If you have a child under the age of eight in your life, you will at least have heard of CARS, the Disney/Pixar computer-animated feature that anthropomorphized a variety of vehicles. What no one expected was the continuing success of the merchandise that surrounded the film: Five years on, and CARS has remained an evergreen property for Disney and Pixar, especially on the die-cast aisle.
Now that the original CARS die-cast is on blowout clearance across the land, it’s time for the new-movie cars to come in. The sequel, cleverly called CARS 2, has a pair of AMC-themed henchmen: Acer and Grem, which are (respectively) a chartreuse Pacer and an orange Gremlin. We got our hands on a copy of Acer, which comes with angry eyes, separate side mirrors, a crooked front bumper (on purpose) that nearly hides a tightly drawn little mouth, years of road rot, and some very clear taillamp, AMC and Pacer tampos on the rear. (The license plate reads FSHBWL.)
Other notable real cars in the film will include:
* Brent Mustangberger. Sportscaster who looks like an early Mustang coupe.
* Chauncey Fares, who looks an awful lot like a TX4 taxi
* David Hobbscap. An E-type Jag named for the erstwhile former racer/current F1 announcer on Speed Channel
* Jeff Gorvette, the Corvette C6R-shaped American racer
* Nigel Gearsley. A World Grand Prix racer in the shape of an Aston Martin DBR9.
* Prince Wheeliam (seriously), a Bentley Continental GT
* Professor Z, a main bad guy in the shape of a slightly shabby Zundapp Janus microcar
* The Queen, who looks an awful lot like a Hooper-bodied Rolls-Royce to us
* Tomber, who looks an awful lot like a three-wheeled Reliant Robin
* Sgt. Highgear, a red Land Rover Defender with implausibly tall black bearskin cap
* Uncle Topolino, relative of Luigi the Fiat 500 who runs the tire shop in Radiator Springs
Various previews of the movie, due in theaters June 24, show a variety of European and Asian machines given the Pixar CARS treatment. (Look closely and you can see a BMW 2002 in the Japanese airport security line…) If the second movie is even half as much fun as the first, kids of all ages will be in for a treat. And, harumphing parents and grandparents who think this sort of thing is silly, recall that the first movie gave us a VW Samba, a late-model Porsche, a ’59 Chevy, a Model T Ford, a Fiat 500, a military-spec Jeep, a ’49 Mercury, and the Fabulous Hudson Hornet (with a more or less accurate re-telling of the marque’s NASCAR career). How better to help infuse kids with a love of old cars than to show them a movie like this, then expose them to the real thing at a car show? The Pixar movies and toys can be a gateway.
Lest you think that these somehow aren’t collectible, know that Tomart has published a Mattel/Pixar CARS movie pricing guide for all of the various incarnations of the models from the first film. Don’t think for one second that the second movie won’t be full of items that are just as collectible.
By the way, don’t forget that Cars 2 will be one of the two movies we’re showing at Hathaway’s Drive-In for Hemmings’s own celebration of National Collector Car Appreciation Day.