Chick Hicks

**Chick "Thunder" Hicks** is the main antagonist of the Disney•Pixar *Cars* franchise. He is a green racecar turned reporter and Lightning McQueen's arch-rival and Jackson Storm and Natalie Certain friend.

## Background

Once, when Chick gave up a win to help an weaking car during a race, his father was angry with him, believing that his family was a "family of winners" and that Chick couldn't lose wins in the name of winning. Good sportsmanship. His strict upbringing shaped Chick's behavior as he grew older, and a last chance contributed to Hicks' cheating and general evil attitude.

### Physical appearence

Chick is a 1979 Shyster Cremlin, a fictional car based on and designed after a 1986 Buick Grand National (Regal GNX). Chick is painted green, with the number 86 painted on his doors, and has yellow rims. He also has a grille, which serves as a mustache. According to the 2009 *Cars* Die-Cast Collectors Guide, Chick has a total of over 334 stickers. On his hood, sides, rear and right headlight, he has a logo of his sponsor HtB. In McQueen's nightmare, he gets a Dinoco sponsorship, is repainted blue, has his HtB logos replaced with Dinoco ones, and has less stickers. After his retirement, he becomes an RSN presenter, and his HtB logos are replaced with RSN stickers; "Chick Hicks 86" is now written on his hood instead of HtB, some contingency stickers are removed, and a "PRESS" sticker appears near the "Piston Cup" one. In *Cars 3*, the Lightyear logo on his tires were also replaced by his own name with yellow lettering, Chick Hicks. Also on the bottom of his doors in *Cars 3*, there is text saying "Former and Forever Piston Cup Champion".

### Personality and traits

During the events of the third film, despite being a reporter, Chick Hicks still remains an unpleasant and selfish bully. He mocks McQueen for being no match to Jackson Storm and once again shows that he lets his anger and arrogance control his actions. He even brags to the audience about the Piston Cup he won and presents his trophy next to him, which also shows that he is still rude, even proclaiming himself as a Piston Cup winner and "Champion for the Ages". This helps cement Chick Hicks as a truly irredeemable character who only cares about himself, especially the trophy he won and also show that he learned nothing from his mistakes from the first film. This means he doesn’t care if he cheated to get the cup and doesn’t care if cars got injured along the way as he purposefully injured cars to do so.

### Powers and abilities

Chick is an incredibly fast race car that often does quite well in Piston Cup races (only due to him cheating), though he was inferior to The King's skills prior to his retirement in 2005, despite having around the same top speed as him (as evidenced by the 3-way tie where he was right next to The King at the finish line). Between the events of *Cars: Race-O-Rama* and *Cars 3*, Chick retired, and his sponsor did not return in *Cars 3*. Along with Lightning McQueen and The King, his top speed is in the area of 200 MPH. He has a small spoiler on his rear deck lid for aerodynamics.

### Weaponry and Gadgets

In *Cars 3: Driven to Win*, Chick when bossed in his takedown event with his clones has these weapons:

* **Machine Guns/Rapid Fire**: Chick (with her clones), has machine guns to hurt the player.
* **Missile Launcher/Rockets**: Chick and her clones launch various missiles so they can attack the player.
* **Magnetic Mine/Road Mine**: Chick with its versions, use that Magnetic or Road Mine to launch it in a part of the circuit to damage the player.

## In films

### *Cars*

Chick ties with The King and Lightning in the Piston Cup championship, forcing the three racers to compete in a tiebreaker race. Chick later mocks Lightning on winning the Piston Cup and sponsorship of Dinoco. Lightning retaliates by nicknaming Chick "Thunder" due to that thunder always comes *after* lightning, much to Chick's intense annoyance. He, however, later shows off with this new nickname after Lightning disappears in Radiator Springs, wooing his fans and stealing Lightning's. He makes numerous attempts to force Lightning out of the final race, only to be outrun by him in spite of it. King tries to prevent Chick from overtaking him, frustrating the latter. Refusing to finish behind King again, he intentionally sideswipes The King during the final lap, making him spin out of control and crash. When Lightning sees what has happened to The King, he stops before crossing the finish line and goes back to help The King across the line. This allows Chick to win first place and the Piston Cup. But nobody cheers him on, instead cheering on Lightning for helping The King. Shortly afterwards, as Chick egotistically gets on the victory podium to collect his new trophy, the fans then turn on Chick, causing him to make a quick getaway and took his trophy away and making him realize the "Chick era" just ended as soon as it started.

### *Cars 3*

Chick Hicks reappears in *Cars 3* as a minor antagonistic and neutral character (alongside Miss Fritter and Sterling), having successfully reinvented himself as a commentator for the RSN, where he has his own show. He gives boisterous commentary on the recent 2016 Piston Cup results, and often shares the stage with a statistical analyst Natalie Certain, who gives further analysis and forecast. During his monologues Chick brings up his one Piston Cup win every time he gets the chance. He often cracks jokes at McQueen's expense. His commentary makes it clear that he is more than thrilled that Lightning is challenged by Jackson Storm, with whom he is shown to have a live interview after one of his victories. Lightning watches Chick's segment several times throughout the film to get up to date on Storm's latest progress.

## In video games

### *Cars 3: Driven to Win*

Chick Hicks serves as the secondary antagonist (alongside Miss Fritter and Mater the Greather) of the game and is voiced by Jude Hillary. At some point before the game, he invited Lightning McQueen to his talk show to discuss the continuation of his racing career, which Chick considered "ill-advised". When Lightning, Jackson Storm and Cruz Ramírez set up a competition, he dubs it "Lightning Storm Cruise" and gives them access to the studio's racing simulator. At one point, he challenges McQueen to a takedown event in a simulation, which he, despite cheating in it by creating multiple clones of himself, loses. Despite being sure that Jackson will defeat Lightning, he is proved wrong when the latter wins instead and readily admits that Lightning isn't done with racing. He is last seen watching Storm get chased by Miss Fritter at the Thunder Hollow Speedway.

He can be unlocked as a playable character by winning the Chick Hicks Takedown event. Chick Hicks also gives commentary to the player’s performance after races, even continuing to give out insulting remarks on McQueen as well.

## Trivia

* Chick makes his team wear "mustache" grilles to represent him.
* According to the 2009 Die-cast Collectors Guide, Chick Hicks has 334 decals on him.
* Chick Hicks wants to end up in first place and hates ending up in second place, which is similar to Randall Boggs from *Monsters Inc*.
* Chick actually was an example to Lightning about what he would've become if he had let his anger and arrogance to consume him. This is noted that if McQueen would've won rather than helped The King, it would truly show that McQueen never learned anything from his past behavior and that he only cared about winning.
* Chick is a 1979 Shyster Cremlin, a car that does not exist. It is designed after a 1987 Buick Grand National.
* 86, Chick's number, is based on the year Pixar was founded. It also symbolizes his racing style, as "86" is a slang term for getting rid of something.
* Chick should've been disqualified before the events of the movie but for the convenience of the plot, he is kept a racer despite violating race rules. Because of this, it could be implied that race officials allow Chick to play dirty just because he's in contention of winning the Piston Cup, and also because he wants to beat The King and Lightning McQueen at his own game. It is also possible that the race officials were bribed.
* Chick Hicks is one of the first few Pixar villains to actually win, though his win is regarded as a pyrrhic victory due to his actions on the track.
* Despite Chick winning his first Piston Cup title, it is unknown if it really was his first official win, as it was mentioned that he has always been in second-place to The King. In fact, despite being called "The Runner Up", it is also never revealed if Chick Hicks won races by cheating prior to the events of *Cars*.
* Though he is the main antagonist, Chick only has little screen time as the film focuses on McQueen getting lost at Radiator Springs along with his character development, learning that there are more things in life than winning. As a result. Chick only appears in the beginning, in two bad dreams Lightning has, on television in Mack's trailer wooing fans, and at the end of the film. His voice is still heard on a radio broadcast when McQueen fixes the road.
* When McQueen thinks about Chick Hicks after he finds out that Chick got to California first, the nightmare sequence is basically the same as McQueen's daydream, with Chick hanging with Tex and Team DINOCO, winning the tiebreaker race after overtaking Strip, taking photos for a photoshoot, being on the media magazines, and going to the Hollywood Chinese Theater with Mia and Tia as the new celebrity, even having his own superhero movie called "Chick Magnet" though the fictionalized car-ified plot wasn't shown. The only exception is that when he is in his penthouse, he doesn't get bling bling wheels and attracts Mia and Tia with his magnetic paint job before taunting McQueen in his own thoughts to "eat his heart out".
* Chick Hicks hosting his show in the third movie makes it feel like he's breaking the fourth wall to viewers when he brings up his Piston Cup win.
* It is unknown what happened with Chick Hicks' pit crew following his botched pyrrhic victory at LA Speedway, though it can be implied they continued to serve him or they may have left him.
* Even though Chick didn't appear in *Cars 2*, players can download him for *Cars 2: The Video Game*. It was also unknown why he didn't appear in the second film, as it never revealed what really happened with him following his pyrrhic victory in the first film.
* On his right door, there is a picture of the Marshy-Marshmallows logo. This is mostly the same company that was seen in *A Bug's Life* under the name of "Joel's Marshy Marshmallows."
* In the Polish version, his name is Marek Marucha. *Ma rucha* means "He has speed."
* A 1:55 scale die-cast of Chick Hicks, along with Lightning McQueen and Brush Curber, appears in one of the exhibit elements at The Science Behind Pixar.
* Michael Keaton voiced Chick in *Cars* and later returned to Pixar to voice Ken in *Toy Story 3*. However, by unknown reasons, he was replaced by Pixar animator Bob Peterson in *Cars 3*. The exact reason is still unknown, but it could be possible that Keaton was not available to record any lines for Chick due to the filming of *Spider-Man: Homecoming*.
	+ Due to the voice change, this makes Chick's voice sound different from his original self in the first film, making him sound like characters Bob Peterson voiced from other movies such as Mr. Ray from *Finding Nemo* and its sequel, *Finding Dory*.
* Before voicing Chick Hicks, Michael Keaton previously portrayed Ray Peyton, Sr., owner of Team Peyton and the father of the protagonist Maggie Peyton in *Herbie: Fully Loaded*, another racing movie which was released in 2005 while *Cars* was still in production. The difference is that Ray Peyton Sr isn't a racer or an antagonist, but a crew chief who wants to forbid Maggie from racing, while Chick Hicks is a dirty racer who will do anything to win by cheating.
* In the Latin Spanish version of *Cars 3*, Chick jokes after supposing that McQueen will retire that instead of "Ku-chau!" (the Latin Spanish translation to "Ka-chow!"), this time will be "Chau-Chau!" (as Chau is a Latin Spanish term to say goodbye to people), making the joke most funny to Latin Spanish spectators. The English version has Chick say "Caboose" when making a joke about McQueen losing to the next-gen racers.
* His Crew Chief’s name is Ian Roadhazard.
* According to the Car Finder trivia on the Blu-Ray release of *Cars*, Chick went to drama school with one of his mechanic pitties, Bruiser Bukowski, as well as the same high school. This may have contributed to his work as an announcer and talk show host for *Chick's Picks with Chick Hicks,* as seen in *Cars 3.*
* In the Rioplatenese version of *Cars*, he is voiced by Marcos Di Palma, an Argentinian race car driver known for his brash attitude.

## External links

* Chick Hicks on Disney Wiki.
* Chick Hicks on Pixar Wiki.
* Chick Hicks on Pixar Cars Wiki.