American Car

American Car was the second pitch for Cars, and would serve as the basis for the final product released in 2006, with a lot of similarities and differences.
==Plot==
Similar to the beginning of Cars, the story starts out with a racer, "Lightning McQueen", a famous rookie race car, fast on track, on the verge of becoming the first rookie to win a Piston Cup. Eventually later on Lightning finishes in a tie for the race. Afterwards, McQueen and Mack travel to California to make it to the tiebreaker race, but before that decide to stop by the Top Down Truckstop to wash off. Lightning, impatient, comes out of his trailer and looks for Mack but he gets distracted with the cars there, who are excited to see him. Mack returns and leaves McQueen behind. Lightning tries to chase him down him, but, as in the final film, Lightning follows the wrong truck. He gets Lost and starts to panic after entering a graveyard without knowing where to go, scared, he runs away taking with him a piece of metal, with which he breaks the road only to end up in Radiator Springs (called Autocoaster in the pitch). As Lightning is racing down the road at high speeds, he passes and awakens Sheriff, the local police officer, who then begins chasing McQueen. Scared, Lightning drives through the town accidentally crashing into the store of Mr. Windshield. After Sheriff catches Lightning, he is put in the Radiator Springs Municipal Impound by Mr. Windshield where McQueen is severely reprimanded by Sally for derailing the business of Mr. Windshield who subsequently closes his small store leaving the town.
Lightning is asked to do a race in Radiator Springs to attract customers, but he refuses, and chooses to do standard Community Service instead. While he is sleeping, he has a nightmare where Doc Hudson, Mater and Sheriff have put his engine in a steamroller. He tries to escape by driving through the fence, and Sheriff chases him with his siren and puts McQueen to work while Mater's engine is placed into Lightning's body. Mack comes back, and mistakes Mater for McQueen. Mater gets into Lightning trailer, and Mack drives away when. Lightning tries to get Doc and Sheriff to get Mater back, but they want him to continue fixing the road. When he wakes up, and finds himself in his regular body, and decides to change his mind and do the race instead. But before that, Lightning needs to go to the Traffic School if he wants to race on the streets. Sheriff jokes about McQueen having a crush for Sally, which he denies. Sally is annoyed at Lightning for arriving late, but continues with the class, where she's interrupted by Lightning's arrogant comments. Sally obligates Lightning to wear headlights and rearview mirrors. Sally tells him about Stanley (originally Steamer), the town's founder. Sally teaches McQueen how to park but his arrogant attitude prevents him from doing so until he does it recklessly. Lightning competes in the Radiator Springs Grand Prix and suffers a crash near the end of the race.
Following the scene where McQueen and Sally are cruising, there's a karaoke night. Flo shows her singing talent she learned during her days as a member of the Motorama Girls. Curious, Lightning asks Ramone how the two fell in love. He says that the Motorama Girls have came to Radiator Springs from Detroit after their chaperone broke down. The girls decided to party with the locals, and at one point came to Ramone's Body Work to get paint jobs. He painted almost all of the girls, but on the last car, dropped his air brush at the sight of Flo, and the two fell in love instantly. The next day, the Motorama Girls left, and Flo stayed. 
At some unknown point in the story, Lightning and Sally see a spy movie, starring a character named McMissile, who would serve as the basis for Finn McMissle from Cars 2.
==Characters==
*Racer 57 (Lightning McQueen)
*Crew Chief
*Monte-Carl
*Mustang Sally
*Zeb/Tom (Mater)
*"Hud" Hudson Hornet
*The Major "Duch Packard" "The Tub"
*Mr. Windshield
*Sheriff
*Sarge
*Waldmire
*Ramone
*Flo
*Steamer
*Tin Lizzie
==Beatboards==
Akkokolko.jpg|Original version of Mack in the Top Down Truck Stop
AmericanCar009.jpg|Racer 57 destroying Mr. Windshield's shop
AmericanCar018.jpg|Autocoaster Grand Prix 1.
Possible grand prix storyboard.jpg|Some racers go to Ramone.
Flo storyboard.1.jpg|Karaoke Night 1
RadiatorSprings storyboard.5.jpg|A visual of the town
AmericanCar010.jpg|McQueen Crash 1
AmericanCar011.jpg|McQueen Crash 2
XCARS 75 1-web.jpg|Red and Blue McQueen.
Lf.jpg|Luigi goes away.
2011-07-06-RoadRally.jpg|The Mayor with Steamer inaugurate the Radiator Springs Grand Prix.
File:AmericanCar013.jpg|Damaged McQueen sleeping in the municipal storage.
File:AmericanCar012.jpg|Mustang Sally getting angry with McQueen for the town disasters.
File:AmericanCar006.jpg|McQueen looking for Mack.
File:AmericanCar007.jpg|McQueen lost Mack. (Note: The railroad crossing signs are on the wrong side of the road)
File:AmericanCar016.jpg|Mr.Windshield leaving the town.
File:AmericanCar014.jpg|Mr.Windhsield leaving the town.
File:AmericanCar017.jpg|The town folks discussing with the mayor.
File:AmericanCar023.jpg|Mustang Sally
File:AmericanCar019.jpg|"Hud" Hudson Hornet
File:AmericanCar025.jpg|Sarge
File:AmericanCar026.jpg|Scrapped character
File:AmericanCar024.jpg|The Mayor "Duch Packard" "The Tub"
File:AmericanCar027.jpg|The King
File:RS-Sketch.jpg|Lightning racing through the desert in the Grand Prix
==Sources==
*Jørgen Klubien's story development page.
==Trivia==
*One of the paintjobs for McQueen is blue instead of red.
*Mack is depicted in a different semi truck style resembling that of a pickup truck and it's currently unknown if Mack was actually meant to look like that as whereas some storyboards depict him with a design closer to the final film.
*The McMissile character would serve as the basis for Finn McMissile in Cars 2
*McQueen originally had two different sponsors before being changed to Rust-Eze in the final film: ACME and Corrosion Seal. 
*Sally was originally intended to be a Mustang. 
*Mia and Tia were going to be waitresses at Top Down Truckstop. They were also yellow originally.
*Chick's original name was going to be "Chick Murphy".
*It is unknown if Lightning raced at the Los Angeles International Speedway at the end of the film.
*The winner of the Radiator Springs Grand Prix was an unnamed Hot Rod Racer.
*In a piece of concept art Luigi can be seen opening his door while waving the starting flag, this idea was revisited in Cars on the Road.
*After the Radiator Springs Grand Prix, Luigi was supposed to leave the town and close down his own shop after supplying McQueen with bad tires during the race that caused his crash.
*Mr. Windshield had 2 different designs, in the first draft, he was a truck, and in the second, he was going to be a yellow Packard Clipper.
*A character with a design resembling Smokey is present in the story.
*American Car appears as one of the sponsors in the original Teaser Trailer for Cars. 
Category:Unused elements