The cartoon artist Bob Pauley answers the question about the McQueen prototype this way: ‘When designing the protagonist of Cars, we took the best of our favorite things, from GT40s to Chargers… just sketching them out, we came up with what McQueen looks like’. He is impetuous, moderately reckless, but kind, friendly, brave, loyal and loving. He loves racing, can train for hours, and wants to become a Champion. McQueen is a racing sports car that flies along the track like lightning, fully living up to its name. They invented a whole automobile city and even a world where cars could dream, fall in love, feel sad and live a real ‘human life’. By the way, animators drew over 43,000 cars when working on the cartoon. I will gladly share with you, and you can impress your children with your knowledge. This is how I came up with an idea to figure out which car models became the prototypes for the characters of the beloved Cars.

plays the Iron Man, but what kind of car is Lightning McQueen modeled after? And to my shame, despite being an automotive journalist and knowing a lot about cars, I just got stuck. Overall, nothing foreshadowed trouble… Until the moment when my son asked me: ‘What kind of car is Lightning McQueen?’ Well, we know Bruce Willis portrays John McClane in the Die Hard, Robert Downey Jr. My son is almost 18 years old, so I no longer need to bring him up, as well as to answer a bunch of ‘why’ questions or explain the meaning of life… Instead we can just sit and enjoy our favorite cartoon, eating chips, laughing and throwing smart and precise remarks. Once my adult son and I decided to re-watch all the episodes of Cars Cartoon, probably the most iconic for all fans of cars and speed. Sometimes life can surprise you in an unpredictable way.

Cars characters