ROGER: I'm Roger Gould, the Creative Director of our theme parks group at Pixar Animation Studios, collaborating with Imagineering wherever our stories show up at the parks around the world.
KATHY: I'm Kathy Mangum. I'm a former retired Imagineer, and I was the Executive Producer of Cars Land.
Even though Radiator Springs is really without a state, there's none specified, so much of the architecture, the landscaping, the rock work can be seen in California and was really just a perfect fit.
ROGER: One of the most amazing parts this whole experience was going on a field trip. A research trip on Route 66!
KATHY: We went for about eight or nine days with Michael Wallace who wrote the book on Route 66, "The Mother Road".
He took the film team, Pixar film team, several years before that.
So we walked in their footsteps too and we saw characters, we saw wonderful little cafes, Curio shops.
So all of the murals, the graphics, the people, the food, the landscaping the planting, it really helped us layer story into this land.
ROGER: The world of Cars is a little bit of an oversized world because the door is the size of a garage door, right?
Because cars are big and so everything in the movie is a bit over scale.
And that was one of the first decisions we came to with our team was to figure out
"Hey how do we scale these buildings down a bit from what in the movie is real world scale?"
There is just a coziness, a comfort for people to feel like they belong in those buildings.
ROGER: When you're designing attraction you have to really boil it down to the essence of it. What is the emotional story you're trying to tell.
What are those beats, and where do you want the guest really focused on every moment.
And really I think Radiator Springs Racers. I think we're all so proud of it because it really is that synthesis of just great Imagineering storytelling, and capturing the essence and emotion of the movie.
KATHY: The scope of this project, you know 12 acres, we're adding 12 acres to really valuable property.
You look at Anaheim and how much property is left to be built on, we had to use this very judiciously.
It was based on one story, but we got to really get into characters heads and continue that story.
And then of course there were two other movies and a whole bunch of shorts that helped us do that too. We really had something there.
ROGER: We were literally standing in the land under construction, and the sun was going down and there was just....
Well that's that moment in the movie, that SH-BOOM moment...
Could we make that? Could we choreograph our signage? It's not something we ever talked about but it was amazing to pull off.
ROGER: We already knew that the holidays needed to be a special time in Cars Land.
And happily, there was a really charming Disney Publishing book that Pixar had work with the team on called "Mater Saves Christmas".
And it gave us a sense of how do the citizens of Radiator Springs decorate their town for the holidays.
And so we actually designed the holidays from the get-go, so even that first season, the town celebrated.
KATHY: What I love about the holidays, Some of the decor for the holidays and the decor in the land is a lot of time that is a secondary read.
The first thing you see is the snowflake but then you start to. take it apart and realize it's a bunch of wrenches.
So it's got that secondary Cars read and I just I think it's so clever.
ROGER: I can't end up talking about the building of Cars Land without talking about just the joy of the collaboration between everyone at Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Imagineering.
It was, you know, there is no greater compliment for a filmmaker at our studio than Imagineering calling and saying "We want to create something in the parks based your movie"
And in this case it wasn't just a little thing. It was this entire land and everyone who worked on the film put so much passion to that.
We're so honored by the passion and commitment that the Imagineers put in bringing this world to life.