Read about Pixar’s character and lighting innovations in the first part of AWN’s Cars coverage.

Route 66 served as the catalyst and inspiration for the setting of Cars. The Pixar team’s research trips became life altering journeys for the filmmakers too. All images © Disney/Pixar. All rights reserved. 

John Lasseter likes to point to his family RV trip along Route 66 as the catalyst for Cars (opening June 9 from Disney), with “its rich history and the way the modern world had bypassed it in order to save a few minutes of driving time… The spirit of Route 66 is in the details: every scratch on a fender, every curl of paint on a weathered billboard, every blade of grass growing up through a cracked street...”

So naturally the Pixar team wound up doing more research for Cars than on any previous movie. But the various research trips along Route 66 comprised their own journeys that were as life altering for the filmmakers as they were for their characters.

“When I went into it, I thought it would be fun, but when I was done, it became an important part of my life,” recalls production designer Bob Pauley, a car enthusiast who concentrated on the cars while production designer Bill Cone focused on the majority of the environments and the color script. “It goes back to John’s mantra, do the research and do it properly. We had to be in our world and the Route 66 trip was all about the environment. On the first Route 66 trip, back in 2001, there were 10 of us, three cars in nine days. We saw so much — Monument Valley, which became Ornament Valley, Cadillac Ranch, which became Cadillac Range —but to be within that environment was key for us — everything from the road to the soil to rock to the trees to the color of the sky. Bill and I focused on what a small town was like: old cars, the buildings, how long the streets are, how it’s laid out — all the big features from road signs to the Portland cement of Route 66. Looking back, a lot of what we saw on that trip ended up in the movie. That southwest, hot, rust patina, where everything is baked in. Beautiful textures of rust and what remains of the paint job are merit badges. They’ve earned this weathered patina. The story has a lot to do with what they had [on Route 66] and trying to get back to it. They serviced the country and the world passed by their doorstep.”

Radiator Springs, a composite of several small towns the Pixar team encountered on Route 66, all had similar diners, gas stations and stores. 

Radiator Springs, of course, is a composite of several small towns they encountered on Route 66, which were about a half-mile long, each containing one main street and a few supporting streets. “Often the towns were there for a reason,” Pauley continues, “whether you just crossed the desert or you were about to go into the hills, you would end at a place where you could refill or tap off your radiator. They all had diners and gas stations and we could blend the two worlds by having aspects of one combined with the other. So I think every time that we went through these towns we saw similarities and consistent themes. The signs going into town, the layout, one stoplight, symbolically, which only flashes yellow now.”

Even more than in previous Pixar movies, color and light are used to convey certain emotions. For example, Radiator Springs appears pale and dusty when Lightning McQueen first shows up. But as he becomes more intimately involved with the residents, the town becomes more vibrant. One of the highlights that’s pure eye candy, discussed in part one, is the neon sequence in which Radiator Springs returns to its glistening heyday and Pixar is at its best in combining shadowing with occlusion.