Lightning McQueen wasn't based on just one car —or just one driver. Old Lightning is a tapestry of bodywork from many championship-winning and history-making race cars, and that steel tube frame is embodied by charisma inspired by a number of gifted athletes and drivers.
Design. The Cars production team consulted a variety of experts, including racers, engineers and historians, to ensure that the characters in the film were designed to have the appearance of real cars. Lightning McQueen is not based on a particular vehicle.
Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks, the characters from the animated film "Cars," were not directly based on specific NASCAR drivers. However, the filmmakers drew inspiration from the world of NASCAR and racing culture to create these characters.
The heavy in the script is Chick Hicks, whose character design is reminiscent of “The Intimidator,” the late Dale Earnhardt. Specifically, Chick looks like Earnhardt's 1979 Pontiac Ventura with green-and-blue Wrangler livery. If you know this, you done spun the Foxworthy meter off its spindle.
In Cars, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Darrell Waltrip, Mario Andretti, and Artie Kempner all voice their vehicle counterparts in the film. H.A. Wheeler also voices Tex Dinoco in the film.
Many characters from "Cars" are drawn from real cars. Some are difficult to recognize, and some are exact copies of a real car. For example: Fillmore, Michael Schumacher, Snot Rod, Mama Topolino, Natalie Certain and many others from the cars movie are real car models.
what type of car is Lightning McQueen? He is not based on any particular type of vehicle, but seems to most closely resemble a C6 Chevrolet Corvette and Dodge Viper. His body is painted red with yellow and orange lightning bolt stickers featuring his racing number on his sides.
Inspiration. Doc Hudson is based on the real-life Fabulous Hudson Hornet in NASCAR competition, with Hudson's racing career most closely resembling that of Herb Thomas, the record holder for the highest career win rate (55 of 228 races, or 21.05%), and the first-ever two-time champion.
Strip "The King" Weathers (voiced by Richard Petty) is a veteran race car and racing legend. Weathers is an anthropomorphic version of Petty's 1970 Plymouth Superbird, sporting the same shade of blue and Petty's racing number, 43, as well as being a fictionalized version of him.
His name is a possible reference to actor Carl Weathers. Cal's number, 42, could be a reference to 1942, the year Lynda Petty, Kyle Petty's mother and voice of Cal's aunt Lynda Weathers, was born.
Voiced by actor Armie Hammer, Jackson Storm is the quick, cocky, and friendless rival for McQueen. In the movie, he's younger, fitter, and faster than the lead. He's called a 2017 Custom-built “Next-Gen” Piston Cup Racer. In real life, he most resembles the 2002 Cadillac Cien supercar concept.
Old favorites from the other Cars movies are still in “Cars 3,” including announcer Darrell Waltrip's Darrell Cartip; Tex Dinoco, voiced and inspired by promoter H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler; Jeff Gorvette, AKA Jeff Gordon; The King, voiced by Richard Petty, Mrs.
Anticipation for Cars 4 is high, but Disney has not addressed any details for the movie. Producers have shown openness to expanding the franchise, with potential for a new lightning McQueen narrative. Story details remain a mystery, focusing on potential Cruz Ramirez involvement and moving away from McQueen.
Hardcore historical NASCAR fans know that Hall of Famer Herb Thomas (2013) was the first two-time premier series driver champion and that his career became the basis for the Doc Hudson character in the hugely successful “Cars” film franchise.
Lightning even started to slow down because of the Next-Gens arriving and ended the season horribly with a near career-ending crash. Months later, McQueen recovered from the crash and was ready to race again.
The Piston Cup Racing Series (renamed the Hudson Hornet Piston Cup in 2011) is an American auto racing series championship of stock cars. From 2016 to the present day, high-tech Next-Gen racers started dominating the circuit.
According to her character pose, she is a 2017 CRS Sports Coupe. Her license plate reads "C01 06A", which is a combination of her voice actress Cristela Alonzo's initials and birthday.
Doc Hudson is one of the main characters in Cars. He is a dark blue 1951 Hudson Hornet. He was both the doctor and judge of Radiator Springs. He was the crew chief of Lightning McQueen.
As Doc passed away after the events of Cars: Race-O-Rama and before Cars 2, he does not make a physical appearance in the film, but a newspaper with a picture of him on it can be seen inside of the Hudson Hornet Racing Museum, the building which used to be Doc's Clinic.
Ramone is a 1951 Impala low-rider who loves riding “low and slow.” He runs Ramone's House of Body Art, the local custom body and paint shop. A true artist, but without many customers to paint, Ramone changes his own paint job every day.
Strip "The King" Weathers is a main character in Cars and a side character in Cars 3. He is a Dinoco light blue ("Dinoco Blue") 1970 Plymouth Superbird. He is a seven-time Piston Cup champion (a feat that was later matched by Lightning McQueen) and a veteran Piston Cup racer.
In Cars 3, it is revealed that Mater and Holley's relationship is still going very strong and at the end of Cars 3, Mater distracts Sterling by mentioning that he has church flaps, hinting that he's someday getting married to Holley Shiftwell. He still loves her unconditionally and she still loves him unconditionally.
