to the finish line so that he could finish the last race of his career with dignity. While Chick Hicks was booed off the winner's circle, Lightning was being cheered on by his friends from Radiator Springs and the entire stadium. A few days later, Lightning returned to Radiator Springs and decided to live there from now on, which attracted many tourists to the town. 
===Cars 2===
In the time between the two movies, Lightning McQueen won all the next Piston Cups, which were renamed the 'Hudson Hornet Piston Cup,' in honor of Doc Hudson, who died between the two movies. In Cars 2, Lightning competed in the World Grand Prix, thanks to Mater. He and his team went to the competition's welcome party, where Miles Axlerod, the creator of the World Grand Prix and Allinol, an alternative fuel to regular gasoline, introduced all of the race cars that were going to compete in the World Grand Prix to the party guests. McQueen told Mater that he had to act differently than how he usually did in Radiator Springs, which made Mater upset. The next day, Lightning and his pit crew were on the race track along with the other race cars and their pit crews. All the World Grand Prix contestants were given Allinol to use as their fuel.
 
Lightning McQueen finished the first race in 2nd, losing to Francesco Bernoulli because of a communication error with Mater, who unintentionally told him to do the wrong move. Three race cars flamed out in the first race, for some unknown reason. Lightning blamed Mater for making him lose, and Mater decided it was best if he went home.
McQueen and the remainder of his crew then traveled to Italy, where the second race was to take place. They first went to Luigi and Guido's hometown, where he told Luigi's uncle about Mater and how remorseful he was from having a fight with him. 
One day later, Lightning and his pit crew were at the race track for the second race of the World Grand Prix. Lightning finished that race in 1st, with Francesco in 2nd. For some strange reason, three race cars flamed out, which resulted in a huge crash that involved four other race cars. Allinol was blamed for being the cause of the cars flaming out and Miles Axlerod announced the last race would not require the usage of Allinol, meaning the race cars were allowed to freely choose their fuel for the last race. Despite all of this, Lightning choose to compete in the last race with Allinol as his fuel because of his friend Fillmore saying it was safe, and also because he didn't stood by a friend of his recently and didn't wanted to make the same mistake twice. 
Lightning and his pit crew then traveled to London, where the last race was to be held. He called Sally in order to apologize to Mater back home, but he wasn't there. Sally then decided to travel to London with Ramone, Flo, Sheriff and Red for the last race. When Lightning came to the pits for a tire change, he noticed Mater was there, but Mater drove away from him. Lightning then chased after Mater and tried to apologize to him, but Mater was more worried about the bomb that was strapped to him. McQueen managed to catch up to Mater and strapped his front left tire to his tow hook, Mater then activated a pair of rocket jets and blasted away. The two finally stopped, and were met by Holley Shiftwell, a British agent, who told McQueen that Mater had bomb strapped to his air filter. British spy Finn McMissile came with Professor Z, an evil German weapons designer who was confused to why his "death ray" didn't manage to kill McQueen. Mater unintentionally activated the bomb while trying to deactivate it, but then they were surrounded by a fleet of evil lemon cars who wanted to kill Lightning McQueen and stop cars from using Allinol and every other type of non-oil fuel because they were the owners of the world's largest untapped oil reserve and wanted to become rich and powerful in order to compensate for the suffering they previously had in their lives for being defective cars. A huge fight broke in and the good guys were winning. The lemons who tried to escape were met by Sarge and the entire British army, who managed to arrest them all.
Mater realized who was the culprit behind the bomb strapped to him and the race cars flaming out, so he activated his rocket jets and parachute and flied away with McQueen. The duo landed at Buckingham Palace, where The Queen was watching the race, and Mater explained to everyone that Miles Axlerod was behind all of this. It turned out Mater's accusation was correct, and Miles Axlerod was arrested.
A few days later, McQueen and Mater were at Radiator Springs and organized a new World Grand Prix race with all of the race cars to compensate the fact that the last race in London was suspended. 
===Cars 3===
Five years after the events of the second film, Lightning McQueen, now a five-time Piston Cup champion and racing legend, races in the series with his long-time racing friends Cal Weathers and Bobby Swift. High-tech rookie racer Jackson Storm appears as the first of a new generation of racecars and begins to win race after race. Lightning pushes himself too hard while trying to compete with Storm in the season's final race and damages his engine, causing him to lose control and suffer a rollover crash.
After being rebuilt, Lightning decides to continue racing. He heads to the Rust-eze Training Center and trains with Cruz Ramirez, a yellow high-performance coupe, during the off-season in the hope of increasing his top speed and beating Storm. Lightning's new sponsor Sterling, a successful business car, tells him he will have to retire if he loses his next race, with Sterling planning to profit off Lightning's retirement merchandise. After several unsuccessful attempts at training, Lightning asks Mater for help, who gives him the idea to seek out Doc Hudson's old crew chief and mentor Smokey, a Hudson pick-up truck, and eventually meets him at the Thomasville Motor Speedway.
After completing training with Smokey, Lightning runs the first half of the Florida 500 with Smokey as his crew chief before pulling out and giving Cruz her chance to become a racer with him as her crew chief. Cruz and Lightning share the victory due to Lightning starting the race, and the pair receive a sponsorship under the merged Dinoco–Rust-eze brand. Lightning decides to continue racing but spends the rest of the season as Cruz's mentor and crew chief.
=== Cars on the Road ===
An animated spin-off series titled Cars on the Road premiered on Disney+ on September, 8, 2022. The plot involves Lightning McQueen (voiced by Wilson) and Mater setting off on a road trip to the east of Radiator Springs to meet Mater's sister
== Notes ==
* No System variant of Lightning McQueen is the same. While there may seem to be five System different variant outwardly, the colour of internal bricks is different for each one, adding up to a total of 11.
* He will appear in the Pixar LEGO shorts before the Lightning McQueenPixar Cars' instagramStich Kingdom's tweet
== Appearances ==
=== DUPLO: ===
*5813 Lightning McQueen (Cars racing design)
*5815 Flo's V-8 Café (Radiator Springs design)
*5816 Mack's Road Trip! (Cars racing design)
*5819 Tokyo Racing (Cars 2 design)
*5828 Big Bentley (Cars 2 design)
*5829 The Pit Stop (Cars 2 design)
*5839 World Grand Prix (Cars 2 design)
*6133 Race Day (Cars 2 design)
*10846 Flo's Café (Cars 3 design)
*10857 Piston Cup Race (Cars 3 design)
=== System: ===
*8200 Radiator Springs Lightning McQueen (1st Radiator Springs design)
*8487 Flo's V8 Café (2nd Radiator Springs design)
*8486 Mack's Team Truck (Cars racing design)
*8423 World Grand Prix Racing Rivalry (1st Cars 2 design)
*8679 Tokyo International Circuit (2nd Cars 2 design)
*8639 Big Bentley Bust Out (3rd Cars 2 design)
*9485 Ultimate Race Set (4th Cars 2 design)
*10730 Lightning McQueen Speed Launcher (1st Cars 3 design)
*10742 Willy's Butte Speed Training (2nd Cars 3 design)
*10743 Smokey's Garage (3rd Cars 3 design)
*10744 Thunder Hollow Crazy 8 Race (4th Cars 3 design)
*10745 Florida 500 Final Race
=== Other Physical Appearances ===
* 8484 Ultimate Build Lightning McQueen 
=== Video Game Appearances ===
* LEGO The Incredibles
=== Shorts ===
* Mater's Brick Tales
* LEGO Pixar: Bricktoons
== Gallery of Variants ==
System variants
DUPLO variants
== Gallery ==
System_Car.png|Cars 2 teaser showing the System Radiator Springs version of Lightning McQueen
LEGOMCQueen4.png|Lightning in his Cars 2 design
McQueen-04.png|A top shot of McQueen in his Cars 2 design
NewMcQueen.png|2012 design
LEGOMcQueen1.png|Radiator Springs design
LEGOMcQueen2.png|2012 design
Lightning Mcqueen.jpg
that car from that one movie.png|Lightning McQueen in LEGO The Incredibles.
== References ==
==External Links==
[McQueen on LEGO.com]
[Lightning McQueen on Pixar Cars Wiki]
es:Rayo McQueen
Category:Cars (Disney)
Category:Minifigures introduced in 2010
Category:Disney
Category:Pixar