YMMV / Cars

• Accidental Innuendo: In the Rust-Eze tent, one of the rusty cars tells Lightning to "get [his] rear end in here".
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Some have theorised that Lightning developed Stockholm Syndrome during his forced stay in Radiator Springs: lost, confused, not allowed to speak to a lawyer or try to call anyone, locked up and forced into heavy labor until he ends up screaming for help from a passing pair of minivans before his view of Radiator Springs and its inhabitants does an abrupt 180.
• Award Snub: Its competitors for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature were Happy Feet and Monster House, and Happy Feet won. On the other hand, 2006 was considered to be a generally bad year for animated films, and while Cars has a healthier shelf life than its competition, it's not by much.
• Awesome Music:
  • "Real Gone" by Sheryl Crow is an upbeat, catchy track that sums up the aesop of the movie. The visuals of the race and McQueen's entrance really up the excitement.
  • Rascal Flatts' cover of Tom Cochran's "Life is a Highway". It may not be as good as the original but is still a fun beat.
  • The mood-altering song, "Our Town". A James Taylor song that details the glory days and then the fall to obsolescence for Radiator Springs. Rich with heartfelt emotion.
  • McQueen and Sally. A perfect score for their budding, emboldened romance.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • The main character Lightning McQueen. While Lightning being an unlikable Jerkass at the start of the film is 100% intentional, viewers are divided on how compelling or believable Lightning’s Character Development is, and if it’s enough to make up for how he acted for the first half of the film. Kids however...they don't care. They love him in part because of said jerkass attitude.
  • Mater, mostly due to all the adlibbing from Larry the Cable Guy. While most will agree that the character works best in small doses, people are split between those who find him to be hilarious, and those who find him obnoxious and painful to listen to. He would only grow more divisive in Cars 2, where he was made the main focus of the film.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: When the paparazzi find Lightning in Radiator Springs and shine a spotlight on him, Mater yells "It's the ghost light!", and the movie makes no reference to this and no attempt to explain what he's talking about. Slightly played with in that this is actually a reference to a short that comes with the DVD, but if you're watching it in theaters or on TV this context is removed. Mater does mention the Ghostlight in the background of one scene earlier in the film, but you'd have to be a Route 66 buff to catch on.
• Broken Base: Cars is easily one of Pixar's most divisive films. While there are those who find it just as good as any other Pixar film, the people who dislike it consider it a dumb concept by Pixar's standards and consider it to be their now-second weakest film. There are also those who like it despite it not being Pixar's best. The fact that this was the first film released after Pixar merged with Disney (though produced before said merger) and John Lasseter became Disney Animation Head didn't help matters.
• Cliché Storm: Many critics write off this film as one of these. They point out things like the stranger in a Quirky Town, a brooding moment from one of the side characters, the wacky sidekick who forms a comedic duo with the main character, etc.
• Critical Dissonance:
  • While it received the weakest reviews of any Pixar film at the time, the audience response was much more positive. It also won the first Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature.
  • As adults can explain, kids love Cars, but the older viewers were a little more lukewarm on it.
• Crosses the Line Twice: McQueen delivers a less than flattering response when he's called out for not properly fixing Radiator Springs' road.
  Sally: It looks awful!
  McQueen: Well, it matches the rest of the town.
  [everyone gasps]
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The four tuner cars: DJ, Boost, Wingo and Snot Rod, who messed with Mack on the highway and inadvertently got McQueen lost in Radiator Springs are among the most memorable characters for their cool designs. As a result, they've returned in several of the games.
  • Not Chuck is very famous for his lines: "YOU NEED TIRES, YOU IDIOT!" and "AND MY NAME IS NOT CHUCK!" and that he doesn't have a real name, despite appearing very little and only at the beginning of the movie.
• Fan Nickname: Choro Q: The Movie
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Connect Doc's "they quit on me" speech with the fact that this was one of Paul Newman's last major roles. It gets worse when you realize that his death threw a wrench into Pixar’s plans to give Doc a bigger role in the second movie, and lead to the character being revealed to have died offscreen in the third film.
  • Also note a movie about cars when a major player in Disney and Pixar, Joe Ranft, had died in a car accident the year prior, a fate that claimed the life of Wolfgang "Woolie" Reithermann 20 years prior and nearly claimed former studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg's life 10 years later.
  • After Lightning discovers Doc's past as a famous race car before a crash, he's amazed and tells him about how they are similar, to which Doc immediately denies. In Cars 3, Lightning gets into a devastating crash similar to Doc's.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Doc claims that he never got a chance to show off what was left of him. Considering that the third film used dialog that Paul Newman himself previously recorded during production as John Lasetter was keen on him remaining the voice of Doc, he ultimately did get to show a little more of him.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One of the supporting characters is a diminutive and lovable forklift named Guido... damn you Jersey Shore...
  • MAD did a spoof that mentioned (among other things) that they cut an appearance by the "Popemobile" at the last second. Well, guess what actually appears in the sequel...
  • Fillmore's claim that oil companies were running a conspiracy that prevented his organic fuel from being better publicized is this after the second film focused on an actual conspiracy regarding oil corporations.
  • In the Italian dub, the Ferrari F430 is still voiced by Michael Schumacher... So the classic Italian car speaks with a German accent.
  • Five years before Cars was released, Wunschpunsch has the episode "Car Wars", wherein Bubonic and Tyrannia's Spell Of The Week turned all humans (except Bubonic and Tyrannia themselves) into living cars, with the problems that would occur in such a world being clearly pointed out.
  • It's the last race of the season, and the title can go to either the promising newcomer, the defending champion, or the eternal runner-up. The rookie looks set to win, only to come unstuck after waiting too long to change tires, and in the end it's the eternal runner-up who takes the crown. It's either the 2006 Piston Cup (McQueen, The King, and Hicks) or the 2007 Formula One season (Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, and Kimi Raikkonen).
  • With its California location, bowl shape, "torch", and Roman coliseum inspired architecture, the racetrack for the tie-breaker race is clearly based on the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, only as a racetrack. In 2022 Nascar would actually host an event, the Busch Light Clash, at the actual Coliseum.
• Ho Yay: Fillmore and Sarge have lots of this. Despite their clashing personalities, the two are almost inseparable. The two are almost always next to each other, Sarge is even shown sleeping next to Fillmore in "Unidentified Flying Mater". Twice. Some of the toy packaging go as far as describing the duo as being "Unable to live without one another."
• Informed Wrongness: Much is made about Lightning's arrogance, but the other cars in Radiator Springs refused to hear his side of the story. Sally all but dismisses him while Doc treats him with complete contempt. While Lightning was a jerk, he was placed into an unwinnable situation. This is treated as justifiable because well, Lightning was a jerk.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • KACHOW!^note Lightning's Catchphrase, which has gained infamy for how cheesy it sounds.
    • KACHIGGA!^note Chick Hicks' Catchphrase, often done in response to the above. Due to its resemblance to a certain racial slur (though it's most likely actually spelled "Ka-chick-a"), some people also claim he's saying the car equivalent of the N-word.
    • kerchoo◊, a distortion of Lightning's Catchphrase that also puts his pupils on his headlights for some reason.
  • "FREEDOM!"^note Lightning trying to escape from Radiator Springs after Mater takes off his parking boot, which gained hilarity for life situations that people finally manage get out of like toxic relationships, work environment, college, etc.
  • "He did WHAT in his cup?!"
  • "YOU NEED TIRES, YOU IDIOT!"
  • "I am speed"^ExplanationOne of Lightning's catch phrases, quoted without punctuation to make it look sillier, used as a reaction to anything being done fast.
  • "Hey I know this might be a bad time right now. But, you owe me $32,000 in legal fees."
  • "What the fuck is Chick Hicks doing at [insert some random, most likely unfortunate, historic event]?"^ExplanationFor whatever reason, People took to photoshopping Chick Hicks into pictures of historic events, often combining it with Black Comedy (like the assasination of Julius Caesar, a rally in Nazi Germany, or the 2006 Piston Cup tie-breaker race from the film)
  • Guido's super-fast pit stop.^ExplanationThe stop, which a YouTube video comparing it to that of Formula One's fastest clocked at 1.82 seconds, is needlessly and endlessly compared to other pit stops in other real-life racing series.
  • "I'm sorry to interrupt, but we need Marsha and Ron Barnes to come up and get their child at the concession stand, thank you."^ExplanationIn a common "telesync" bootleg recording of the film, the audio stops at one point for a theater staff member to ask the parents of a lost child to come up to the concession stand to get their child. The abruptness of the announcement has led to a few jokes.
  • Lightning McGroomer ^ExplanationIn 2023, a Cars voice-over done by TikTok user SuperDuperWafflez was released, depicting Lightning as a... Well, groomer, with Harv screaming his lungs out in outrage over the news. The video went extremely viral due to the sheer offensive, absurd, and humorous audacity of the idea of Lightning being a groomer, and talks about Lightning McQueen online now tend to lead into references to this video, with subsequent sequels to the video also going quite viral.
    • "Maybe because of your obsession with MIDDLE SCHOOLERS!!!!!" ^ExplanationHarv's statement to Lightning in said video, which has grown equally as viral due to the hilariously intense and over the top delivery.
    • "I want this person hung by jumper cables" ^ExplanationA line said by Doc Hudson in a sequel video where Lightning gets tried in court, usually used in response to any damning piece of prosecuting evidence towards someone online.
  • "Tse Valera" ^ExplanationMater's line in the Ukrainian dub, originally "It's Frank". Some Russian and Ukrainian-speaking fans took to joking about a monstrous combine having such an innocent-sounding name.
• Misaimed Fandom: The Delinquent Road Hazards, who were responsible for Lightning falling out of his transport truck, were meant to be a gang of dislikable street punks, to the point that the animators modeled them after contemporary "Rice Burner" cars of the time. Strangely enough, the fandom completely fell in love with them and they even got their own (very popular) toys despite their limited screen time, making enough fan art and fanfiction centering on them to impress even the most hardened Internet warrior.
• Moral Event Horizon: Chick Hicks, the film's antagonist, was already bad due to his dirty racing tactics, but at the end when he purposely runs The King off the road — causing his crippling crash — and has no remorse for it, he unsurprisingly loses all his fans.
  Chick Hicks: I am not coming behind you again, old man!
• Narm Charm: The film's Aesop of "Life's about the journey, not the destination" might be an obvious, almost eye-rolling, message especially given the unsubtle connection to the film's premise (a world made of sentient vehicles). But it's one so heartwarming that even some of the film's detractors legitimately seem to like it.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Ferrari F430, voiced by Michael Schumacher, makes his brief appearance near the end of the movie.
  • The Delinquent Road Hazards only appear in one scene early on (and again in a mid-credits scene) where they torment a sleeping Mack and cause Lightning to get lost, but are fondly remembered for their cool designs.
• Signature Line: "I am speed".
• Signature Scene:
  • The slow-mo shot of Lightning jumping the wreckage during the opening race.
  • The drive to California, mostly thanks to its Scenery Porn montage with Mack and Lightning's journey and "Life is a Highway".
  • The race between Lightning and Doc at Willy’s Butte.
  • Lightning and Sally’s romantic drive to the Wheel Well.
  • Doc showing his real driving, especially the slow-mo shot of him drifting through the rather sharp turn.
  • The entirety of the California tiebreaker race.
• Signature Song: "Real Gone", "Life is a Highway" and "Route 66".
• So Okay, It's Average: The general consensus of the first film (and to an extent, the series as a whole): not awful, but nowhere near Pixar's expected level of quality. In fact, before Cars 2 came along and took the title, Pixar fans loved to brag that even their worst movie was still good.
• Special Effect Failure: While the rest of the animation looks fantastic for 2006 standards, the dust effects are where the film starts to show its age a bit, being particularly noticeable when Doc shows off his racing skills.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: The movie got hit with a bit of this by being accused of copying the plot of Doc Hollywood. It isn't completely without merit given the heavy similarities; both are about a character who is trying to get to their next big gig (big city plastic surgeon vs. the Piston Cup), only to get sidetracked in a small, run-down town when they commit a crime forcing them into community service and therefore trapping them in the town until they complete it. Both also feature a romantic subplot and with both characters eventually returning to where they got stuck. In fact, it was bad enough that the creators of the film got accused of plagiarism on a few occasions, though they have repeatedly denied these claims.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Yes, McQueen is still an arrogant jerkwad that destroyed the road at this point, but he did it completely unintentionally and was lost, panicked and confused when he destroyed it. Having lost his ride, gotten lost in an unfamiliar location trying to catch up, and then gets chased by a cop who he thinks is shooting at him, and then he gets forced to fix the road without ever getting a chance to explain himself, with any attempt made afterwards getting immediately shot down by the other characters. His whole career was on the line so Lightning had good reason to want to be out of there as soon as possible. And then there’s the whole fan theory about him developing Stockholm Syndrome during his forced stay. Also being a famous racer, Lightning certainly had the connections to get someone else to fix their road if they had just talked to anyone who worked with him.
• The Woobie: If you notice very hard in the "Our Town" sequence, Mater had a coat of sky blue in the flashback. When customers stopped coming to Radiator Springs and business closed and all the cars are looking at the empty road, the first car to leave in disbelief is Mater. Plus, he is the one who has physically changed the most - most of his paint has completely flaked off. And in the present, he's probably the most crazy of the bunch. Evidently, he took the by-pass the hardest.
• Woolseyism:
  • The Latin American Spanish dub gets two notable examples.
    • During the chase scene between McQueen and Sheriff, McQueen starts zigzagging because he thinks Sheriff is shooting at him (he's actually backfiring), to which Sheriff responds by calling him a crazy hot rodder. In the LatAm dub, he wonders if McQueen's a taxi cab, which is arguably funnier.
    • When McQueen talks to the Radiator Springs folk about how Doc Hudson had won three Piston Cups, a confused Mater asks "He did what in his cup?". In the separate "Mexican" version of this dub, the joke is changed to "¿Que pisteaba con quien?"^TranslationHe boozed it up with who?, keeping both the "Piston" wordplay and the Parental Bonus intact.
  • In the Norwegian dub, during the credits scene where Mack complains about the using of the same voice actors has been repurposed a little. Since none of John Ratzenberger's characters have the same voice actor in the Norwegian dub, but Woody and Mike do, the Norwegian Mack instead complains that those characters have the same voice actor.
  • In the Japanese dub, instead of Mater describing his name as "'Tuhmater' (tomato) without the 'Tuh'", he instead describes it as "'Motor' with an 'a'"; this is, of course, since the original description would only make sense to people who are familiar with American Accents, which Mater obviously lacks in the dub.
  • Two from the Italian dub:
    • Luigi is voiced by Marco Della Noce, a comedian then mostly known for his Ferrari-themed sketches where he tells how he messed up with Michael Schumacher, just to make Luigi's meeting with a Ferrari F430 voiced by Michael Schumacher (maintained in the Italian dub) even funnier.
    • In the Italian dub, Guido's habit of speaking exclusively in Italian is changed in the dialect of Modena, the city closest to Ferrari's base.

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