Cars

**Cars** is Pixar's seventh feature film.

## Story

### Plot

During the last race of the 2006 Piston Cup racing season, a skilled but arrogant rookie racecar named Lightning McQueen overtakes seven-time champion Strip "The King" Weathers and perennial runner-up Chick Hicks. However, due to Lightning's refusal to have his tires changed during pit stops, his rear tires burst into flames on the final lap. Lightning just barely manages to cross the finish line simultaneously with Chick and the King, resulting in a three-way tie. Race officials announce that the three racers will compete in a final tiebreaker race at the Los Angeles International Speedway in one week.

While traveling down Interstate 40 to California, Lightning becomes separated from Mack, his transport truck, and gets lost on U.S. Route 66, catching the attention of the local Radiator Springs Sheriff in the process. A chase ensues, during which Lightning crashes and gets tangled in wires, damaging part of the town's main street in the process.

Lightning is taken to traffic court, where the town's attorney Sally Carrera pleads against Lightning. He is sentenced to repave the road using "Bessie", an asphalt-laying machine. Only interested in leaving and extremely furious, he makes an escape attempt before being hooked up, only to figure out his gas tank was siphoned. Lightning rushes through his first day of paving and the new road surface is so bumpy, unusable, uneven, and poor that he is told he must scrape it off and start over again.

When Doc Hudson offers Lightning, a deal beat Doc in a race around Willy's Butte and he is free to go, Lightning eagerly accepts. He leaves Doc in the dust at the starting line but loses control on the loose dirt turn and crashes into a cactus patch. While the town's tow truck, Mater, hauls Lightning out of the cactus patch in which he landed, Doc effortlessly cruises to the finish line after informing Lightning that he races like he fixes roads. Lightning is compelled to scrape off the botched pavement and start over again. After Lightning completes a section of the road for the night, Mater asks if he would like to do something fun. He finds out that Mater was talking about a game called "Tractor Tipping." Lightning tries to back down but is convinced by Mater. Mater shows him how to tip a tractor. He sneaks up to one sleeping and suddenly blares his horn causing the tractor to react and tip over backward and fart (backfire). Lightning having a go approaches a tractor with Mater urging him to do it. Lightning then roars engine waking ever tractor in the field with all of them tipping over and farting all at once. They have a laughing moment, but suddenly awake Frank, a red combine harvester with the personality of a bull who chases them out of the field by threaten to grind them up with his blade.

As the ensuing days pass, Lightning is disturbed by nightmares of Chick Hicks winning the Piston Cup and landing Dinoco. He starts to befriend the town's residents and learn more about the town in the process: how Radiator Springs was once a thriving town until completion of the nearby interstate bypassed the little town, depriving it of its business traffic and visitors and ironically, depriving those passing visitors of the natural beauty found in the scenery along the old highway, how Sally left behind her rich but unhappy life as an urban lawyer, what tractor tipping is, and how Doc Hudson was once a famous racecar himself the Hudson Hornet and 3-time Piston Cup champion -- until a horrible crash in 1954 ended his racing career.

Doc bitterly refuses to reveal much about his past despite Lightning witnessing him expertly drifting through the loose dirt of Willy's Butte where Lightning crashed, labeling his old trophies as a bunch of empty cups.

By the time Lightning finishes repaving Radiator Springs's main road, he has formed a bond with the town and its residents. Rather than immediately leaving for California as he had initially been eager to do, he spends the day touring the town's businesses, receiving a fresh coat of paint and new tires in the process, and participates in a cruise party that night. But he is suddenly found, then whisked away in his truck, Mack, without even a chance to bid farewell to Radiator Springs. The town's residents are sad to see him leave, and Sally is grumpy to learn that it was Doc who ultimately informed the media of Lightning's whereabouts.

The final race among Lightning, the King, and Chick opens with what the race's commentators call the biggest race in history. Lightning is distracted by his memories of Radiator Springs, losing time to The King and Chick Hicks, and begins to fear he will simply lose. To his surprise, Doc Hudson has arrived at the race, with Mater and a few others from Radiator Springs who will serve as his pit crew, Doc, once again wearing his original Hudson Hornet racing stripes, takes over as Lightning's crew chief. With Doc's coaching, a record-fast pit stops for new tires, and a few tricks learned from the small town's inhabitants, Lightning is not only able to overtake his opponents, but has built a considerable lead by the final lap.

As Lightning approaches, the finish line, Chick sideswipes The King in a desperate attempt to avoid finishing behind him yet again, sending The King into a terrible rollover crash. Lightning, fearing that the King's racing career will end in the same way as did the Hudson Hornet's, comes to a full stop right before the finish line, choosing to accept loss. After Chick gleefully crosses the finish line and celebrates his victory, Lightning then backtracks to push the veteran racer across the finish line ahead of him, saying that "I think the king should finish his last race!" Although Chick Hicks has officially won his first Piston Cup title, he begins to learn that it's a hollow victory as he is jeered and despised by the fans and media for taking out the King, while McQueen is cheered as a hero for his good sportsmanship. Tex from Dinoco, The King's sponsor company, offers to support Lightning as his new sponsor, but Lightning, having now had a change of heart, respectfully declines, saying that his current sponsor Rust-eze gave him his, big break, and he wanted to continue with them.

After the race, Lightning returns to Radiator Springs, announcing that he will establish his racing headquarters there. This helps to revitalize the town and draw back visitors and tourists, with the once-abandoned Route 66 being reclassified as Historic Route 66.

## Cast

* Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen
* Larry the Cable Guy as Tow Mater
* Bonnie Hunt as Sally Carrera
* Paul Newman as Doc Hudson
* Michael Keaton as Chick Hicks
* Richard Petty as The King
* Tony Shalhoub as Luigi
* Guido Quaroni as Guido
* Cheech Marin as Ramone
* Jenifer Lewis as Flo
* Michael Wallis as Sheriff
* Paul Dooley as Sarge
* George Carlin as Filmore
* Katherine Helmond as Lizzie
* Joe Ranft as Red, Recycled Batteries Truck
* John Ratzenberger as Mack, Car versions of Hamm, Abominable Snowman, P.T. Flea
* Darrell Waltrip as Darrell Cartrip
* Bob Costas as Bob Cutlass
* Lynda Petty as Mrs. The King
* E.J. Holowicki as D.J.
* Jonas Rivera as Boost
* Adiran Ochoa as Wingo
* Lou Romano as Snot Rod
* Tom Magliozzi as Rusty Rust-eze
* Ray Magliozzi as Dusty Rust-eze
* Humpy Wheeler as Tex Dinoco
* Steve Purcell as Tractors
* Lindsey Collins as Mia
* Elissa Knight as Tia
* Andrew Stanton as Fred
* Richard Kind as Van
* Edie McClurg as Minny
* Mike Nelson as Not Chuck
* Sarah Clark as Tori Kurbowitz
* Jeremy Piven as Harv
* Dale Earnhardt Jr. as Himself
* Michael Schumacher as Michael Schumacher Ferrari
* Mario Andretti as Himself
* Jay Leno as Jay Limo
* Tom Hanks as Car Woody
* Tim Allen as Car Buzz Lightyear
* John Goodman as Car Sulley
* Billy Crystal as Car Mike
* Dave Foley as Car Flik
* Larry Benton as Larry Camper
* Douglas Keever as Doug RM
* A.J. Riebli III as Albert Hinkey
* Richard Cawood as Richard Clayton Kensington
* Brian Fee as Al Oft