Pixar Cars Movie Characters:
Race Cars and Crew

IRRISITIBLE! Loads of Cars Toys!

Each of the race cars movie characters is zooming around the Motor Speedway of the South with revving excitement at the beginning of the film. These race cars have power and speed and the energy of the crowds is exhilarating.

Each impressively realistic looking race car has a team behind him with sponsors, along with a huge bit of ego to go along!

Rust-eze Race Crew

Lightning McQueen

He's a new guy on the stock car racing circuit called Lightning McQueen. He often goes by McQueen and his love interest, Sally Carrera, sometimes affectionately calls him "Stickers" from all the sponsor endorsements and fake headlights he wears. In the Cars movie McQueen is a red car inspired by several types of stock cars particularly a Le Mans endurance racer such as a Lola and Ford GT40. And he's number 95, in tribute to the year Toy Story was released. He also has Lightyear tires, a reference to both Buzz Lightyear and Goodyear brand tires.

At the beginning of Cars the movie, Lightning McQueen is full of himself, so arrogant. He believes he can have a successful career without anyone else's help and so he brushes off his pit crew at the end of the race.

McQueen is ambitious. He wants, more than anything, to win the Piston Cup so he can have the coveted Dinoco sponsorship. But right now his sponsor is Rust-Eze medicated bumper ointment, used mostly by old and rusty cars. It is Rust-Eze that gave McQueen his big break and he can't stand the product or it's old-timey customers.

Life changes for Lightning McQueen in the Cars movie when he falls out the back of the trailer onto the highway. He ends up in Radiator Springs, an old forgotten town along Route 66.

When McQueen has to do community service by repairing the road he tore up during a high speed chase, he's bitter and angry at first, and arrogant toward the townsfolk. But as he gets to know all the quirky characters in Radiator Springs he begins to warm up to them and befriends them.

He finishes the road and does a job well done, but before he leaves he patronizes each business of his Radiator Springs friends. He's taken away that night, though, after Doc Hudson made a call as to McQueen's whereabouts.

McQueen races his best for this final tie-breaker race and his friends from Radiator Springs join him with Doc Hudson as his crew chief. He would have won the race, too, but Chick Hicks bumps Strip "The King" Weathers off the track, causing a terrible accident. McQueen saw Doc Hudson again in that scenario, and he went to The King and pushed him over the finish line.

He may have lost the Piston Cup, but Lightning McQueen was offered all the perks of a winner. He turned down Dinoco sponsorship in favor of sticking to his original sponsor Rust-Eze Medicated Bumper Ointment. Lightning McQueen also decided to call Radiator Springs his racing headquarters and brought more life and prosperity back to the small Route 66 town.

Mack

Mack is Lightning McQueen's big rig transport truck. This Cars movie character wears a Rust-eze cap and is as red as McQueen himself. Mack is a dedicated member of the Rust-Eze crew and sticks with Lightning McQueen even when the rest of the crew quit. McQueen asks Mack to drive all night long to get to Los Angeles, and Mack does as he was told, even though he's tired and sleepy.

Mack grows more sleepy as the night wears on and a streetcar gang called the Delinquent Road Hazards put on some soft Kenney G. saxophone music, which lulls him deeper. He drifts to the edge of the highway where the bumps are and one of the Lightning McQueen figures in the trailer falls off and lands on the pedal that opens the trailer door. McQueen rolls out into oncoming traffic and Mack, unknowing, keeps driving.

was quite happy and relieved when he got the call telling where Lightning McQueen was.

Dinoco Race Crew

Dinoco?!? That sounds familiar. That's because that's the name of the gas station in Toy Story where Buzz and Woody fall out of the car and hitch a ride to Pizza Planet.

Strip "The King" Weathers

Strip Weathers is known in the racing world as simply This Cars movie character is a turquoise blue 170 Plymouth Superbird, number 43, whose sponsor is glitzy and glamorous Dinoco. (Dinoco is the oil and gas company you first saw in Toy Story 2, when Andy's mom stopped to refuel before heading to Pizza Planet!)

The King is a veteran racer who is set to retire after the Piston Cup race. However, he ties with Chick Hicks and Lightning McQueen and the tiebreaker race is scheduled to be in Los Angeles a week away.

The King is a wise and experienced race car who sees Lightning McQueen making the mistakes of an arrogant rookie. He takes McQueen aside after the race and tells him he needs his team - but McQueen isn't listening. He only thinks of gaining the Dinoco sponsorship after The King retires.

Toward the end of the tie-breaker race, dirty-fighting Chick Hicks knocks The King off the track causing him to have a terrible wreck. The rookie car Lightning McQueen, who would have won the race, stops and nudges The King from behind, enabling him to finish the last race of his career with dignity.

Lynda Weathers

Lynda is a Cars movie character who is The King's wife. She's the same blue color and is modeled after a 1974 Chrysler Town and Country station wagon. Lynda is a big supporter of her husband and always stays in the Dinoco VIP booth cheering him on.

Tex Dinoco

Tex is a gold colored 1975 Cadillac Coupe de Ville with a pair of long horns on his hood. This Cars movie character is the owner and talent scout for Dinoco.

Hostile Takeover Bank (htB) Race Crew

Chick Hicks

Introducing Cars movie character, Chick Hicks, who is a bright green car and is likely based on a popular model from the 1980s: a Buick Grand National. His logo and number 86 are also very 80s in style. The number 86 is the year Pixar was founded, it is Chick's model year and being 86'd is an idiom for getting fired from your job.

Chick Hicks has spent his entire career seeing The King's tail end, a perennial runner-up, and he's angry and bitter about that fact. Hicks plays dirty, he knocks cars off the race track, sometimes causing huge pile-ups. Both he and Lightning McQueen yearn for Dinoco sponsorship and Hicks will do anything to get it.

At the final race in the Cars movie, is so desperate not to lose that he knocks his long-time rival, The King, off the track, causing him to seriously wreck. Lightning McQueen even stops before reaching the finish line and Chick Hicks finally wins! But instead of cheers, he gets booed off the stage, his victory hollow.

• Radiator Springs Characters
• Other Cars Movie Characters