Headscratchers / Cars

Lightning's return for the King

• Why is it that, at the end of the race, Lightning didn't win, then drive back to get the King so he would finish the race at 3rd?
  • Because finishing third with only two other racers means the King might as well not have finished at all. The instant Chick Hicks crossed the finish line in second, the race would've been over, especially considering the King wasn't able to drive on his own. Even if it was only on a technicality, Lightning wanted to make sure that a racer he truly respects finishes his career on a high note, rather than not only placing last but also doing so by default.
  • Also, from a meta perspective, Lightning giving up first place for someone else is the culmination of his character development.

Piston Cup Rules

• How is it a 1970 Plymouth Superbird is allowed to take on a 1980s Buick, which is taking on the love child of a stock car and a Group 5 sports car? Actually, how did Lightning McQueen manage to get homologated at all?

Dinoco

• What exactly does Dinoco do?
  • They're a gas company, and an Fictional Counterpart of Texaco or Sunoco. Although to be technical, judging by how some cars have Dinoco gas or oil barrels strapped on like those canned soft drink hats in real life, Dinoco would be a bit more like Coca-Cola or Pepsi to the cars.

Pace car rules

• Towards the end, Chick blows one of Lightning's tires and only gets a yellow flag. Then Lightning beats the pace car out of the pits. Unless the rules are different in this movie, you're not allowed to overtake the pace car.
  • He didn't "overtake" the pace car, he was hurrying in order to get back on the track ahead of the pace car. If he'd entered the track after it passed the exit from pit road, he'd have been considered an entire extra lap behind.

Lightning needed a lawyer

• Lightning McQueen is NEVER GIVEN THE CHANCE to contact his agent or lawyer's office to have the legal matter sorted out? This is a gross miscarriage of the justice system, especially considering the judge wants him gone.
  • That's assuming that the legal system has the same rules as Real Life. Since auto racing clearly doesn't, there's no basis for that assumption.
  • He does get a chance, at his trial, when he's asked where his lawyer is, but he pretty much brushes it off with "Pfft. I dunno, Tahiti maybe, he's got a time share there." Not really a big chance, it's true, but he was given the chance and blew it off.
  • There is also the problem that they set up trial on the very next day to his crime; even if Lightning hadn't joked off about his lawyer, there was no way the guy could have arrived on the same day, especially since Radiator Springs has been de-mapped. And they basically tossed Mater, who is obviously not a lawyer, and the prosecutor, Sally, who was a high-class lawyer, blatantly sabotaging all, if any chance Lightning had of defending or even explaining himself, and he HAD a good defense("I was left stranded on the highway and took the wrong turn, this cop started shooting at me and I panicked, it was an accident!"; sure, the Sheriff DIDN'T actually shoot at Lightning, but it would be clear it was his engine making the noise and scaring McQueen, and he wouldn't look like some delinquent who destroyed the street For the Evulz). And the fact the jury is completely biased, since they're all long-time friends and sole inhabitants of Radiator Springs, rather than random, unbiased people with no personal investment on the case. Hell, Doc came into the courtroom crying murder. For all intents and purposes, it was a Kangaroo Court, to showcase how backwater and slightly off their rocks Radiator Springs really is. But what bothers me more is how Sally and Doc ignore a big opportunity to make the town popular again by forcing Lightning to make public monetary and marketing reparations instead of, you know, simply making him pave the road For the Lulz. The rest of the town is too isolated to think of it, but Doc and Sally are more modernized. They could have made any number of deals with Lightning, but instead they preferred to troll him.
    • Doc didn't want to make the town popular again. He preferred it the way it was at the time. He tried to dismiss the charges and kick McQueen out at first, and when that didn't work, he deliberately gave him as low a profile punishment as he could. As for Sally, she saw him as yet another jerk jock just trying to get into her trunk; i.e. someone not worth her time.

Mater's name

• "Like tuh-mater, but without the 'tuh'." How would they know what tomatoes are? What use are fruit and vegetables to vehicles?
  • Biofuel?
  • Someone pelts tomatoes at Chick towards the end of the first movie.
  • Maybe he was referring to his company, which IIRC is named "Tow Mater."
  • You saw that organic food is still grown in this world, since Mack passed a field of corn on the way to California. It wouldn't be a far stretch to assume they all know what tomatoes are.
  • If their world has been devoid of organic animals for long enough, the plants might well have evolved to use machines as their pollinators and seed-dispersers instead. Fruits and flowers could be producing fuel as bait for mechanical "animals" instead of sugars and starches for organic ones. That would explain why Mater could chow down on wasabi in the second film, and find it unbearably "spicy": it probably contained an octane mix that was a lot more volatile than his system could process, forcing him to slurp a nice tankful of Allinol to settle his gut. (What, did you think that fountain on stage was flowing with water?)
    • Yes, because cars require coolant, which is made from water, antifreeze, and dye.
  • He said "Tow Mater." He just has a goofy accent.

Sally's stripe

• Sally's Embarrassing Tattoo overlaps with Fridge Logic if you've ever peeled something like that off a car. (hint: adhesive-backed vinyl decal...)
  • OR, it might've been sprayed-on. Which would still be Fridge Logic considering there's a paint-shop across the street from her motel.
  • Plus the whole "no hands" thing.
  • You can write 3 movie scripts worth of text on the sheer amount of fridge logic required for this movie to work, but it still manages to be tons of fun to watch.

The King's name

• Why are the champion racer and his wife called Mr. and Mrs. "The King"? Isn't that just a title? His name is Strip Weathers, so why not call him Mr. Weathers?
  • Like with Richard Petty, "The King" is likely a nickname, and thus how he's known to the rest of the world, so that's what people call him, especially big fans like Lightning.
    • And the only one in the movie who called his wife "Mrs. The King" was Mater, who is... well, Mater.
    • Well, toy-lines and Pixar call her Linda Weathers (like Richard Petty's wife was named). Sounds good enough to me.

Mattress on the minivan

• When Mac and Lightning are on their way to Cali, they get passed by a minivan with a mattress on the top. What use would cars have for mattresses?
  • To keep their human slaves cozy?
  • Maybe motorcycles and mopeds use them when their tires are sore after a long day and they need a little lie-down.
  • Or it's just a large piece of padding that happens to look like what humans would use as a mattress. Its real use would be for something else, like a safety barrier's covering or to cushion fragile cargo in transit.
  • If you pay attention during the shot of the truck stop, you can see the minivan lay down the mattress, presumably intending to sleep on it. The minivan in question is running on his spare tire, which is possibly the in-universe equivalent of a person with a sore leg/crutches.

Replacing the neon signs

• How did McQueen replace all the broken neon in Radiator Springs? I'm pretty sure he didn't bring it with him and I didn't see a neon store in town. If he ordered it from out of town he must not have told anyone who he was, since it takes a call from Doc to bring all the reporters to town. And where was Sally while they replaced all the neon anyway? If she were up at the Wheel Well she would have seen them at work, since you can see the whole town from up there.
  • The neon lights are never stated to be broken; a few times you can see Sally turning on the neon sign at the Cozy Cone. Most likely, they just never turned the lights on because no one passes through anymore.
    • Sally says "You fixed their neon", implying that he fixed their neon.
    • Maybe he just replaced the fuses?
    • Actually, I always heard it as "They fixed their neon", implying that McQueen just gave them the idea and/or helped a bit.
    • "They" is, in fact, the correct line, having just watched the movie. And Lightning didn't do everything to fix the town, but he inspired the others to. Luigi and Guido, for instance, realized their place looked a bit shabby next to the new road and are shown cleaning up and repainting it. Everybody else followed suit and eventually the town looked presentable again.

Chick's ability to not get parked for his antics

• How does Chick get away with being such a vicious driver? After all, deliberately causing wrecks is a serious offense in normal racing where cars are not sentient living beings. In the Cars universe, it could easily fall under the heading of attempted murder. Given that he is shown as deliberately causing wrecks all the time, he's probably totaled numerous cars over the course of his career, which is probably the in-universe equivalent of murder. He even gets away clean for a blatant attempt to outright murder The King in the final race, which should have gotten him disqualified at the very least.
  • I've wondered that too, even though I love Chick. I never understood either why he seemingly waited for the King's final race to 'attempt to murder' him. You bring up a very good, very humourous point.
  • Having seen the movie again, it looks like Chick was simply pushed over the Moral Event Horizon after he and The King were passed by McQueen. It's not that Chick wanted to murder The King, but he didn't want to come in third in the biggest race in history.
    "I am not coming in behind you again, old man!"
  • It's possible that there's a far more lax standard of rules for the Piston Cup than there is for other racing organizations. Chick caused a massive wreck in the opening race of the movie, yet he never got penalized for it, despite the fact everyone could clearly see him instigating it. Either the referees Failed a Spot Check and weren't paying attention to that area during the race, or it's become such an expectation of the entire sport that wrecks are just given no mind. The difference between that wreck and the King's wreck is that Chick deliberately wrecked the beloved seven-time champion who was about to retire instead of some wet-behind-the-ears rookie. Well, that and Lightning gave up the race just to help the old man out, which was an entirely selfless act he didn't need to do.

Awarding Chick the trophy

• Why was Chick even allowed his Piston Cup? I can understand he was rejected with Dinoco but what's the point of still giving Chick the Piston Cup despite his blatant purposeful wreckage to the King?
  • Perhaps whoever made the rules didn't deem it necessary. Were the rules changed afterwards to prevent this from ever happening again?
  • My guess is that the rules of racing are a lot more lenient in a world where cars are sentient beings. If every wreck can cause such major injuries, there's probably some sort of liability waiver when you enter into a race that you understand it's a risky business and that potential injury is to be expected. So Chick's knocking the King off the road, while low and unsportsmanlike, wasn't enough to disqualify him.
  • Chick getting booed while receiving the trophy is rooted in real life history. It's meant to emulate the booing that Rusty Wallace received he won the 1989 Winston after spinning out Darrell Waltrip with two laps to go.

Luigi's first customer

• Can't believe this isn't here already, but... Luigi says that Lightning is his first real customer in years, and every implication is given that the same goes for the rest of the town too... how the hell are any of them still in business?
  • The townspeople keep each other in business, and perhaps once in a while some nostalgic guy rolls through and buys something from them.
  • Also, logically speaking, Flo's Cafe could (and most likely did) got "refills" once in a while.(After all, we do saw tankers on the highway scenes, when Mack was still carrying Lighting. And most of gas station don't drill their own oil.) So those "supplier", that the townspeople still use, are also from time to time, buying something from the town.
  • Guido says it's his first real customer. Lightning is willing to go in there and buy a full set of fancy tires, whereas his usual sale is probably just a replacement for a flat. Considering how cheap it is in rural areas, he's probably able to scrape by on those small sales.

Hendrix

• At one point, Filmore plays Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and refers to him by surname. Now, is this the human Hendrix we know and love, or a car Hendrix? If it’s the former, that adds to the above, but celeb cars like Dale Jr. point to the possibility of the latter. Now, how can a car play guitar with tire treads? If Cars has a 60s era like ours, is there anything as potent as LSD? Did the rest of his discography exist? Is he dead, and if so, HOW? And that’s without going into the National Anthem itself...

Why make Lightning repair the road?

• Sally argues that they should make Lightning fix the road because if he doesn't no one will be able to get to the stores and everyone will go out of business. But repairing the road takes multiple days, and absolutely no one has trouble getting around at all. In fact, everyone presumably just used this broken road to get to the court house. It'd probably need to be fixed eventually, if only for convenience sake, but it's obviously not the urgent thing she makes it out to be. Yeah, she just really wanted to make him fix it, but she couldn't come up with any argument that made a modicum of sense?
  • The broken state of the road might not stop the locals from getting around, but it'll make it a hell of a lot less likely for tourists to come by if the road is in that kind of shape. Given the choice, would you rather walk along a smooth sidewalk, or one that's chopped up with concrete jutting out at weird angles and holes all over it?
  • But, it's kind of implied most of the tourists are there as a stop before a larger destination (presumably, if people went there to go there, building I-40 wouldn't have mattered). They don't have a choice; the road leads to their destination, they either use it or don't reach the destination. And large chunks of the plot hinge on there not being many tourists to begin with ("Travelers? What travelers?"). And the two we do see during the days this film takes place over don't even mention the road. And it's not like they can't get the thing repaired without him there; let him go and make him pay the expenses to get it professionally rebuilt (it's heavily implied he has the money), it'd probably take less time than making one guy who has no idea what he's doing do it.
  • While it's true that no one visits Radiator Springs just to visit it, they wouldn't be as likely to stop there and shop, sightsee, or stay the night if the road was in such dilapidated condition. Yes, the people driving on the former US 66 have to drive through town to reach their destination, but they don't have to actually stop there unless they want to. And while they could've just let Lightning go under the instructions of sending the money/personnel to fix the road in his stead, they had no idea if he would've followed through...and knowing Lightning at this time, he probably wouldn't have. And where does that leave them? Well, now they have a busted-up road in a dingy little town, and their only means of getting the right person to pay for it is by going after a famous racecar with no proof that he'd even been there, on top of having to find a judge who would care that much about the town.
  • Besides Sally is a) very optimistic about the possibility of customers coming, hence why they appear to 'rehearse' the protocol when customers arrive, and b) she wants to humble Lightning.

Why fret Lightning's departure?

• Why is such a big deal made about Lightning leaving the town to go to the race? He can come back later, can't he?
  • He probably would've been swept back up in the limelight and forget all about them.
    • Probably not, but they could've feared that that's what might have happened.

How does the "He did what in his cup" joke work?

• When Lightning says that Doc won three Piston Cups, Mater replies, "He did what in his cup?!", the joke being that he thought Lightning said, "he pissed in his cup", but cars don't pee, so how does the joke work?
  • Don't they? They're shown to have restrooms in this film and the sequel, and the scene where Mater (actually Axlerod) leaks oil at a party is treated similarly to a case of Potty Failure in-universe.
  • Also, Rule of Funny.

Reference Doesn't Hold Up to Scrutiny

• I get that "Float like a Cadillac, sting like a Beemer" is a boxing reference, but those are types of cars, and cars are the equivalent of humans, so isn't that like saying, "Float like a Hispanic, sting like a Native American?".
  • Lightning is horrifyingly racist.

Lightning and the finish line

• Why does Lightning sticking his tongue out to touch the finish line allow him to draw with The King and Chick? His opponents' wheels were at the finish line and even crossed it entirely just before Lightning hopped over it. The commentators claim it's too close to call, but it's very clear that, since The King and Chick's wheels made it over the line before Lightning's, that Lightning finished the race after them. His tongue touching it shouldn't factor into it; the wheels should take priority.
  • Much like in real life, if a part of the car crosses the finish line while it's still attached to the vehicle, it still counts as a win. His tongue is a part of him, so Lightning was given entry.

Mater and Frank going at the same speed as Lightning

• When Mater invites Lightning to go tractor tipping, Frank appears to chase them off after Lightning tips over almost the entire field. How are Frank and Mater able to keep up with the same speed as Lightning? He is a racecar, even if his tires are not made for that type of terrain, couldn't he try going at his maximum power?
  • He has track tires on as I recall. If he just jams the throttle then they'll spin uselessly. They don't have enough grip.
  • And he's running on a limited amount of gas, as I recall. The greater his speed, the faster his gas gets eaten up, and he certainly doesn't want to be left stranded.