[Rock music playing in the background] The movie Cars was directed by John Lasseter
and was inspired by a life-changing experience from his personal life.
In the summer of 1999 he bought a used motor home
and toured the US with his family while staying off the major highways.
The trip reportedly taught Lasseter the importance of taking time to slow down and enjoy the journey,
which is where he got the idea for Cars’ story.
John Lasseter decided to go against the common trend of having the characters’ eyes be the headlights
because he thought their facial expressions could be more relatable
if they put the eyes in the windshield instead,
which is an idea he got from Disney’s 1952 cartoon short “Susie the Little Blue Coupe”.
The animators needed to make their characters look unique without straying too far from
what real stock cars should look like.
So Lighting McQueen’s design was based on a modern spin on the classic stock car look,
and for the other cars they used models from previous eras such as the 1970 Plymouth Superbird,
and the 1987 Buick Grand National NASCAR Racer.
The most difficult texture for the animators to create was chrome because it was so reflective
of the world around it.
But as Pixar always does they were able to figure out how to make it work
by using a “ray tracing” rendering technique
to realistically reflect the world’s environments on the cars’ surface.
The animators also had the challenge of trying to make the Cars world feel relatable
to even the “die hard” car fans.
So they put themselves to the task by having sound engineers visit race tracks all over the US
to capture the authentic sounds of all the cars they wanted to include in the movie.
John Lasseter even spent time with Fox’s sports director, Artie Kempner,
to understand how to broadcast their races in a way that felt authentic to the sport.
Pixar frequently sends their animation teams on location to be inspired by where their
stories take place.
So for Cars, all the animators spent a day being driven around race tracks with professional drivers
to better understand the physics of their Cars world,
and they also spent some time with expert guides touring Route 66.
John Lasseter talked to many racing icons during the production
and he wanted them to be in the movie because he didn’t think he’d be able to have the supporting
characters sound like racing experts if he had gone with other actors to play those roles instead.
[Richard Petty] “The Hudson Hornet was my inspiration.”
[Narrator] An easter egg that can be seen in the beginning of the film
is that one of the RVs has the jackalope from the Pixar short “Boundin" painted on its back.
Littered throughout the world are tons of graphics that were all designed individually
by the Pixar animators.
So now when you see all of them in the movie hopefully you can appreciate the hard work
on those very small details that received only few seconds of screen time.
When Lightning McQueen arrives at Radiator Springs the animators purposefully chose to
create the scenery with hardly any color to represent Lightning’s negative opinion of
the town.
However, as he spends more time there and sees the beauty in it, the scenery starts
to have much more color to show his opinion has changed.
Luigi loves Ferraris and he even carries evidence of this on his license plate with the numbers
445-108
which is the latitude and longitude for the Ferrari factory in Modena, Italy.
Mater is voiced perfectly by the comedian Larry the Cable Guy
[Mater] “Trackers is so duumb!”
[Narrator]…but the lovable tow truck’s personality is actually based on Douglas Keever
from North Carolina who was nicknamed “Mater” for all the trouble he’d cause in the neighborhood
throwing tomatoes.
Even the line he uses to abbreviate his nickname from Tomater down to ‘mater is used in the movie too.
“Ya! Like TA-MATER, but without the “TA”.
Despite looking like an old “grandpa car”, back in the day the 1951 Hudson Hornets were
the fastest cars on the race track.
So casting Paul Newman to voice Doc was a perfect fit because of his racing experience
and love for cars, but also because his age was well-suited for the character too.
Along with that, this was Paul Newman’s last big role before his death in 2008.
On a happier note, how about another easter egg?
Take a look at the following clip to see if you can spot the hidden mickey.
Let me know in the comments by saying “found it!”.
[Metal scraping noise]
Pixar movies are known for having the Pizza Planet Truck hidden somewhere in the movie,
and you can spot it in Cars in a scene right before the final race of the movie.
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