Cars/Deleted elements
This is a list of deleted elements for the movie Cars.
Early Ideas
The film was initially going to be called "Route 66", presumably due to Radiator Springs, the film's primary location, being located on Route 66. The name was later changed to Cars to avoid confusion with the title of a 1960s television program.
A very early iteration of the plot titled The Little Yellow Car (created around 1998) centered around an electric car living in a gas-guzzling world. Pixar confirmed that the initial story featured Fillmore and Sarge, though it is unknown what role they would have played. According to The Art of Cars, this version of the film was scrapped due to Disney commissioning Toy Story 2 around that time, and the crew thought the story was too small in scale for a feature length film.
Lightning McQueen's racing number was originally going to be 57, a reference to John Lasseter's birth year, 1957, but changed to 95 as a reference to 1995, the year Pixar's first animated film, Toy Story, was released. Lightning's original racing number can be seen in the film's deleted scenes, as well as concept art and the film's 2005 teaser trailer.
Cancelled Developments
Deleted scenes
There are six deleted scenes from Cars available to the public, four of which were included in the film's DVD release, one exclusive to the Blu-ray release, and one in The Art of Cars. They're well known for having a significantly darker tone than the final film and are frequently brought up in discussions surrounding dark deleted scenes from animated films.
Top Down Truckstop
Top Down Truckstop is the first deleted scene on home media releases of Cars. It depicts an earlier version of the scene where McQueen and Mack are separated.
In this deleted scene, Mack stops at Top Down Truckstop to get a car wash, tired of driving nonstop for hours. He tells McQueen to wait in the trailer, but he gets impatient and heads out of his trailer to look for him. While searching, he meets Mia and Tia, who in this version of the film were waitresses at Top Down Truckstop. Rusty and Dusty Rust-Eze are also in this scene and are depicted as the owners of the truck stop, compared to the final film, where they're the owners of McQueen's sponsor, Rust-Eze. Mack finishes his car wash, gets some caffeine, and hooks up to his trailer. Mack doesn't know that Lightning isn't inside, so he drives away without him. Still hanging out with his fans, Lightning says that he must get back to Mack, but doesn't find him and his trailer in their parking spot. He eventually spots Mack driving down the Interstate, so he rushes after him. He drives through a red light, and almost crashes. He drives up the exit ramp, going the "wrong way", and dodges a bunch of cars on the road, almost getting in several crashes before spinning off the road. Lightning makes a U-turn and gets back on the road to find Mack.
Lost
Lost is the second deleted scene in the home media releases of Cars. It's infamous for its dark content.
Lightning catches up with a truck he assumes is Mack, only for it to end up being a completely different truck, much like the final film. The truck then drives away, leaving Lightning at the crossing. Lightning tries to make his way back to the Interstate, but some clouds block the moon, and since McQueen doesn't have real headlights, he finds himself going off the road. He then falls down a hill, and crashes into a bunch of branches. When breaking free, he bumps into a car behind him. He turns around to see that the car that he bumped into is dead, which scares him. He looks around and sees more dead cars everywhere. Several of them have branches growing through them, and some are even hanging from them. When trying to escape, he drives straight through a fence. The fence gets tangled on both him and one of the dead cars. Lightning drives so fast, that its engine gets ripped clean off of it. Lightning gets back on the road and tries to run away from the dead car's engine. Lightning eventually gets untangled and runs away.
Community Service
Community Service is the third deleted scene in home media releases of Cars. Much like Lost, it's well-known for its dark contents.
In an earlier version of the film, Lightning is given two options to complete before he can leave the town: he can either do traditional community service, or to participate in the Radiator Springs Grand Prix, a race they plan to host in order to get more customers to travel to the town and get it back on the map. Lightning chooses to do community service instead and spends his night sleeping in the impound. Before going to sleep though, he asks Mater what community service is like, to which Mater answers saying he doesn't know. While McQueen is sleeping that night, he has a nightmare. In the nightmare, Doc Hudson, Mater, and Sheriff have taken his engine out of his body and placed it in a steamroller, essentially acting as a body swap. Lighting curses the townsfolk, calling them crazy and monsters, before trying to escape by driving through the fence. However, his new body is very slow, and Sheriff catches up to him easily. He then flips a switch on the back of Lightning, which turns on a machine that splats asphalt on the road and another that sprays paint onto it and is depicted in the scene as being painful for Lightning. Doc puts Mater's engine into Lightning's body, and the tow truck starts messing around with his extra horsepower, driving recklessly, which heavily worries Lightning. Mack is able to finally find McQueen, but since they switched bodies, he mistakes Mater for Lightning. Mater gets into Lightning's trailer, and Mack drives away. Lightning tries to get Doc and Sheriff to get Mater back, but they want him to continue fixing the road. Lightning looks down the road, and there's an impossible amount of road to fix, causing him to scream in agony. Then Lightning is waken up by Doc, Sheriff, and Mater and sees that everything was just a nightmare and finds himself perfectly normal. While looking around, he sees the body of a deceased steamroller on his side, giving an explanation as to why he had his nightmare. Doc tries to get Lightning ready for community service, but he panics and decides to do the race instead.
Nightmare
This scene, unofficially dubbed "McQueen's Nightmare" by fans, isn't on any home media or streaming releases of Cars but is rather seen in The Art of Cars, a book containing concept art and development information about the first Cars film.
Due to it never being officially released, little is known about this deleted scene, it seems to involve Mcqueen dreaming about himself about to win the Piston Cup, but much to his shock, he stops dead in his tracks right at the finish line, despite still pushing on the gas pedal, and his engine gets magically torn out of his body, despite McQueen fighting for it to stay inside. The scene ends with his engine flying into the sky, and McQueen screaming in fear and pain. It's unknown where exactly this scene would go in the film, but it's highly speculated that it would've shown up during McQueen's first night staying at the Cozy Cone, since a much more light-hearted nightmare sequence plays there in the final film.
Motorama Girls
Motorama Girls is the fourth deleted scene from the home media releases of Cars and the final on the film's DVD release.
Radiator Springs is having a karaoke night, and Flo is singing a song. Lightning asks Ramone how he and Flo fell in love, to which Ramone starts his story. A band named the Motorama Girls came to Radiator Springs one day from Detroit, Michigan after their chaperone broke down. The girls had some time to kill, so they partied with the locals. The girls at one point came to Ramone's to get paint jobs, but on the last car, Ramone dropped his air brush, seeing Flo for the first time. According to him, she asked, "What's the matter? You're too good to paint me?" to which Ramone said, "No, baby. You're too good for me to paint. I can't touch a classic.", immediately falling in love. So, when it came time for the girls to leave, Flo decided to stay. Lightning asks how Ramone knew she was the one. Ramone replies, "You just know, man. You just know.", just as Flo finishes her song.
This deleted scene later became a storytellers' story titled Showstopper.
Traffic School
Traffic School is the final deleted scene from Cars and is exclusive to the film's Blu-ray release.
The scene begins with McQueen sleeping peacefully at the Cozy Cone, only to be awakened by Sheriff's siren. He explains that if he wants to compete in the Radiator Springs Grand Prix, he will need to attend a driving school, taught by Sally. The lesson is held Radiator Springs old drive-in movie theater. Lightning and Sally constantly bump heads over the course of the class, with McQueen wanting it to be over as fast as possible. This eventually reaches its breaking point when Sally tries to get McQueen to parallel Park, which McQueen is terrible at. He eventually decides to pull in recklessly, but still within the cones, much to Sally's annoyance, ending the scene.
Gallery
Top-Down Truck Stop
Lost
Community Service
Nightmare
Motorama Girls
Traffic School
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