The Piston Cup is the top racing championship in the world of Cars, a season-long series of oval races that Lightning McQueen, a rookie with more speed than sense, wants more than anything. Radiator Springs is the small town on Route 66 where he gets stranded on the way to the deciding race: a place the interstate bypassed, where the shops are empty and nobody passes through any more. The first film is the story of what a week there teaches him.
This covers the first film (2006) mainly, with the later films and the shorts where they matter. Every design on the Cars shelf comes from somewhere in it. Spoilers below.
The Piston Cup and the three-way tie
The Piston Cup is to Cars what a national stock-car championship is to ours: big ovals, big crowds and sponsors painted across every racer. The sponsor every racer wants is Dinoco, and its car is Strip Weathers, known as the King, a blue 1970 Plymouth Superbird who is about to retire.
Lightning McQueen, number 95, is sponsored by Rust-eze, a bumper ointment brand he is embarrassed by, and he wants the Dinoco deal. His catchphrase is "Ka-chow!" He refuses a fresh set of tyres and blows both rear ones on the final lap of the season's last race, the Dinoco 400.
The race ends in a three-way tie between McQueen, the King and Chick Hicks, a green racer who has spent his whole career finishing behind the King. The Cup will be settled by a tie-breaker in California a week later. McQueen makes his transporter, Mack, drive through the night to get there first.
Radiator Springs and Route 66
Route 66 is the real highway that once ran from Chicago to Santa Monica, the main road west for decades. As interstates replaced it, the towns along it lost the passing trade they lived on, and the road was dropped from the national highway system in 1985. Radiator Springs is fictional, but its story is theirs.
Lost after falling out of Mack's trailer, McQueen speeds into town at night, gets chased by Sheriff and tears up the main street. The town judge sentences him to repave it, towing Bessie, a tar-laying machine. Sally later takes him for a drive to show him what the town was: in its day, the stop on the road where everyone pulled in, until the interstate was built to save ten minutes of driving and the traffic simply went past.
Doc Hudson, the Fabulous Hudson Hornet
Doc Hudson is the town's doctor and its judge, a 1951 Hudson Hornet who wants McQueen gone. He races him on the dirt at Willy's Butte to settle it, and McQueen spins off the track into a field of cactus. Doc's advice for dirt is the line that comes back at the end: turn right to go left.
McQueen then finds three Piston Cups hidden in Doc's garage. Doc was the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, champion in 1951, 1952 and 1953, until a crash in 1954 put him out. By the time he was mended, racing had moved on without him, so he left it behind.
Doc is gone by the second film, which renames the trophy the Hudson Hornet Memorial Piston Cup. The third film sends McQueen back to Doc's old haunts and puts him in a blue livery in Doc's honour.
Sally, Ramone, Mater and the town
Sally Carrera is a 2002 Porsche 911 who left life as a lawyer in Los Angeles, broke down on Route 66 just outside Radiator Springs and stayed. She runs the Cozy Cone Motel, acts as the town's attorney and wants it back on the map. McQueen spots her pinstripe tattoo, which she would rather he had not.
Ramone is a 1959 Chevrolet Impala lowrider who runs Ramone's House of Body Art. With no customers, he repaints himself every day. His wife Flo runs Flo's V8 Café across the street.
Mater is the rusty tow truck who becomes McQueen's best friend and takes him tractor tipping. Once the road is done, McQueen spends money in every shop in town, the neon is switched back on and the town goes cruising, the scene behind Main Street Cruise.
On the shelf
Snot Rod, Wingo and the tuner gang
The reason McQueen ends up in Radiator Springs at all is a gang of four tuner cars, Boost, DJ, Wingo and Snot Rod, cruising the interstate at night. DJ plays soft music until Mack nods off; Boost and Wingo, the one with the enormous rear wing, nudge him onto the rumble strips at the edge of the road.
The shaking opens the trailer door, and McQueen, asleep, rolls out onto the road. Then Snot Rod sneezes, his exhausts firing off flames, and Mack jolts awake and drives on without noticing. In the end credits, Sheriff catches the gang speeding through town, and they are put to work on the road with Bessie.
The tie-breaker and the King's last race
The world finds McQueen when Doc tips off the press, and he leaves for California. Partway through the tie-breaker, Doc turns up as his crew chief in his old racing colours, with the town as his pit crew, and McQueen wins back lost ground using what he learned on the dirt.
On the last lap, Chick Hicks shunts the King into a terrible crash. McQueen stops just short of the line, lets Chick take the Piston Cup, and goes back to push the King over the finish so he can complete his last race. Chick gets the trophy and is booed for it. McQueen turns down the Dinoco deal, stays with Rust-eze, and makes Radiator Springs his racing headquarters, which puts the town back on the map.
The shorts take Mater further. In Monster Truck Mater, one of his tall tales, he claims a career in monster-truck wrestling, billed as the Tormentor.
On the back of a tee
McQueen, the King, Doc and the whole of Radiator Springs are on the Cars shelf, drawn from canon reference art. Check the size guide before you pick a size.
Why it works on the back: these characters are built like racing liveries, a number, a colour and a sponsor's mark, and a livery is designed to be read at speed from the grandstand.
On the shelf
Read next: Mystery Inc. and the men in masks: Scooby-Doo explained (another gang on the road) and Treehouse of Horror, El Barto and Krusty explained.
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