Champions on the Inside: Even though McQueen loses to help the King finish his race, he is still considered a winner in the audience's eyes. Doesn't help that the King was injured by the winner himself, costing him the Dinoco sponsorship. Many famous celebrities, particularly from the automobile racing world make a cameo appearance in Cars which include Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Mario Andretti, Michael Schumacher, Bob Costas, Darrell Waltrip, and Jay Leno; references to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Elvis Presley also appear, but not voiced by themselves. In fact, the latter certainly isn't as he died in 1977, long before Pixar was founded, while Arnold Schwarzenegger was still Governor of California during the year Cars was released and was about to run for re-election, which he eventually won. Pun-Based Creature: The Fantastic Fauna Counterpart of insects are tiny VW Beetles with insect wings. Tears of Joy: By Sally as Lightning helps The King cross the finish line and is praised by everyone.

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. He is the husband of Lynda Weathers and uncle of Cal Weathers. Cars: Lightning League (2017) note Another iOS game released by Play Side that features characters from the third film. Lightning McQueen has fourteen different paint variants in the film, including his alternate paint jobs and different amounts of dirt. [9] Ironically, the year that the die-cast released, 2022, was also the last year Kyle drove the No. 18 in the Cup Series. Licensed Game: Five in total; Cars: The Video Game, Cars Mater-National, Cars Race-O-Rama, Cars 2: The Video Game, and Cars 3: Driven to Win.Computers used in the development of the film were four times faster than those used in The Incredibles and 1,000 times faster than those used in Toy Story. To build the cars, the animators used computer platforms very similar to those used in the design of real-world automobiles.

Loser Buys Lunch: Sally challenges Lightning to a race from the Wheel Well Motel to Flo's, where the loser has to pay for their food. In Lightning's dream about a "Lightning Storm" film, a car gets zapped by a tripod sparkplug bot and emits the Wilhelm scream. The Wilhelm scream is a sound effect used in many movies, including the original Star Wars film. In the Hebrew dub of the film, Lightning McQueen's name is changed to Speedy McQueen. In the opening act when McQueen makes the joke about "Thunder comes after Lightning", it is changed to "Gonzales comes after Speedy", referencing the Looney Tunes character Speedy Gonzales.He is a green race car who appears as the arch-nemesis of Lightning McQueen and Strip Weathers and one of the rivals of McQueen. Fish out of Water: McQueen, as he has to get accustomed to the very small town of Radiator Springs. In the Finnish version, The King was voiced by Finnish two-time Formula One World Champion Mika Häkkinen. Embarrassing Tattoo: Sally has one. It looks like a small tribal design on her trunk which would be the equivalent of a "tramp stamp" on a human woman. Yank the Dog's Chain: Radiator Springs is rejuvenated by Lightning and everyone is happy, and it looks like the icing on the cake is the customers that seem to be approaching. Except they aren't customers. They're the press, who've been alerted to Lightning's presence by Doc, and Lightning is promptly whisked away for the final race.

Lightning Storm Space Assault • Ramone's Paint Blaster • Fillmore's Fuel Mixin' Area, Man • Mater's Sling Shoot • Luigi's Tire Toss • Doc's Clinic • Tractor Tippin' • Red's Firefighting Game! Macross Missile Massacre: In Lightning's daydream, he stars in an action film in which he fires a lot of missiles at an invasion of giant sparkplug robots. Won: Best Original Song Written for Film - Randy Newman (music/lyrics), James Taylor (performer) for "Our Town" Toy Story (1995) • A Bug's Life (1998) • Toy Story 2 (1999) · Monsters, Inc. (2001) • Finding Nemo (2003) • The Incredibles (2004) • Cars (2006) • Ratatouille (2007) • WALL-E (2008) • Up (2009) • Toy Story 3 (2010) • Cars 2 (2011) • Brave (2012) • Monsters University (2013) • Inside Out (2015) • The Good Dinosaur (2015) • Finding Dory (2016) • Cars 3 (2017) • Coco (2017) • Incredibles 2 (2018) • Toy Story 4 (2019) • Onward (2020) • Soul (2020) • Luca (2021) • Turning Red (2022) • Lightyear (2022) • Elemental (2023) In the Rioplatenese version of Cars 3, he is voiced by Marcos Di Palma, an Argentinian race car driver known for his brash attitude.Luigi tells Lightning that Guido has dreamed of getting to do a real pitstop for a racecar early on. At the tiebreaker race, Guido gets his chance and speed-changes all four of Lightning's tires in five seconds. During the end credits, car-stylised versions of Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Monsters, Inc. are seen playing at the Radiator Springs Drive-In Theatre.