“Cars 3” is the latest installment in the Pixar / Disney franchise.
It should come as no surprise that John Lasseter, Pixar and Disney’s chief creative officer, is a gearhead. He is, after all, the man who directed “Cars” (2006) and “Cars 2” (2011), and along with the late Joe Ranft came up with the idea for the franchise.
The automobile is in his blood. His father was a parts manager for a Chevy dealership; as a kid, Lasseter would pore over brochures of the new models. At 16, in a Bob’s Big Boy parking lot on Southern California’s infamous cruising strip Whittier Boulevard, he got his first ticket — for unnecessary use of a horn. These days, Lasseter’s embrace of motoring is evident not just in the “Cars” franchise but also in Pixar’s biennial car show, Motorama.
That love affair with the automobile is embedded in the DNA of the “Cars” team, who are as animated on the subject of car culture as they are on their film “Cars 3,” which opens June 16.
“Most gearheads have it in their blood somewhere,” says “Cars 3” creative director Jay Ward, who has worked on every film in the “Cars” franchise, as well as the Cars Land attraction at Disney’s California Adventure Park. “They grew up with it in some way, whether it’s their dad or a family friend. My dad was an auto wholesaler; he would buy cars and fix them up and sell them for more, one car at a time . ... I loved cartoons. I loved animation from a very young age, and I loved cars.”
That passion for motoring is tinged with the bittersweet in this latest of champion Lightning McQueen’s (Owen Wilson) adventures. A devastating crash is one threat to his future. Another is the cohort of younger, sleeker cars — most especially Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) — poised to overtake him on the track. Remembering how his friend and mentor, Doc Hudson (the late Paul Newman, his dialogue culled from outtakes from “Cars”), was forced into retirement, McQueen is determined to leave the sport on his own terms.
Part of his comeback involves a trip back into Doc’s past, an opportunity for the “Cars 3” team to pay homage to the early days of NASCAR and some of its legendary drivers in the guise of Junior “Midnight” Moon (85-year-old NASCAR legend Junior Johnson voicing a version of himself ), Smokey Yunick (Chris Cooper voicing the mechanic/ car designer of the same name), River Scott (Isiah Whitlock Jr. essentially playing NASCAR’s first African American driver. Wendell Scott), and Louise “Barnstormer” Nash (based on Louise Smith, the “First Lady of Racing” and voiced by Margo Martindale).
“Those people’s stories tell a huge part of our NASCAR history,” says NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee Ray Evernham, who fulfilled his boyhood dream of racing cars,
but found his greatest success as a crew chief, notably a partnership with NASCAR champion driver Jeff Gordon. A consultant on “Cars 3,” he also voices Lighting Storm’s crew chief.
“If you look at Junior ‘Midnight’ Moon, he’s the ’40 Ford, because the ’40 Ford was the really cool and most well-known bootleg car,” Evernham says. “Junior (Johnson) — his dad was a moonshiner and then he drove bootleg cars. He was actually arrested and went to prison. He came out of prison and went on the straight and narrow, became a great racing driver, winning NASCAR races, became a mechanic, an owner, won championships, brought in major sponsors and manufacturers, and really is still involved in NASCAR today.”
The idea of legacy goes beyond NASCAR to the more personal for Jay Shuster, production designer for characters on “Cars 3.” His father was a 43-year veteran automotive designer at General Motors who now watches his son carry on that tradition in a different arena.
“My dad is super into it,” Shuster says. “He always wanted me to work in Detroit, but I never really wanted to work there . ... What they do is amazing and cool, and it’s what inspired me as a kid to do what I do today, but there’s somewhere even more inspiring to work and to design cars.”
As for Lasseter, executive producer on “Cars 3,” he remains loyal to the Chevys he loved as a child.
“My favorite year of Chevys growing up was 1957, the year I was born, and my favorite ’57 was the Corvette,” he says. “I think that body style, with the single headlights and the coves on the side, is the most beautiful body style of Corvette ever; the lines are just so clean. My wife, Nancy, knew that it had always been my dream car, and the year I turned 57, she surprised me with a beautiful Venetian red ’57 Corvette on my birthday.”