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June 24, 2011 Cars 2 is released in theaters everywhere! July 1, 2011 The 2006 Piston Cup Race Car Double stunt set is continued to be worked on. November 1, 2011 Cars 2 is now on DVD and Blu-ray. February 8, 2012 The World of Cars Online closes. June 15, 2012 Cars Land opens.

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  • Lightning McQueen, known to Sally as "Stickers", and also known as simply McQueen, is the main protagonist of the series. He is a race car, who races for the Piston Cup.

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    The Cars

    This article is about the rock band. For similar titles, see Cars (disambiguation).

    The Cars are an American rock band that emerged from the new wave scene in the late 1970s. The band originated in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1976, with singer, rhythm guitarist and songwriter Ric Ocasek, singer and bassist Benjamin Orr, lead guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson.

    The Cars were at the forefront in merging 1970s guitar-oriented rock with the new synthesizer-oriented pop that was then becoming popular and which would flourish in the early 1980s. Robert Palmer, music critic for The New York Times and Rolling Stone, described the Cars' musical style by saying: "they have taken some important but disparate contemporary trends—punk minimalism, the labyrinthine synthesizer and guitar textures of art rock, the '50s rockabilly revival and the melodious terseness of power pop—and mixed them into a personal and appealing blend."[1]

    The Cars were named "Best New Artist" in the 1978 Rolling Stone Readers' Poll and won "Video of the Year" for "You Might Think" at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. Their debut album, The Cars, sold six million copies and appeared on the Billboard 200 album chart for 139 weeks. As of 2001, the Cars have sold over 23 million albums in the United States.

    The band broke up in 1988, and Ocasek later discouraged talk of a reunion.[2] Orr died in 2000 from pancreatic cancer. In 2005, Easton and Hawkes joined with Todd Rundgren to form a spin-off band, the New Cars, which performed classic Cars and Rundgren songs alongside new material. The original surviving members reunited in 2010 to record a new album, Move Like This, which was released in May 2011, followed by a short tour.[3] In 2015, they were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

    History

    Early years

    Before the Cars, members of the band performed together in several different incarnations. Ric Ocasek and Benjamin Orr met in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1960s after Ocasek saw Orr performing with his band the Grasshoppers on the Big 5 Show, a local musical variety program. The two were in various bands in Columbus, Ohio and Ann Arbor, Michigan before re-locating to Boston in the early 1970s. In Boston, Ocasek and Orr, along with lead guitarist Jas Goodkind, formed a Crosby, Stills and Nash-style folk rock band called Milkwood. They released one album, How's the Weather, on Paramount Records in 1973 that failed to chart.

    After Milkwood, Ocasek and Orr formed the group Richard and the Rabbits, whose name was suggested by Jonathan Richman. The band included Greg Hawkes, who had studied at the Berklee School of Music and had played saxophone on Milkwood's album. Hawkes left to tour with Martin Mull and His Fabulous Furniture, a musical comedy act in which Mull played a variety of instruments. Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr then performed as an acoustic duo called simply Ocasek and Orr at the Idler coffeehouse in Cambridge. Some of the songs they played became the early Cars songs.

    Later, Ocasek and Orr teamed up with guitarist Elliot Easton (who had also studied at Berklee) in the band Cap'n Swing. Cap'n Swing also featured drummer Glenn Evans, later followed by Kevin Robichaud, and a jazzy bass player, which clashed with Ocasek's more rock and roll leanings. Benjamin Orr was the lead vocalist and did not play an instrument. Cap'n Swing soon came to the attention of WBCN disc jockey Maxanne Sartori, who began playing songs from their demo tape on her show.

    After being rejected by several record labels, Ocasek got rid of the bass player and drummer and decided to form a band that better fit his style of writing. Orr took over on bass and Robichaud was replaced by David Robinson, best known for his career with the Modern Lovers. Robinson had also played in DMZ and the Pop! Hawkes returned to play keyboards and the band became "The Cars," a name suggested by Robinson, whose sense of fashion would have a strong influence on the band's image.

    Rise in popularity, The Cars, and Candy-O (1978–1979)

    The Cars played their first show at Pease Air Force Base in New Hampshire on December 31, 1976 and spent early 1977 playing throughout New England, developing the songs that would become their debut album. A nine-song demo tape was recorded in early 1977 and soon "Just What I Needed" was getting heavy airplay on Boston radio stations WBCN and WCOZ.[4] By virtue of that airplay, the band was signed to Elektra Records. The band's debut album, The Cars, was released in June 1978, reaching No. 18 on the Billboard 200. "Just What I Needed" was released as the debut single from the album, followed by "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Good Times Roll" all three charting on the Billboard Hot 100. The album also featured multiple album tracks that received substantial airplay, such as "You're All I've Got Tonight," "Bye Bye Love," and "Moving in Stereo."

    The band's second album, Candy-O, was released in June 1979. Featuring an album cover created by the famed Playboy artist Alberto Vargas, the album reached No. 3 on the Billboard album chart in America. The album featured their first Top 20 single, "Let's Go." Follow-up singles "It's All I Can Do" and "Double Life" were also released, although with less success.

    Change in sound, Panorama, and Shake It Up (1980–1983)

    Following the success of Candy-O, the band's third studio album, Panorama, was released in 1980. The album, considered more experimental than its predecessors, featured only one Top 40 hit with "Touch and Go". Although the album peaked at No. 5 in America, it did not receive the critical praise of The Cars and Candy-O, with Rolling Stone describing the album as "an out-and-out drag".

    In 1981, the Cars purchased Intermedia Studios in Boston, renaming it Syncro Sound.[5] The only Cars album recorded there was the band's fourth album, Shake It Up, a more commercial album than Panorama. It was their first album to spawn a top 10 single with the title track, and it included another hit in "Since You're Gone". Following their 1982 tour, the Cars took a short break and went to work on solo projects, with Ocasek and Hawkes both releasing debut albums (Beatitude and Niagara Falls, respectively).

    Heartbeat City, Door to Door and break-up (1984–1988)

    The Cars reunited and released their most successful album, Heartbeat City, in 1984. The first single, "You Might Think", helped the Cars win Video of the Year at the first MTV Video Music Awards. Other hit singles from the album included "Magic", "Hello Again", and "Why Can't I Have You". Their most successful single, "Drive", with Orr on lead vocals, gained particular notability when it was used in a video of the Ethiopian famine prepared by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and introduced by David Bowie at the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium in London[6] (the Cars themselves performed in the Philadelphia Live Aid concert). Actor/director Timothy Hutton directed the band's 1984 "Drive" music video.

    After the resulting period of superstardom and another hit single, "Tonight She Comes", a No. 7 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart (their last No. 1), from their Greatest Hits, the Cars took time off again to pursue solo projects. Easton and Orr released their debut albums (Change No Change and The Lace, respectively), while Ocasek released his second solo album, This Side of Paradise. In 1987, the Cars released their sixth album, Door to Door. It contained their last major international hit, "You Are the Girl", but the album failed to approach the success of their previous albums. They announced the group's breakup in February 1988.[6]

    Post break-up, solo careers and Benjamin Orr's death (1989–2009)

    In the late 1990s, rumors circulated of a Cars reunion, with no results. However, in 1995 Rhino Records released a two-CD set Just What I Needed: The Cars Anthology, containing all the group's hits mixed with rarities (demos, non-album b-sides). They followed up with the releases of The Cars: Deluxe Edition (1999), their debut album in 2-CD format, and Complete Greatest Hits.

    In the mid-1990s, Orr recorded tracks with guitarist John Kalishes for an unreleased follow-up to The Lace and performed with three bands, his own band "ORR", The Voices of Classic Rock, and Big People. Orr did appear with his former bandmates one last time in an interview for a documentary about the group prior to his death from pancreatic cancer in 2000.

    Ocasek continued to perform as a solo artist, having released over seven studio albums. Robinson retired from music and spent most of his time working in his restaurant. In 2005, Easton and Hawkes combined their talents with Todd Rundgren, Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Journey), and Kasim Sulton (Utopia, Meat Loaf) in a revamped lineup, The New Cars, to perform classic Cars songs along with some new original material and selections from Rundgren's career.

    In 2008, the band's first album was released for the video game Rock Band.[7]

    Reunion and Move Like This (2010–2011)

    In 2010, the founding members of the Cars suggested a reunion when Ric Ocasek, Elliot Easton, Greg Hawkes and David Robinson placed a photo of the four members together in Millbrook Sound Studios, Millbrook, New York on their Facebook page.[8] On October 13, they also posted a snippet of a new song, "Blue Tip", on their Facebook page. A picture of Jacknife Lee in the studio was posted on the group's Facebook page hinting that he would be producing the new Cars album.[9]

    In October Billboard reported that a new album which may be supported by a tour is being recorded at veteran engineer Paul Orofino's studio in Millbrook, New York. A music clip of a new song, called "Sad Song", was added to the band's Facebook page on December 7, 2010; another clip of a song called "Free" was shared on their Facebook page on January 1, 2011. The official debut video for "Blue Tip" was released February 17, 2011. The video was directed by Roberto Serrini and Eron Otcasek from The Lab NYC and features the four members of the band, and NYC based street artist Joe Iurato. According to Rolling Stone, the surviving Cars mutually agreed there would be no replacing the late Benjamin Orr, so Hawkes and Lee handled all bass parts.[10]

    The new album, titled Move Like This, was released on May 10 by Hear Music/Concord Music Group, debuting at No. 7 on Billboard's album charts. It featured 10 songs in under 40 minutes.[11] The album's first single, "Sad Song", was released to radio stations March 1.[12][13] In May 2011, the Cars went on a ten-city tour of the United States and Canada[14] and also performed at Lollapalooza in Chicago in August.

    Though the Cars have not broken up, they have been inactive since the tour's conclusion in 2011, and their website has not been updated since that time. Though on April 28, 2016 Ric Ocasek appeared on behalf of the Cars for a Q & A with SiriusXM satellite radio. 2016 has also seen a release of remastered Cars music on CD and vinyl. Ocasek supervised the remastering.

    Musical style

    The Cars have used genres that spanned through all of rock and pop music, including new wave, pop rock, protopunk, garage rock, and bubblegum pop.[15] They have also used rockabilly in songs such as "My Best Friend's Girl".[16] Robert Palmer, music critic for The New York Times and Rolling Stone, described the Cars' musical style by saying: "they have taken some important but disparate contemporary trends—punk minimalism, the labyrinthine synthesizer and guitar textures of art rock, the '50s rockabilly revival and the melodious terseness of power pop—and mixed them into a personal and appealing blend."[1] They have also had hard rock-oriented songs including "You're All I've Got Tonight."[17]

    Influence

    The Cars have been an influence on many bands over the years, as evidenced by the list of varied artists that have covered their songs. These include Nirvana (who covered "My Best Friend's Girl" at their last-ever live performance on March 1, 1994),[18] Smashing Pumpkins ("You're All I've Got Tonight"), Melvins ("Candy-O"), Red House Painters ("All Mixed Up"), Alkaline Trio ("Bye Bye Love"), Ziggy Marley ("Drive"), Poison ("Just What I Needed"), Deftones ("Drive"), and Hayseed Dixie ("My Best Friend's Girl"), Scorpions ("Drive"), Sixx:A.M. "Drive", among others.

    In 2011, the Strokes were joined by Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker for a cover of the Cars' "Just What I Needed". This took place when the Strokes were headlining the Reading leg of the Reading and Leeds Festival.[19]

    In October 2015 and 2016, the Cars were nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame but were not selected.

    Band members

    Current members

    Former members

    Timeline

    Discography

    Main article: The Cars discography

    References

    1. ^ a b Palmer, Robert. "Pop: Cars Merge Styles" The New York Times August 9, 1978: C17
    2. ^ "Life after the Cars" The Cincinnati Post October 11, 1997: 16A
    3. ^ The Cars Reunite for First Album in 23 Years Billboard October 21, 2010 Archived April 13, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.
    4. ^ Carter Alan. Radio Free Boston: The Rise and Fall of WBCN. ISBN 978-1-55553-729-6. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2013, p. 109.
    5. ^ Morse, Steve. "Boston's Music Scene: A Hotbed of Rock and Roll" Boston Globe June 5, 1981
    6. ^ a b c Strong, Martin C. (2000). The Great Rock Discography (5th ed.). Edinburgh: Mojo Books. pp. 154–155. ISBN 1-84195-017-3. 
    7. ^ Linde, Aaron (May 20, 2008). "Cars' Self-Titled Album Hits Rock Band Next Week". Shacknews.com. Archived from the original on August 8, 2010. Retrieved April 27, 2010. 
    8. ^ "Photo". Undercover.com.au. July 25, 2010. Archived from the original on September 22, 2010. Retrieved July 18, 2011. 
    9. ^ "The Cars". Facebook. Archived from the original on April 8, 2005. Retrieved March 8, 2011. 
    10. ^ Fricke, David (February 16, 2011). "New Wave Heroes the Cars Roar Back on Reunion Record". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on February 19, 2011. Retrieved February 19, 2011. 
    11. ^ Rosen, J. (May 26, 2011). "Reviews: The cars reassemble - and prove they haven't lost a hand clap.". Rolling Stone. 
    12. ^ "TAPSheet: Release Notes – 02/02/2011". Musictap.net. Archived from the original on June 20, 2011. Retrieved March 8, 2011. 
    13. ^ "Available for Airplay 3.07-08". FMQB. Archived from the original on September 26, 2011. Retrieved March 8, 2011. 
    14. ^ Blau, Max (April 4, 2011). "The Cars Announce North American Tour". Paste. Archived from the original on May 10, 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2011. 
    15. ^ Thomas, Stephen (October 3, 2000). "The Cars". AllMusic. Archived from the original on June 5, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2011. 
    16. ^ Moore, Allan F. (2003). Analyzing Popular Music. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 188–190. ISBN 978-0-521-77120-7.
    17. ^ Guarisco, Donald A. "You're All I've Got Tonight". AllMusic. Archived from the original on May 17, 2011. Retrieved July 18, 2011. 
    18. ^ Nirvana - Terminal 1, Flughafen München-Riem, Munich, Germany, 01.03.1994 (PRO#1b) Archived February 9, 2017, at the Wayback Machine.. YouTube (December 9, 2010). Retrieved on April 25, 2014.
    19. ^ "News". Nme.com. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. 

    External links

    en.wikipedia.org

    Cars (film)

    This article is about the original 2006 Pixar film. For the film series, see Cars (franchise). For other uses, see Cars (disambiguation).

    Cars is a 2006 American computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed and co-written by John Lasseter, it is Pixar's final independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney in May 2006. Set in a world populated entirely by anthropomorphic cars and other vehicles, the film stars the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman (in his final acting role), Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, Michael Wallis, George Carlin, Paul Dooley, Jenifer Lewis, Guido Quaroni, Michael Keaton, Katherine Helmond and John Ratzenberger. Race car drivers Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Mario Andretti, Michael Schumacher and car enthusiast Jay Leno (as "Jay Limo") voice themselves.

    Cars premiered on May 26, 2006 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, and was theatrically released on June 9, 2006 to mostly positive reviews from critics. It was nominated for two Academy Awards including Best Animated Feature, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film. The film was released on DVD on November 7, 2006 and on Blu-ray in 2007. The film was accompanied by the short One Man Band for its theatrical and home media releases. Merchandise based on the film (including scale models of several of the cars) broke records for retail sales of merchandise based on a Disney/Pixar film,[2] bringing an estimated $10 billion for 5 years after the film's release.[3] The film was dedicated to Joe Ranft, who was killed in a car accident during the film's production.

    A sequel, titled Cars 2, was released on June 24, 2011,[4] and a spin-off film titled Planes, produced by DisneyToon Studios, was released on August 9, 2013,[5] which was followed by its own sequel, Planes: Fire & Rescue, released on July 18, 2014. A series of short animated films titled Cars Toons debuted in 2008 on Disney Channel and Disney XD.[6] A second sequel, Cars 3, was released on June 16, 2017.[7]

    Plot

    In a world populated by anthropomorphic vehicles, the last race of the Piston Cup championship ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran Strip "The King" Weathers, infamous runner-up Chick Hicks, and rookie Lightning McQueen. The tiebreaker race is scheduled for one week later at the Los Angeles International Speedway in California. Lightning is desperate to win the race, since it would not only make him the first rookie to win a championship, but also allow him to leave the unglamorous sponsorship of Rust-eze and allow him to take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative Dinoco team. Eager to start practice in California as soon as possible, he pushes his big rig, Mack, to travel all night long. While McQueen is sleeping, the exhausted Mack drifts off and is startled by a gang of four reckless street racers, causing McQueen to fall out the back of the trailer and onto the road. McQueen wakes in the middle of traffic and speeds off the highway to find Mack, only to end up in the run-down desert town of Radiator Springs, while inadvertently ruining the pavement of its main road.

    After being arrested and impounded overnight (while guarded by a rusty, but friendly, tow truck named Mater), McQueen is ordered by the town judge, Doc Hudson, to leave town immediately. The local lawyer Sally Carrera requests that McQueen should instead be given community service to repave the road, to which Doc reluctantly agrees. McQueen tries to repave it in a single day, but it turns out to be shoddy, and he is forced to repave the road again, which takes several days to complete. During this time, he befriends several of the cars, and learns that Radiator Springs used to be a popular stopover along the old U.S. Route 66, but with the construction of Interstate 40 bypassing it, the town literally vanished from the map. McQueen also discovers that Doc is really the "Fabulous Hudson Hornet", a three-time Piston Cup winner, whose racing career ended after an accident in 1954, and quickly forgotten by the sport. McQueen finishes the road, which has invigorated the cars to improve their town, and spends an extra day in Radiator Springs with his new friends, before Mack and the media descend on the town, led by a tip to McQueen's location. McQueen reluctantly leaves with the media to get to California in time for the race, while Sally chastises Doc after discovering that he had tipped off the media to McQueen's whereabouts, not wanting to be discovered by them instead.

    At Los Angeles International Speedway, McQueen's mind is not fully set on the race, and he soon falls into last place. He is surprised to discover that Doc Hudson, who is decked out in his old racing colors, has taken over as his crew chief, along with several other friends from Radiator Springs to help in the pit. Inspired and recalling tricks he learned from Doc and his friends, McQueen quickly emerges to lead the race into the final laps. But at the last minute, Hicks—refusing to come behind Weathers again—side swipes Weathers and sends him into a dangerous spin, causing him to crash. Seeing this and recalling Doc's fate, McQueen stops just short of the finish line, allowing Hicks to win, and drives back to push Weathers over the finish line. The crowd and media condemn Hicks' victory, but are nonetheless impressed with McQueen's sportsmanship. Though offered the Dinoco sponsorship deal, McQueen declines, insisting on staying with Rust-eze as an appreciation of their past support. Later, back at Radiator Springs, McQueen returns and announces that he will be setting up his headquarters there, helping to put Radiator Springs back on the map.

    Cast

    See also: List of Cars characters

    Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Billy Crystal, John Goodman, and Dave Foley reprise their vocal roles from previous Pixar films during an end-credits sequence featuring automobile spoofs of Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., and A Bug's Life.[12]

    Production

    Cars would be the final film worked on by Joe Ranft; he died in a car accident a year before the film's release, aged 45.[13] The film was the second to be dedicated to his memory, after Corpse Bride (that showed the roles he had done in the other films directed by John Lasseter during the credits).[14] This is also the last (non-documentary) movie for Paul Newman before his retirement in 2007 and his death in 2008.[15] It turned out to be the highest-grossing film of his career.[15]

    Development

    The genesis of the project came in 1998 as Pixar was finishing work on A Bug's Life. At that time Jorgen Klubien began writing a new script[16] called The Yellow Car, about an electric car living in a gas-guzzling world. Some of the original drawings and characters were produced in 1998 and the producers agreed that Cars could be the next movie after A Bug's Life and would be released in early 1999, particularly around June 4.[16] However, the movie was eventually scrapped in favor of Toy Story 2.[16] Later, production resumed with major script changes, like giving Mater, Doc, and a few other characters a bigger part.[16]

    Meanwhile, John Lasseter has said that the idea for Cars was born after he took a cross-country road trip with his wife and five sons in 2000.[17] When he returned to the studio after vacation, he contacted Michael Wallis, a Route 66 historian. Wallis then led eleven Pixar animators in rented white Cadillacs on two different road trips across the route to research the film.[18][19][20] In 2001, the movie's working title was Route 66 (after U.S. Route 66), but in 2002, the title was changed to prevent people from thinking it was related to the 1960 television show with the same name.[21] In addition, Lightning McQueen's number was originally going to be 57 (Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (the year Toy Story was released).[21]

    In 2006, John Lasseter spoke about the inspiration for the film, saying: "I have always loved cars. In one vein, I have Disney blood, and in the other, there's motor oil. The notion of combining these two great passions in my life—cars and animation—was irresistible. When Joe (Ranft) and I first started talking about this film in 1998, we knew we wanted to do something with cars as characters. Around that same time, we watched a documentary called 'Divided Highways,' which dealt with the interstate highway and how it affected the small towns along the way. We were so moved by it and began thinking about what it must have been like in these small towns that got bypassed. That's when we started really researching Route 66, but we still hadn't quite figured out what the story for the film was going to be. I used to travel that highway with my family as a child when we visited our family in St. Louis."[17]

    Jorgen Klubien said the movie was both his best and most bitter experience because he was fired before the movie premiered and because he feels John Lasseter wrote him out of the story of how the film got made.[22]

    Animation

    A rendered frame from the film.

    For the cars themselves, Lasseter also visited the design studios of the Big Three Detroit automakers, particularly J Mays of Ford Motor Company.[17] Lasseter learned how real cars were designed.[17]

    In 2006, John Lasseter spoke about how they worked hard to make the animation believable, saying: "It took many months of trial and error, and practicing test animation, to figure out how each car moves and how their world works. Our supervising animators, Doug Sweetland and Scott Clark, and the directing animators, Bobby Podesta and James Ford Murphy, did an amazing job working with the animation team to determine the unique movements for each character based on its age and the type of car it was. Some cars are like sports cars and they're much tighter in their suspension. Others are older '50s cars that are a lot looser and have more bounce to them. We wanted to get that authenticity in there but also to make sure each car had a unique personality. We also wanted each animator to be able to put some of themself in the character and give it their own spin. Every day in dailies, it was so much fun because we would see things that we had never seen in our lives. The world of cars came alive in a believable and unexpected way."[17]

    Unlike most anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the windshield (which resembles the Tonka Talking Trucks, and the characters from Tex Avery's One Cab's Family short and Disney's own Susie the Little Blue Coupe), rather than within the headlights.[17] According to production designer Bob Pauley, "From the very beginning of this project, John Lasseter had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one thing, it separates our characters from the more common approach where you have little cartoon eyes in the headlights. For another, he thought that having the eyes down near the mouth at the front end of the car feels more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point of view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be involved in the animation of the character.[17] This decision was heavily criticized by automotive blog Jalopnik.[23]

    In 2006, supervising animator on the film Scott Clark, spoke about the challenges of animating car characters, saying: "Getting a full range of performance and emotion from these characters and making them still seem like cars was a tough assignment, but that's what animation does best. You use your imagination, and you make the movements and gestures fit with the design. Our car characters may not have arms and legs, but we can lean the tires in or out to suggest hands opening up or closing in. We can use steering to point a certain direction. We also designed a special eyelid and an eyebrow for the windshield that lets us communicate an expressiveness that cars don't have."[17] Doug Sweetland, who also served as supervising animator, also spoke about the challenges, saying: "It took a different kind of animator to really be able to interpret the Cars models, than it did to interpret something like The Incredibles models. With The Incredibles, the animator could get reference for the characters by shooting himself and watching the footage. But with Cars, it departs completely from any reference. Yes they're cars, but no car can do what our characters do. It's pure fantasy. It took a lot of trial and error to get them to look right."[17]

    John Lasseter co-wrote and directed the film.

    Lasseter also explained that the film started with pencil and paper designs, saying: "Truth to materials. Starting with pencil-and-paper designs from production designer Bob Pauley, and continuing through the modeling, articulation, and shading of the characters, and finally into animation, the production team worked hard to have the car characters remain true to their origins."[17] Character department manager Jay Ward also explained how they wanted the cars to look as realistic as possible, saying: "John didn't want the cars to seem clay-like or mushy. He insisted on truth to materials. This was a huge thing for him. He told us that steel needs to feel like steel. Glass should feel like glass. These cars need to feel heavy. They weigh three or four thousand pounds. When they move around, they need to have that feel. They shouldn't appear light or overly bouncy to the point where the audience might see them as rubber toys."[17] According to directing animator James Ford Murphy, "Originally, the car models were built so they could basically do anything. John kept reminding us that these characters are made of metal and they weigh several thousand pounds. They can't stretch. He showed us examples of very loose animation to illustrate what not to do."[17]

    Character shading supervisor on the film Thomas Jordan explained that chrome and car paint were the main challenges on the film, saying: "Chrome and car paint were our two main challenges on this film. We started out by learning as much as we could. At the local body shop, we watched them paint a car, and we saw the way they mixed the paint and applied the various coats. We tried to dissect what goes into the real paint and recreated it in the computer. We figured out that we needed a base paint, which is where the color comes from, and the clearcoat, which provides the reflection. We were then able to add in things like metallic flake to give it a glittery sparkle, a pearlescent quality the might change color depending on the angle, and even a layer of pin-striping for characters like Ramone."[17] Supervising technical director on the film Eben Ostby explained that the biggest challenge for the technical team was creating the metallic and painted surfaces of the car characters, and the reflections that those surfaces generate, saying: "Given that the stars of our film are made of metal, John had a real desire to see realistic reflections, and more beautiful lighting than we’ve seen in any of our previous films. In the past, we’ve mostly used environment maps and other matte-based technology to cheat reflections, but for Cars we added a ray-tracing capability to our existing Renderman program to raise the bar for Pixar."[17]

    Rendering lead Jessica McMackin spoke about the use of ray tracing on the film, saying: "In addition to creating accurate reflections, we used ray tracing to achieve other effects. We were able to use this approach to create accurate shadows, like when there are multiple light sources and you want to get a feathering of shadows at the edges. Or occlusion, which is the absence of ambient light between two surfaces, like a crease in a shirt. A fourth use is irradiance. An example of this would be if you had a piece of red paper and held it up to a white wall, the light would be colored by the paper and cast a red glow on the wall."[17] Character supervisor Tim Milliron explained that the film uses a ground–locking system that kept the cars firmly planted on the road, saying: "The ground-locking system is one of the things I’m most proud of on this film. In the past, characters have never known about their environment in any way. A simulation pass was required if you wanted to make something like that happen. On Cars, this system is built into the models themselves, and as you move the car around, the vehicle sticks to the ground. It was one of those things that we do at Pixar where we knew going in that it had to be done, but we had no idea how to do it."[17]

    Technical director Lisa Forsell explained that to enhance the richness and beauty of the desert landscapes surrounding Radiator Springs, the filmmakers created a department responsible for matte paintings and sky flats, saying: "Digital matte paintings are a way to get a lot of visual complexity without necessarily having to build complex geometry, and write complex shaders. We spent a lot time working on the clouds and their different formations. They tend to be on several layers and they move relative to each other. The clouds do in fact have some character and personality. The notion was that just as people see themselves in the clouds, cars see various car-shaped clouds. It’s subtle, but there are definitely some that are shaped like a sedan. And if you look closely, you’ll see some that look like tire treads. The fact that so much attention is put on the skies speaks to the visual level of the film. Is there a story point? Not really. There is no pixel on the screen that does not have an extraordinary level of scrutiny and care applied to it. There is nothing that is just throw-away."[17]

    Computers used in the development of the film were four times faster than those used in The Incredibles and 1,000 times faster than those used in Toy Story. To build the cars, the animators used computer platforms similar to those used in the design of real-world automobiles.[24]

    Soundtrack

    Main article: Cars (soundtrack)

    The Cars soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on June 6, 2006.[25] Nine tracks on the soundtrack are by popular artists, while the remaining eleven are score cues by Randy Newman.[25] It has two versions of the classic Bobby Troup jazz standard "Route 66" (popularized by Nat King Cole), one by Chuck Berry and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits performed by John Mayer.[25] Brad Paisley contributed two of the nine tracks to the album, one being "Find Yourself" used for the end credits.[25]

    Release

    Cars was originally set to be released on November 4, 2005, but on December 7, 2004, its release date was changed to June 9, 2006.[26] Analysts looked at the release date change as a sign from Pixar that they were preparing for the pending end of the Disney distribution contract by either preparing non-Disney materials to present to other studios, or they were buying time to see what happened with Michael Eisner's situation at Disney.[27] When Pixar's chief executive Steve Jobs made the release date announcement, he stated that the reasoning was due to wanting to put all Pixar films on a summer release schedule, with DVD sales occurring during the holiday shopping season.[26]

    Home media

    Cars was released on DVD, in wide- and full-screen editions, on November 7, 2006 in the United States and Canada. This DVD was also released on October 25 in Australia and New Zealand and on November 27 in the United Kingdom.[28] The release includes the DVD-exclusive short film Mater and the Ghostlight and the film's theatrical short One Man Band as well as a 16-minute-long documentary about the film entitled Inspiration for Cars, which features director John Lasseter.[28] It also featured the Pixar short Boundin'.[28]

    According to the Walt Disney Company, five million copies of the DVD were sold the first two days it was available.[29] The first week, it sold 6,250,856 units and 15,370,791 in total ($246,198,859).[30] Unlike previous Pixar DVD releases, there is no two-disc special edition, and no plans to release one in the future. According to Sara Maher, DVD Production Manager at Pixar, John Lasseter and Pixar were preoccupied with productions like Ratatouille.[31]

    In the US and Canada, there were bonus discs available with the purchase of the film at Wal-Mart and at Target.[32] The former featured a Geared-Up Bonus DVD Disc that focused on the music of the film, including the music video to "Life Is A Highway", The Making of "Life Is A Highway", Cars: The Making of the Music, and Under The Hood, a special that originally aired on the ABC Family cable channel.[33] The latter's bonus was a Rev'd Up DVD Disc that featured material mostly already released as part of the official Cars podcast and focused on the inspiration and production of the movie.[34]

    Cars was also released on Blu-ray Disc on November 6, 2007, one year after the DVD release. It was the first Pixar film to be released on Blu-ray (alongside Ratatouille and Pixar Short Films Collection, Volume 1),[35] and was re-released as a Blu-Ray Disc and DVD combo pack and DVD only edition in April 2011. The film was released for the first time in 3D on October 29, 2013, as part of Cars: Ultimate Collector's Edition, which included the releases on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, and DVD.[36]

    Video game

    Main article: Cars (video game)

    A video game of the same name was released on June 6, 2006, for Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo DS, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Xbox.[37] It was also released on October 23, 2006, for Xbox 360 and November 16, 2006, for Wii.[37] The video game got mainly positive reviews. GameSpot gave 7.0 out of 10 for Xbox 360 and Wii versions, for PlayStation 2, 7.6 out of 10 for the GameCube and Xbox versions, and 7.4 out of 10 for the PSP version.[38] Metacritic gave 65 out of 100 for the Wii version,[39] 54 out of 100 for the DS version,[40] 73 out of 100 for the PC version,[41] 71 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version,[42] and 70 out of 100 for the PSP version.[43]

    Reception

    Critical response

    Cars was met with positive reviews. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 74% approval rating with an average rating of 6.9/10 based on 196 reviews. The site's consensus reads "Cars offers visual treats that more than compensate for its somewhat thinly written story, adding up to a satisfying diversion for younger viewers."[44] Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 73 out of 100 based on 39 reviews.[45]

    William Arnold of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer praised it as "one of Pixar's most imaginative and thoroughly appealing movies ever"[46] and Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly called it "a work of American art as classic as it is modern."[47] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, saying that the movie "is great to look at and a lot of fun, but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films. Maybe that's because there's less at stake here, and no child-surrogate to identify with."[48] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "Fueled with plenty of humor, action, heartfelt drama, and amazing new technical feats, Cars is a high octane delight for moviegoers of all ages."[49] Richard Corliss of Time gave the film a positive review, saying "Existing both in turbo-charged today and the gentler '50s, straddling the realms of Pixar styling and old Disney heart, this new-model Cars is an instant classic."[50] Brian Lowry of Variety gave the film a negative review, saying "Despite representing another impressive technical achievement, it's the least visually interesting of the computer-animation boutique's movies, and -- in an ironic twist for a story about auto racing -- drifts slowly through its semi-arid midsection."[51] Robert Wilonsky of The Village Voice gave the film a positive review, saying "What ultimately redeems Cars from turning out a total lemon is its soul. Lasseter loves these animated inanimate objects as though they were kin, and it shows in every beautifully rendered frame."[52] Ella Taylor of L.A. Weekly gave the film a positive review, saying "Cars cheerfully hitches cutting-edge animation to a folksy narrative plugging friendship, community and a Luddite mistrust of high tech."[49]

    Gene Seymour of Newsday gave the film three out of four stars, saying "And as pop flies go, Cars is pretty to watch, even as it loops, drifts and, at times, looks as if it's just hanging in midair."[53] Colin Covert of the Star Tribune gave the film a positive review, saying "It takes everything that's made Pixar shorthand for animation excellence -- strong characters, tight pacing, spot-on voice casting, a warm sense of humor and visuals that are pure, pixilated bliss -- and carries them to the next stage."[54] Bill Muller of The Arizona Republic gave the film four out of five stars, saying "The truest measure of the movie is that eventually we forget we're watching a bunch of vehicles with faces and start to think of them as individual characters. It's quite an accomplishment, and perhaps one only possible by Pixar."[49] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film four out of five stars, saying "What's surprising about this supremely engaging film is the source of its curb appeal: It has heart."[49] Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post gave the film a positive review, saying "It's the latest concoction from the geniuses at Pixar, probably the most inventive of the Computer Generated Imagery shop -- and the film's great fun, if well under the level of the first Toy Story."[55] Jessica Reaves of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two and a half stars out of four, saying "While it's a technically perfect movie, its tone is too manic, its characters too jaded and, in the end, its story too empty to stand up to expectations."[56] James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three out of four stars, saying "While Cars may cross the finish line ahead of any of 2006's other animated films, it's several laps behind its Pixar siblings."[57]

    Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch gave the film an A-, saying "It's powered by a human heart through a roadway of natural wonders and cultural signposts en route to the checkered flag."[58] Lisa Kennedy of The Denver Post gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Cars idles at times. And it's not until its final laps that the movie gains the emotional traction we've come to expect from the Toy Story and Nemo crews."[59] Tom Long of The Detroit News gave the film a B+, saying "It's touching, it's funny, it offers cautions about the modern pace of life, and it depends on a sense of rural Americana for its soul."[49] Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, saying "For parents out there whose future holds the certain prospect of the DVD version blaring repeatedly from family-room screens, let this be your advisory. Warning: Cars comes unequipped with two essential options -- charm and a good muffler."[49] Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle gave the film three out of four stars, saying "It thunders ahead with breezy abandon, scoring big grins on its way."[60] Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave the film four out of four stars, saying "It achieves the near impossible, turning cars, trucks, tractors, and farm harvesters into cute Disney characters whose fates you'll care about."[49] Lou Lumenick of the New York Post gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "Cars somewhat self-indulgently runs nearly two hours -- but overall, it's well worth the trip."[49] Lisa Rose of the Newark Star-Ledger gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "It's another innovative piece of entertainment from the animation studio, taking the audience on a kinetic trip into a world populated only by automobiles."[49]

    Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film a positive review, saying "The animation is stunningly rendered. But the story is always the critical element in Pixar movies, and Cars' story is heartfelt with a clear and unabashed moral."[61] David Edelstein of New York Magazine gave the film a positive review, saying "Like the Toy Story films, Cars is a state-of-the-computer-art plea on behalf of outmoded, wholesome fifties technology, with a dash of Zen by way of George Lucas."[62] Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel gave the film three out of five stars, saying "It's beautiful to look at. The talking cars feel more alive than talking cars should."[49] Peter Howell of the Toronto Star gave the film three out of four stars, saying "Cars made me want to hop in my jalopy and to head out to Route 66, bypassing the boring interstate highways that made the Mother Road redundant."[49] Moira MacDonald of The Seattle Times gave the film three and a half stars out of four, saying "Though the central idea of nostalgia for a quieter, small-town life may well be lost on this movie's young audience -- Cars finds a pleasant and often sparkling groove."[63] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film two out of five stars, saying "Cars might get us into car world as a gimmick, but it doesn't get us into car world as a state of mind. Thus, the animation, rather than seeming like an expression of the movie's deeper truth, becomes an impediment to it."[64] Derek Adams of Time Out gave the film a positive review, saying "There are many other brilliant scenes, some just as funny but there are just as many occasions where you feel the film's struggling to fire on all cylinders. Still, it's a Pixar film, right? And they're always worth a gander no matter what anyone says."[65]

    Box office

    In its opening weekend, Cars earned $60,119,509 in 3,985 theaters in the United States, ranking number one at the box office.[66] In the United States, the film held onto the number one spot for two weeks before being surpassed by Click and then by Superman Returns the following weekend.[67][68][69] It went on to gross $462,216,280 worldwide (ranking number six in 2006 films) and $244,082,982 in the United States (the third highest-grossing film of 2006 in the country, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Night at the Museum).[70] It was the second highest-grossing film released by Walt Disney Pictures, behind Dead Man's Chest and was the highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the United States, but lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown with $655,388,158 in worldwide totals.[70][71]

    Accolades

    Main article: List of awards and nominations received by Cars

    Cars had a highly successful run during the 2006 awards season. Many film critic associations such as the Broadcast Film Critics Association and the National Board of Review named it the best Animated Feature Film of 2006.[72] Cars also received the title of Best Reviewed Animated Feature of 2006 from Rotten Tomatoes.[72] Randy Newman and James Taylor received a Grammy Award for the song "Our Town," which later went on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song (an award it lost to "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth).[72] The film also earned an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, but it lost to Happy Feet.[72] Cars was also selected as the Favorite Family Movie at the 33rd People's Choice Awards.[72] The most prestigious award that Cars received was the inaugural Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film.[72] Cars also won the highest award for animation in 2006, the Best Animated Feature Annie Award.[72] In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Animation Films list. In 2008, the American Film Institute nominated this film for its Top 10 Animation Films list.[73]

    Similar films

    Marcus Aurelius Canônico of Folha de S.Paulo described The Little Cars series (Os Carrinhos in Portuguese), a Brazilian computer graphics film series, as a derivative of Cars. Canônico discussed whether lawsuits from Pixar would appear. The Brazilian Ministry of Culture posted Marcus Aurelius Canônico's article on its website.[74]

    It has also been noted that the plot of Cars bears a striking resemblance to that of Doc Hollywood, the 1991 romantic comedy which stars Michael J. Fox as a hotshot young doctor, who, after causing a traffic accident in a small town, is sentenced to work at the town hospital, falls in love with a local law student and eventually acquires an appreciation for small town values.[75] Some have gone so far as to say that the makers of Cars plagiarized the script of Doc Hollywood.[76]

    Sequels

    Main articles: Cars 2 and Cars 3

    A sequel to the film, titled Cars 2, was released on June 24, 2011.[4] It was directed again by John Lasseter, who was inspired for the film while traveling around the world promoting the first film.[77] In the sequel, Lightning McQueen and Mater head to Japan and Europe to compete in the World Grand Prix, but Mater becomes sidetracked with international espionage.[4] The film failed to meet or exceed the critical success of its predecessor, but was still a box office success.

    A second sequel, titled Cars 3, was released on June 16, 2017.[78] Directed by Brian Fee, the film focuses on Lightning McQueen, now a veteran racer, who gets a help from a young race car, Cruz Ramirez, to instruct him for the increasingly high-tech world.[79]

    See also

    References

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    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cars (film).
    Wikiquote has quotations related to: Cars

    en.wikipedia.org

    Car

    For other types of motorized vehicles, see Motor vehicle. For the 2006 Pixar film, see Cars (film). For other uses, see Car (disambiguation) and Automobile (disambiguation).

    A car (or automobile) is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transportation. Most definitions of car say they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four tires, and mainly transport people rather than goods.[2][3] Cars came into global use during the 20th century, and developed economies depend on them. The year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the modern car, when German inventor Karl Benz built his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars did not become widely available until the early 20th century. One of the first cars that was accessible to the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts, but took much longer to be accepted in Western Europe and other parts of the world.

    Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort and safety, and controlling a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex. Examples include rear reversing cameras, air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Most cars in use in the 2010s are propelled by an internal combustion engine, fueled by the combustion of fossil fuels. This causes air pollution and is also blamed for contributing to climate change and global warming.[4] Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles are also gaining popularity in some countries. Electric cars, which were invented early in the history of the car, began to become commercially available in 2008.

    There are costs and benefits to car use. The costs include acquiring the vehicle, interest payments (if the car is financed), repairs and maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance.[5] The costs to society include maintaining roads, land use, road congestion, air pollution, public health, health care, and disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life. Road traffic accidents are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.[6]

    The benefits include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence, and convenience.[7] The societal benefits include economic benefits, such as job and wealth creation from the automotive industry, transportation provision, societal well-being from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the taxes. The ability for people to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[8] It was estimated in 2014 that the number of cars was over 1.25 billion vehicles,[9] up from the 500 million of 1986.[10] The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China, India and other newly industrialized countries.[11]

    Etymology

    The word car is believed to originate from the Latin word carrus or carrum ("wheeled vehicle"), or the Middle English word carre (meaning "two-wheel cart", from Old North French). In turn, these originated from the Gaulish word karros (a Gallic chariot).[12][13] It originally referred to any wheeled horse-drawn vehicle, such as a cart, carriage, or wagon.[14][15] "Motor car" is attested from 1895, and is the usual formal name for cars in British English.[3] "Autocar" is a variant that is also attested from 1895, but that is now considered archaic. It literally means "self-propelled car".[16] The term "horseless carriage" was used by some to refer to the first cars at the time that they were being built, and is attested from 1895.[17]

    The word "automobile" is a classical compound derived from the Ancient Greek word autós (αὐτός), meaning "self", and the Latin word mobilis, meaning "movable". It entered the English language from French, and was first adopted by the Automobile Club of Great Britain in 1897.[18] Over time, the word "automobile" fell out of favour in Britain, and was replaced by "motor car". "Automobile" remains chiefly North American, particularly as a formal or commercial term.[19] An abbreviated form, "auto", was formerly a common way to refer to cars in English, but is now considered old-fashioned. The word is still very common as an adjective in American English, usually in compound formations like "auto industry" and "auto mechanic".[20][21] The abbreviated form is also used in Dutch and German.

    History

    Main article: History of the automobile

    The first working steam-powered vehicle was designed—and most likely built—by Ferdinand Verbiest, a Flemish member of a Jesuit mission in China around 1672. It was a 65-cm-long scale-model toy for the Chinese Emperor that was unable to carry a driver or a passenger.[7][22][23] It is not known if Verbiest's model was ever built.[23]

    Cugnot's 1771 fardier à vapeur, as preserved at the Musée des Arts et Métiers, Paris

    Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot is widely credited with building the first full-scale, self-propelled mechanical vehicle or car in about 1769; he created a steam-powered tricycle.[24] He also constructed two steam tractors for the French Army, one of which is preserved in the French National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.[25] His inventions were, however, handicapped by problems with water supply and maintaining steam pressure.[25] In 1801, Richard Trevithick built and demonstrated his Puffing Devil road locomotive, believed by many to be the first demonstration of a steam-powered road vehicle. It was unable to maintain sufficient steam pressure for long periods, and was of little practical use.

    The development of external combustion engines is detailed as part of the history of the car, but often treated separately from the development of true cars. A variety of steam-powered road vehicles were used during the first part of the 19th century, including steam cars, steam buses, phaetons, and steam rollers. Sentiment against them led to the Locomotive Acts of 1865.

    In 1807, Nicéphore Niépce and his brother Claude created what was probably the world's first internal combustion engine (which they called a Pyréolophore), but they chose to install it in a boat on the river Saone in France.[26] Coincidentally, in 1807 the Swiss inventor François Isaac de Rivaz designed his own 'de Rivaz internal combustion engine' and used it to develop the world's first vehicle to be powered by such an engine. The Niépces' Pyréolophore was fuelled by a mixture of Lycopodium powder (dried spores of the Lycopodium plant), finely crushed coal dust and resin that were mixed with oil, whereas de Rivaz used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen.[26] Neither design was very successful, as was the case with others, such as Samuel Brown, Samuel Morey, and Etienne Lenoir with his hippomobile, who each produced vehicles (usually adapted carriages or carts) powered by internal combustion engines.[1]

    Gustave Trouvé's tricycle, the first ever electric automobile to be shown in public Karl Benz, the inventor of the modern car

    In November 1881, French inventor Gustave Trouvé demonstrated the first working (three-wheeled) car powered by electricity at the International Exposition of Electricity, Paris.[27] Although several other German engineers (including Gottlieb Daimler, Wilhelm Maybach, and Siegfried Marcus) were working on the problem at about the same time, Karl Benz generally is acknowledged as the inventor of the modern car.[1]

    The original Benz Patent-Motorwagen, first built in 1885 and awarded the patent for the concept

    In 1879, Benz was granted a patent for his first engine, which had been designed in 1878. Many of his other inventions made the use of the internal combustion engine feasible for powering a vehicle. His first Motorwagen was built in 1885 in Mannheim, Germany. He was awarded the patent for its invention as of his application on 29 January 1886 (under the auspices of his major company, Benz & Cie., which was founded in 1883). Benz began promotion of the vehicle on 3 July 1886, and about 25 Benz vehicles were sold between 1888 and 1893, when his first four-wheeler was introduced along with a model intended for affordability. They also were powered with four-stroke engines of his own design. Emile Roger of France, already producing Benz engines under license, now added the Benz car to his line of products. Because France was more open to the early cars, initially more were built and sold in France through Roger than Benz sold in Germany. In August 1888 Bertha Benz, the wife of Karl Benz, undertook the first road trip by car, to prove the road-worthiness of her husband's invention.

    Bertha Benz, the first long distance driver

    In 1896, Benz designed and patented the first internal-combustion flat engine, called boxermotor. During the last years of the nineteenth century, Benz was the largest car company in the world with 572 units produced in 1899 and, because of its size, Benz & Cie., became a joint-stock company. The first motor car in central Europe and one of the first factory-made cars in the world, was produced by Czech company Nesselsdorfer Wagenbau (later renamed to Tatra) in 1897, the Präsident automobil.

    Daimler and Maybach founded Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft (DMG) in Cannstatt in 1890, and sold their first car in 1892 under the brand name Daimler. It was a horse-drawn stagecoach built by another manufacturer, which they retrofitted with an engine of their design. By 1895 about 30 vehicles had been built by Daimler and Maybach, either at the Daimler works or in the Hotel Hermann, where they set up shop after disputes with their backers. Benz, Maybach and the Daimler team seem to have been unaware of each other's early work. They never worked together; by the time of the merger of the two companies, Daimler and Maybach were no longer part of DMG. Daimler died in 1900 and later that year, Maybach designed an engine named Daimler-Mercedes that was placed in a specially ordered model built to specifications set by Emil Jellinek. This was a production of a small number of vehicles for Jellinek to race and market in his country. Two years later, in 1902, a new model DMG car was produced and the model was named Mercedes after the Maybach engine, which generated 35 hp. Maybach quit DMG shortly thereafter and opened a business of his own. Rights to the Daimler brand name were sold to other manufacturers.

    Karl Benz proposed co-operation between DMG and Benz & Cie. when economic conditions began to deteriorate in Germany following the First World War, but the directors of DMG refused to consider it initially. Negotiations between the two companies resumed several years later when these conditions worsened and, in 1924 they signed an Agreement of Mutual Interest, valid until the year 2000. Both enterprises standardized design, production, purchasing, and sales and they advertised or marketed their car models jointly, although keeping their respective brands. On 28 June 1926, Benz & Cie. and DMG finally merged as the Daimler-Benz company, baptizing all of its cars Mercedes Benz, as a brand honoring the most important model of the DMG cars, the Maybach design later referred to as the 1902 Mercedes-35 hp, along with the Benz name. Karl Benz remained a member of the board of directors of Daimler-Benz until his death in 1929, and at times his two sons also participated in the management of the company.

    Émile Levassor Armand Peugeot

    In 1890, Émile Levassor and Armand Peugeot of France began producing vehicles with Daimler engines, and so laid the foundation of the automotive industry in France. In 1891, Auguste Doriot and his Peugeot colleague Louis Rigoulot completed the longest trip by a gasoline-powered vehicle when their self-designed and built Daimler powered Peugeot Type 3 completed 2,100 km (1,300 miles) from Valentigney to Paris and Brest and back again. They were attached to the first Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race, but finished 6 days after the winning cyclist, Charles Terront.

    The first design for an American car with a gasoline internal combustion engine was made in 1877 by George Selden of Rochester, New York. Selden applied for a patent for a car in 1879, but the patent application expired because the vehicle was never built. After a delay of sixteen years and a series of attachments to his application, on 5 November 1895, Selden was granted a United States patent (U.S. Patent 549,160) for a two-stroke car engine, which hindered, more than encouraged, development of cars in the United States. His patent was challenged by Henry Ford and others, and overturned in 1911.

    In 1893, the first running, gasoline-powered American car was built and road-tested by the Duryea brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts. The first public run of the Duryea Motor Wagon took place on 21 September 1893, on Taylor Street in Metro Center Springfield.[28][29] The Studebaker Automobile Company, subsidiary of a long-established wagon and coach manufacturer, started to build cars in 1897[30]:p.66 and commenced sales of electric vehicles in 1902 and gasoline vehicles in 1904.[31]

    In Britain, there had been several attempts to build steam cars with varying degrees of success, with Thomas Rickett even attempting a production run in 1860.[32] Santler from Malvern is recognized by the Veteran Car Club of Great Britain as having made the first gasoline-powered car in the country in 1894,[33] followed by Frederick William Lanchester in 1895, but these were both one-offs.[33] The first production vehicles in Great Britain came from the Daimler Company, a company founded by Harry J. Lawson in 1896, after purchasing the right to use the name of the engines. Lawson's company made its first car in 1897, and they bore the name Daimler.[33]

    In 1892, German engineer Rudolf Diesel was granted a patent for a "New Rational Combustion Engine". In 1897, he built the first diesel engine.[1] Steam-, electric-, and gasoline-powered vehicles competed for decades, with gasoline internal combustion engines achieving dominance in the 1910s. Although various pistonless rotary engine designs have attempted to compete with the conventional piston and crankshaft design, only Mazda's version of the Wankel engine has had more than very limited success.

    Mass production

    See also: Automotive industry Ransom E. Olds founded Olds Motor Vehicle Company (Oldsmobile) in 1897 Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Company in 1903 1927 Ford Model T Kiichiro Toyoda, president of the Toyota Motor Corporation 1941–1950 Mass production at a Toyota plant in the 1950s

    Large-scale, production-line manufacturing of affordable cars was started by Ransom Olds in 1901 at his Oldsmobile factory in Lansing, Michigan and based upon stationary assembly line techniques pioneered by Marc Isambard Brunel at the Portsmouth Block Mills, England, in 1802. The assembly line style of mass production and interchangeable parts had been pioneered in the U.S. by Thomas Blanchard in 1821, at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts.[34] This concept was greatly expanded by Henry Ford, beginning in 1913 with the world's first moving assembly line for cars at the Highland Park Ford Plant.

    As a result, Ford's cars came off the line in fifteen-minute intervals, much faster than previous methods, increasing productivity eightfold, while using less manpower (from 12.5-man-hours to 1 hour 33 minutes).[35] It was so successful, paint became a bottleneck. Only Japan Black would dry fast enough, forcing the company to drop the variety of colors available before 1913, until fast-drying Duco lacquer was developed in 1926. This is the source of Ford's apocryphal remark, "any color as long as it's black".[35] In 1914, an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with four months' pay.[35]

    Ford's complex safety procedures—especially assigning each worker to a specific location instead of allowing them to roam about—dramatically reduced the rate of injury. The combination of high wages and high efficiency is called "Fordism," and was copied by most major industries. The efficiency gains from the assembly line also coincided with the economic rise of the United States. The assembly line forced workers to work at a certain pace with very repetitive motions which led to more output per worker while other countries were using less productive methods.

    In the automotive industry, its success was dominating, and quickly spread worldwide seeing the founding of Ford France and Ford Britain in 1911, Ford Denmark 1923, Ford Germany 1925; in 1921, Citroen was the first native European manufacturer to adopt the production method. Soon, companies had to have assembly lines, or risk going broke; by 1930, 250 companies which did not, had disappeared.[35]

    Development of automotive technology was rapid, due in part to the hundreds of small manufacturers competing to gain the world's attention. Key developments included electric ignition and the electric self-starter (both by Charles Kettering, for the Cadillac Motor Company in 1910–1911), independent suspension, and four-wheel brakes.

    Since the 1920s, nearly all cars have been mass-produced to meet market needs, so marketing plans often have heavily influenced car design. It was Alfred P. Sloan who established the idea of different makes of cars produced by one company, called the General Motors Companion Make Program, so that buyers could "move up" as their fortunes improved.

    Reflecting the rapid pace of change, makes shared parts with one another so larger production volume resulted in lower costs for each price range. For example, in the 1930s, LaSalles, sold by Cadillac, used cheaper mechanical parts made by Oldsmobile; in the 1950s, Chevrolet shared hood, doors, roof, and windows with Pontiac; by the 1990s, corporate powertrains and shared platforms (with interchangeable brakes, suspension, and other parts) were common. Even so, only major makers could afford high costs, and even companies with decades of production, such as Apperson, Cole, Dorris, Haynes, or Premier, could not manage: of some two hundred American car makers in existence in 1920, only 43 survived in 1930, and with the Great Depression, by 1940, only 17 of those were left.[35]

    In Europe, much the same would happen. Morris set up its production line at Cowley in 1924, and soon outsold Ford, while beginning in 1923 to follow Ford's practice of vertical integration, buying Hotchkiss (engines), Wrigley (gearboxes), and Osberton (radiators), for instance, as well as competitors, such as Wolseley: in 1925, Morris had 41% of total British car production. Most British small-car assemblers, from Abbey to Xtra, had gone under. Citroen did the same in France, coming to cars in 1919; between them and other cheap cars in reply such as Renault's 10CV and Peugeot's 5CV, they produced 550,000 cars in 1925, and Mors, Hurtu, and others could not compete.[35] Germany's first mass-manufactured car, the Opel 4PS Laubfrosch (Tree Frog), came off the line at Russelsheim in 1924, soon making Opel the top car builder in Germany, with 37.5% of the market.[35]

    In Japan, car production was very limited before World War II. Only a handful of companines were producing vehicles in limited numbers, and these were small, three-wheeled for commercial uses, like Daihatsu, or were the result of partnering with European companies, like Isuzu building the Wolseley A-9 in 1922. Mitsubishi was also partnered with Fiat and built the Mitsubishi Model A based on a Fiat vehicle. Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki, Mazda, and Honda began as companies producing non-automotive products before the war, switching to car production during the 1950s. Kiichiro Toyoda's decision to take Toyoda Loom Works into automobile manufacturing would create what would eventually become Toyota Motor Corporation, the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. Subaru, meanwhile, was formed from a conglomerate of six companies who banded together as Fuji Heavy Industries, as a result of having been broken up under keiretsu legislation.

    Fuel and propulsion technologies

    The Nissan Leaf is an all-electric car launched in December 2010 See also: Alternative fuel vehicle

    Most cars in use today are propelled by an internal combustion engine, fueled by the deflagration (rather than detonation) combustion of hydrocarbon fossil fuels, mostly gasoline (petrol) and diesel, as well as some Autogas and CNG. Hydrocarbon fuels cause air pollution and contribute to climate change and global warming.[4] Rapidly increasing oil prices, concerns about oil dependence, tightening environmental laws and restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions are propelling work on alternative power systems for cars. Efforts to improve or replace existing technologies include the development of hybrid vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and hydrogen vehicles. Vehicles using alternative fuels such as ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles and natural gas vehicles are also gaining popularity in some countries. Cars for racing or speed records have sometimes employed jet or rocket engines, but these are impractical for common use.

    Oil consumption in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been abundantly pushed by car growth; the 1985–2003 oil glut even fuelled the sales of low-economy vehicles in OECD countries. The BRIC countries are adding to this consumption; in December 2009 China was briefly the largest car market.[36]

    User interface

    See also: Car controls In the Ford Model T the left-side hand lever sets the rear wheel parking brakes and puts the transmission in neutral. The lever to the right controls the throttle. The lever on the left of the steering column is for ignition timing. The left foot pedal changes the two forward gears while the centre pedal controls reverse. The right pedal is the brake.

    Cars are equipped with controls used for driving, passenger comfort and safety, normally operated by a combination of the use of feet and hands, and occasionally by voice on 2000s-era cars. These controls include a steering wheel, pedals for operating the brakes and controlling the car's speed (and, in a manual transmission car, a clutch pedal), a shift lever or stick for changing gears, and a number of buttons and dials for turning on lights, ventilation and other functions. Modern cars' controls are now standardised, such as the location for the accelerator and brake, but this was not always the case. Controls are evolving in response to new technologies, for example the electric car and the integration of mobile communications.

    Since the car was first invented, its controls have become fewer and simpler through automation. For example, all cars once had a manual controls for the choke valve, clutch, ignition timing, and a crank instead of an electric starter. However new controls have also been added to vehicles, making them more complex. Examples include air conditioning, navigation systems, and in car entertainment. Another trend is the replacement of physical knob and switches for secondary controls with touchscreen controls such as BMW's iDrive and Ford's MyFord Touch. Another change is that while early cars' pedals were physically linked to the brake mechanism and throttle, in the 2010s, cars have increasingly replaced these physical linkages with electronic controls.

    Lighting

    Main article: Automotive lighting LED daytime running lights on an Audi A4

    Cars are typically fitted with multiple types of lights. These include headlights, which are used to illuminate the way ahead and make the car visible to other users, so that the vehicle can be used at night; in some jurisdictions, daytime running lights; red brake lights to indicate when the brakes are applied; amber turn signal lights to indicate the turn intentions of the driver; white-coloured reverse lights to illuminate the area behind the car (and indicate that the driver will be or is reversing); and on some vehicles, additional lights (e.g., side marker lights) to increase the visibility of the car. Interior lights on the ceiling of the car are usually fitted for the driver and passengers. Some vehicles also have a trunk light and, more rarely, an engine compartment light.

    Weight

    The Smart Fortwo car from 1998-2002, weighing 730 kg (1,610 lb) A Chevrolet Suburban extended-length SUV weighs 3,300 kg (7,200 lb) (gross weight)[37]

    In the United States, "from 1975 to 1980, average [car] weight dropped from 1,842 to 1,464 kg (4,060 to 3,228 lb), likely in response to rising gasoline prices" and new fuel efficiency standards.[38] The average new car weighed 1,461 kg (3,221 lb) in 1987 but 1,818 kg (4,009 lb) in 2010, due to modern steel safety cages, anti-lock brakes, airbags, and "more-powerful—if more-efficient—engines."[39] Heavier cars are safer for the driver, from an accident perspective, but more dangerous for other vehicles and road users.[39] The weight of a car influences fuel consumption and performance, with more weight resulting in increased fuel consumption and decreased performance. The SmartFortwo, a small city car, weighs 750–795 kg (1,655–1,755 lb). Heavier cars include full-size cars, SUVs and extended-length SUVs like the Suburban.

    According to research conducted by Julian Allwood of the University of Cambridge, global energy use could be heavily reduced by using lighter cars, and an average weight of 500 kg (1,100 lb) has been said to be well achievable.[40] In some competitions such as the Shell Eco Marathon, average car weights of 45 kg (99 lb) have also been achieved.[41][42] These cars are only single-seaters (still falling within the definition of a car, although 4-seater cars are more common), but they nevertheless demonstrate the amount by which car weights could still be reduced, and the subsequent lower fuel use (i.e. up to a fuel use of 2560 km/l).[43]

    Seating and body style

    See also: Car body style

    Most cars are designed to carry multiple occupants, often with four or five seats. Cars with five seats typically seat two passengers in the front and three in the rear. Full-size cars and large sport utility vehicles can often carry six, seven, or more occupants depending on the arrangement of the seats. On the other hand, sports cars are most often designed with only two seats. The differing needs for passenger capacity and their luggage or cargo space has resulted in the availability of a large variety of body styles to meet individual consumer requirements that include, among others, the sedan/saloon, hatchback, station wagon/estate, and minivan.

    Safety

    Main articles: Car safety, Traffic accident, Low speed vehicle, and Epidemiology of motor vehicle collisions Result of a serious car accident

    Road traffic accidents are the largest cause of injury-related deaths worldwide.[6] Mary Ward became one of the first documented car fatalities in 1869 in Parsonstown, Ireland,[44] and Henry Bliss one of the United States' first pedestrian car casualties in 1899 in New York City.[45] There are now standard tests for safety in new cars, such as the EuroNCAP and the US NCAP tests,[46] and insurance-industry-backed tests by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).[47]

    Worldwide, road traffic is becoming ever safer, in part due to efforts by the government to implement safety features in cars (e.g., seat belts, air bags, etc.), reduce unsafe driving practices (e.g., speeding, drinking and driving and texting and driving) and make road design more safe by adding features such as speed bumps, which reduce vehicle speed, and roundabouts, which reduce the likelihood of a head-on-collision (as compared with an intersection).

    Costs and benefits

    Main articles: Economics of car usage, Car costs, and Effects of the car on societies Road congestion is an issue in many major cities. (pictured is Chang'an Avenue in Beijing)[48]

    The costs of car usage, which may include the cost of: acquiring the vehicle, repairs and auto maintenance, fuel, depreciation, driving time, parking fees, taxes, and insurance,[5] are weighed against the cost of the alternatives, and the value of the benefits – perceived and real – of vehicle usage. The benefits may include on-demand transportation, mobility, independence and convenience.[7] During the 1920s, cars had another benefit: "[c]ouples finally had a way to head off on unchaperoned dates, plus they had a private space to snuggle up close at the end of the night."[49]

    Similarly the costs to society of encompassing car use, which may include those of: maintaining roads, land use, air pollution, road congestion, public health, health care, and of disposing of the vehicle at the end of its life, can be balanced against the value of the benefits to society that car use generates. The societal benefits may include: economy benefits, such as job and wealth creation, of car production and maintenance, transportation provision, society wellbeing derived from leisure and travel opportunities, and revenue generation from the tax opportunities. The ability for humans to move flexibly from place to place has far-reaching implications for the nature of societies.[8]

    Environmental impact

    See also: Exhaust gas Vehicles in use per country from 2001 to 2007. It shows the significant growth in BRIC. World map of passenger cars per 1000 people

    While there are different types of fuel that may power cars, most rely on gasoline or diesel. The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that the average vehicle emits 8,887 grams of carbon dioxide per gallon of gasoline. The average vehicle running on diesel fuel will emit 10,180 grams of carbon dioxide.[50] Many governments are using fiscal policies (such as road tax or the US gas guzzler tax) to influence vehicle purchase decisions, with a low CO2 figure often resulting in reduced taxation.[51] Fuel taxes may act as an incentive for the production of more efficient, hence less polluting, car designs (e.g. hybrid vehicles) and the development of alternative fuels. High fuel taxes may provide a strong incentive for consumers to purchase lighter, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, or to not drive. On average, today's cars are about 75 percent recyclable, and using recycled steel helps reduce energy use and pollution.[52] In the United States Congress, federally mandated fuel efficiency standards have been debated regularly, passenger car standards have not risen above the 27.5 miles per US gallon (8.6 L/100 km; 33.0 mpg‑imp) standard set in 1985. Light truck standards have changed more frequently, and were set at 22.2 miles per US gallon (10.6 L/100 km; 26.7 mpg‑imp) in 2007.[53]

    The manufacture of vehicles is resource intensive, and many manufacturers now report on the environmental performance of their factories, including energy usage, waste and water consumption.[54]

    The growth in popularity of the car allowed cities to sprawl, therefore encouraging more travel by car resulting in inactivity and obesity, which in turn can lead to increased risk of a variety of diseases.[55]

    Transportation (of all types including trucks, buses and cars) is a major contributor to air pollution in most industrialised nations. According to the American Surface Transportation Policy Project nearly half of all Americans are breathing unhealthy air. Their study showed air quality in dozens of metropolitan areas has worsened over the last decade.[56]

    Animals and plants are often negatively impacted by cars via habitat destruction and pollution. Over the lifetime of the average car the "loss of habitat potential" may be over 50,000 m2 (540,000 sq ft) based on primary production correlations.[57] Animals are also killed every year on roads by cars, referred to as roadkill. More recent road developments are including significant environmental mitigations in their designs such as green bridges to allow wildlife crossings, and creating wildlife corridors.

    Growth in the popularity of vehicles and commuting has led to traffic congestion. Brussels was considered Europe's most congested city in 2011 according to TomTom.[58]

    Emerging car technologies

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    Car propulsion technologies that are under development include gasoline/electric and plug-in hybrids, battery electric vehicles, hydrogen cars, biofuels, and various alternative fuels. Research into future alternative forms of power include the development of fuel cells, Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI), Stirling engines,[59] and even using the stored energy of compressed air or liquid nitrogen.

    New materials which may replace steel car bodies include duralumin, fiberglass, carbon fiber, biocomposites, and carbon nanotubes. Telematics technology is allowing more and more people to share cars, on a pay-as-you-go basis, through car share and carpool schemes. Communication is also evolving due to connected car systems.[60]

    Autonomous car

    Main article: Autonomous car A robotic Volkswagen Passat shown at Stanford University is a driverless car

    Fully autonomous vehicles, also known as driverless cars, already exist in prototype (such as the Google driverless car), and are expected to be commercially available around 2020. According to urban designer and futurist Michael E. Arth, driverless electric vehicles—in conjunction with the increased use of virtual reality for work, travel, and pleasure—could reduce the world's 800 million vehicles to a fraction of that number within a few decades.[61] This would be possible if almost all private cars requiring drivers, which are not in use and parked 90% of the time, would be traded for public self-driving taxis that would be in near constant use. This would also allow for getting the appropriate vehicle for the particular need—a bus could come for a group of people, a limousine could come for a special night out, and a Segway could come for a short trip down the street for one person. Children could be chauffeured in supervised safety, DUIs would no longer exist, and 41,000 lives could be saved each year in the US alone.[62][63]

    Open source development

    Main article: Open source car

    There have been several projects aiming to develop a car on the principles of open design, an approach to designing in which the plans for the machinery and systems are publicly shared, often without monetary compensation. The projects include OScar, Riversimple (through 40fires.org)[64] and c,mm,n.[65] None of the projects have reached significant success in terms of developing a car as a whole both from hardware and software perspective and no mass production ready open-source based design have been introduced as of late 2009. Some car hacking through on-board diagnostics (OBD) has been done so far.[66]

    Industry

    Main article: Automotive industry A car being assembled in a factory

    The automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells the world's motor vehicles. In 2008, more than 70 million motor vehicles, including cars and commercial vehicles were produced worldwide.[67]

    In 2007, a total of 71.9 million new cars were sold worldwide: 22.9 million in Europe, 21.4 million in the Asia-Pacific Region, 19.4 million in the USA and Canada, 4.4 million in Latin America, 2.4 million in the Middle East and 1.4 million in Africa.[68] The markets in North America and Japan were stagnant, while those in South America and other parts of Asia grew strongly. Of the major markets, China, Russia, Brazil and India saw the most rapid growth.

    About 250 million vehicles are in use in the United States. Around the world, there were about 806 million cars and light trucks on the road in 2007; they burn over 260 billion US gallons (980,000,000 m3) of gasoline and diesel fuel yearly. The numbers are increasing rapidly, especially in China and India.[11] In the opinion of some, urban transport systems based around the car have proved unsustainable, consuming excessive energy, affecting the health of populations, and delivering a declining level of service despite increasing investments. Many of these negative impacts fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars.[69][70][71] The sustainable transport movement focuses on solutions to these problems.

    In 2008, with rapidly rising oil prices, industries such as the automotive industry, are experiencing a combination of pricing pressures from raw material costs and changes in consumer buying habits. The industry is also facing increasing external competition from the public transport sector, as consumers re-evaluate their private vehicle usage.[72] Roughly half of the US's fifty-one light vehicle plants are projected to permanently close in the coming years, with the loss of another 200,000 jobs in the sector, on top of the 560,000 jobs lost this decade.[73] Combined with robust growth in China, in 2009, this resulted in China becoming the largest car producer and market in the world. China 2009 sales had increased to 13.6 million, a significant increase from one million of domestic car sales in 2000.[74] Since then however, even in China and other BRIC countries, the automotive production is again falling.[75]

    Alternatives

    Main article: Alternatives to car use The Vélib' in Paris is the largest bikesharing system outside of China[76]

    Established alternatives for some aspects of car use include public transit such as buses, trolleybuses, trains, subways, tramways light rail, cycling, and walking. Car-share arrangements and carpooling are also increasingly popular, in the US and Europe.[77] For example, in the US, some car-sharing services have experienced double-digit growth in revenue and membership growth between 2006 and 2007. Services like car sharing offering a residents to "share" a vehicle rather than own a car in already congested neighborhoods.[78] Bike-share systems have been tried in some European cities, including Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Similar programs have been experimented with in a number of US Cities.[79] Additional individual modes of transport, such as personal rapid transit could serve as an alternative to cars if they prove to be socially accepted.[80]

    Other meanings

    The term motorcar has formerly also been used in the context of electrified rail systems to denote a car which functions as a small locomotive but also provides space for passengers and baggage. These locomotive cars were often used on suburban routes by both interurban and intercity railroad systems.[81]

    See also

    Main article: Outline of automobiles

    References

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    Further reading

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Automobile.
    Wikisource has original text related to this article: California AB 1493
    Look up car in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

    en.wikipedia.org

    Cars

    << The Incredibles Pixar Films Chronology Ratatouille >>
    "Life's a journey - Enjoy the trip." —Tagline

    Cars is Pixar's seventh feature film. It was released in theaters on June 9, 2006, marking Pixar's 20th anniversary. A sequel, Cars 2, was released in theaters and 3D on June 24, 2011. A second sequel, Cars 3, was released in theaters on June 16, 2017.

    Contents

    [show]

    Story

    The story of Cars is set in an alternate universe where every character is a vehicle of various sorts, whether that be automobile, aircraft or watercraft. The film focuses on a rookie race car named Lightning McQueen who discovers the lost town of Radiator Springs on his way to the biggest race of his life.

    Plot

    The film opens in the final race of the 2006 Piston Cup stock car racing season and championship in the Motor Speedway of the South,

    Piston Cup

    where a skilled but arrogant rookie racecar Lightning McQueen has overtaken his opponents, past a huge wreck, and has built up a huge lead over the cup's defending (but soon retiring) seven-time champion Strip "The King" Weathers and perennial runner-up Chick Hicks. However, because of his refusal to make regular pit stops and get new tires, his rear worn tires burst into flames on the final lap, causing him to skid and ultimately crawl to the finish line, barely managing to tie the King and Chick Hicks in a photo finish by sticking his tongue out at the edge of the finish line. Race officials announce that because the three racers are also tied in overall season points they will compete in one final tiebreaker race to be held at the Los Angeles International Speedway in one week to determine the champion.

    While traveling down Interstate 40 to California, McQueen becomes separated from Mack, his transport truck, and while trying to catch up becomes lost on U.S. Route 66, catching the attention of the local Radiator Springs Sheriff in the process. A chase ensues, during which McQueen crashes and gets tangled in wires, damaging part of the town's main street in the process.

    Lightning meets Sally

    McQueen is taken to traffic court, where the town's attorney Sally Carrera pleads against McQueen. He is sentenced to repave the road using "Bessie", an asphalt-laying machine. Only interested in leaving and extremely furious, he makes an escape attempt before being hooked up, only to figure out his gas tank was siphoned. McQueen rushes through his first day of paving and the new road surface is so bumpy, unusable, uneven, and poor that he is told he must scrape it off and start over again.

    When Doc Hudson offers McQueen a deal -- beat Doc in a race around Willy's Butte and he is free to go -- McQueen eagerly accepts. He leaves Doc in the dust at the starting line, but loses control on the loose dirt turn and crashes into a cactus patch. While the town's tow truck, Mater, hauls McQueen out of the cactus patch in which he landed, Doc effortlessly cruises to the finish line after informing McQueen that he races like he fixes roads. McQueen is compelled to scrape off the botched pavement and start over again.

    As the ensuing days pass, McQueen is disturbed by nightmares of Chick Hicks winning the Piston Cup and landing Dinoco. He starts to befriend the town's residents and learn more about the town in the process: how Radiator Springs was once a thriving town until completion of the nearby interstate bypassed the little town, depriving it of its business traffic and visitors (and ironically, depriving those passing visitors of the natural beauty found in the scenery along the old highway); how Sally left behind her rich but unhappy life as an urban lawyer; what "tractor tipping" (a parody of cow tipping) is; and how Doc Hudson was once a famous racecar himself (the "Hudson Hornet") -- and 3-time Piston Cup champion -- until a horrible crash in 1954 ended his racing career.

    McQueen knows Doc is the Fabulous Hudson Hornet

    Doc bitterly refuses to reveal much about his past (despite McQueen witnessing him expertly drifting through the loose dirt of Willy's Butte where McQueen crashed), labeling his old trophies as "a bunch of empty cups".

    Doc tries out racing again after years of retirement

    By the time McQueen finishes repaving Radiator Springs's main road, he has formed a bond with the town and its residents. Rather than immediately leaving for California (as he had initially been eager to do), he spends the day touring the town's businesses, receiving a fresh coat of paint and new tires in the process, and participates in a cruise party that night. But he is suddenly found, then whisked away in his truck, Mack, without even a chance to bid farewell to Radiator Springs. The town's residents are sad to see him leave, and Sally is angry to learn that it was Doc who ultimately informed the media of McQueen's whereabouts.

    The final race among McQueen, The King, and Chick opens with what the race's commentators call the "biggest race in history." McQueen is distracted by his memories of Radiator Springs, losing time to The King and Chick Hicks, and begins to fear he will simply lose. To his surprise, Doc Hudson has arrived at the race, with Mater and a few others from Radiator Springs who will serve as his pit crew; Doc, once again wearing his original "Hudson Hornet" racing stripes, takes over as McQueen's crew chief. With Doc's coaching, a record-fast pit stop for new tires, and a few tricks learned from the small town's inhabitants, McQueen is not only able to overtake his opponents, but has built a considerable lead by the final lap.

    As McQueen approaches the finish line, Chick sideswipes The King in a desperate attempt to avoid finishing behind him yet again, sending The King into a terrible rollover crash. McQueen, fearing that The King's racing career will end in the same way as did the Hudson Hornet's, comes to a full stop right before the finish line. After Chick gleefully crosses the finish line, McQueen then backtracks to push the veteran racer across the finish line ahead of him, saying that "I think The King should finish his last race". Although Chick Hicks has officially won the Piston Cup, he begins to learn that it's a hollow victory as he is jeered and despised for taking out The King, while McQueen is cheered as a hero for his good sportsmanship. Tex from Dinoco, The King's sponsor company, offers to support McQueen as his new sponsor; but McQueen, having now had a change of heart, respectfully declines, saying that his current sponsor Rust-eze gave him his "big break," and he wanted to continue with them.

    Two days after the race, McQueen returns to Radiator Springs, announcing that he will establish his racing headquarters there. This helps to revitalize the town and draw back visitors and tourists, with the once-abandoned Route 66 being reclassified as "Historic Route 66."

    Voice Cast

    Production

    Development

    While Pixar was wrapping up production on A Bug's Life in the Fall of 1998, story development artist Jorgen Klubien began writing a story for a brand-new animated feature.[3] The original script was called The Yellow Car, about an electric car living in a gas-guzzling world. Some of the original drawings and characters were produced in 1998.[3] However, when John Lasseter reviewed the script, he didn't think it was strong enough to support an entire animated feature, saying that a bigger, stronger character needed to be dropped into the small town setting that Jorgen had initially dreamed up with. Later, production resumed with major script changes, like giving Mater, Doc and a few other characters a bigger part.[3]

    In 2001, the movie's working title was Route 66 (after U.S. Route 66), but in 2002, the title was changed to prevent people from thinking it was related to the 1960 television series with the same name. Also, Lightning McQueen's number was originally going to be 57 (Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (the year Toy Story was released), the number seen in the movie today.

    Joe Ranft's Death

    Cars is the last film worked on by Joe Ranft, who died in a car crash in 2005. The film was the second to be dedicated to his memory, after Corpse Bride.

    Animation

    Work-in-progress screenshot

    Unlike most anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the windshield (which resembles the Tonka Talking Trucks, as well as the characters from Tex Avery's One Cab's Family short and Disney's own Susie the Little Blue Coupe), rather than within the headlights. According to production designer Bob Pauley, "From the very beginning of this project, John Lasseter had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one thing, it separates our characters from the more common approach where you have little cartoon eyes in the headlights. For another, he thought that having the eyes down near the mouth at the front end of the car made the character feel more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point of view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be involved in the animation of the character." [4]

    The characters also use their tires as hands, the exceptions being the various tow truck characters who sometimes uses their tow hooks, and the various forklift characters, who use their forks.

    The lighting team had major challenges throughout the production of Cars, as the characters needed to have photorealistic paint, including shine, sparkle, and reflection. In order to do this more efficiently, Pixar's simulation department developed "Ray Tracing" capabilities that were added to the Renderman software, which allowed the lighting department to determine the path of the different beams of light and thus have more accurate paint effects. This was done manually from this point on until the beginning of production of Monsters University in 2012, in which time upgrades to Renderman automated most lighting functions.

    Setting

    The landscape in the distance behind Radiator Springs is made up of rock formations intentionally reminiscent of Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. The road map shown in the montage history of the town calls the area "Cadillac Range." Some of the mountain peaks in the Cadillac Range, shown during the movie, resemble the quarter panels of late-50's Cadillacs, with their distinctive tailfins.

    The setting for the fictional town of Radiator Springs is situated between Gallup, New Mexico and Kingman, Arizona. A landmark, called Radiator Cap, overlooks the town, and has two white letters ("R" and "S") written upon it. The style and relative positioning of these letters on the landmark closely resemble the "RS" badge used on the first-generation "Rally Sport" Camaros.

    Radiator Springs is loosely based on Amboy, California in the Mojave Desert -- a town that showed a decline in almost all traffic when I-40 opened in 1972. Sally references this in the film.

    Nearby "Ornament Valley" (a reference to Monument Valley) is made of rock formations that project from the valley walls or rise from the valley floor and resemble the front ends of late 1930s to early 1940s American automobiles.

    The Flo's V8 Cafe logo is similar to that used by the '32 Ford V8, the first V8 for mass marketed cars. This logo also appeared on Ford V8 in the sixties as well as third-generation Ford Explorers.

    The track on which the opening race (Motor Speedway of the South) takes place is actually based on and an enlarged version of the real life Bristol Motor Speedway. The venue for the Piston Cup tiebreaker race (the Los Angeles International Speedway) is a conglomeration of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena where the Rose Bowl is located, as well as the California Speedway.

    Route 66

    Many characters and places in the movie are directly inspired on the real Route 66 places and people.

    To quote the Pixar crew:

    "As we traveled on Route 66, we were privileged to visit many places and to meet a number of people who live and work alongside 'The Mother Road.' The following is a list of the places and people we wanted to honor by including their names in our 'Special Thanks' credits at the end of the film." [5]

    The Cars Soundtrack has two versions of the classic Nat King Cole jazz standard 'Route 66' song, one by Chuck Berry and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits performed by John Mayer.

    Among the many references to Route 66 landmarks and personalities:

    Locations

    Reception

    Box Office Results

    In its opening weekend, Cars grossed $60.1 million, lower than previous Pixar films such as The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. In the United States, the film held onto the #1 spot for two weeks before being surpassed by Click and then by Superman Returns the following weekend. It went on to gross $461,981,522 worldwide (ranking #6 in 2006 films) and $244,082,982 in the U.S. (the third highest-grossing film of 2006 in the country, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Night at the Museum). It was the highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the U.S., but lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown in worldwide totals.[2]

    Critical Reception

    Cars received positive reviews, and has 75% on the Rotten Tomatoes.Com Tomatometer, but making it one of three Pixar films lower than 90%, after Cars 2 and Brave.

    Critics have stated that Cars did not do as well critically as other films. "The movie is great to look at and a lot of fun," says critic Roger Ebert, "but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films." Reeling Reviews wrote that the film's "only real drawback is its failure to inspire awe with its visuals and to thoroughly transport with its storytelling.

    Rating

    Although the movie was rated G in the United States, it was rated PG in the United Kingdom.

    Attached short film

    Theatrical and home video releases include One Man Band, released in 2005, a year before this movie is released.

    Another short film, Mater and the Ghostlight, featuring the film's characters, is released exclusively on DVD and Blu-ray.

    Sequels

    A sequel titled Cars 2 was released on June 24, 2011. Another sequel titled Cars 3 was released on June 16, 2017.

    Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales

    Pixar produced several episodes of a new short TV series Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales which aired on Disney Channel on October 27, 2008.

    The plot features Mater telling a story of something he has done in the past. In his story, Mater often finds himself in an inescapable predicament. When McQueen questions Mater over whether the events in the story actually occurred, Mater responds, "Don't you remember? You was there too!", and continues the story including McQueen's sudden participation. The cartoons end with Mater leaving the scene, often followed by characters or references to the story that was being told, suggesting the story might be real.

    This time around, Mater is the protagonist, with Lightning McQueen becoming the deuteragonist and not featuring as the main character as he does in the movies.

    Gallery

    Posters

    Teaser poster #1

    Teaser poster #2

    French poster

    Korean poster

    Dutch poster

    Chinese poster

    Eat Cinema poster #1

    Eat Cinema poster #2

    Eat Cinema poster #3

    Eat Cinema poster #4

    Eat Cinema poster #5

    Final poster #1

    Final poster #2

    Character Images

    Concept Art

    Clips

    01:13

    Cars Blu-ray Combo Pack (2006) - Clip The Race 2

    The Race

    01:18

    Cars Blu-ray Combo Pack (2006) - Clip Last Lap

    Last Lap

    00:34

    Cars Blu-ray Combo Pack (2006) - Clip Lightning Catches Up

    Lightning Catches Up

    00:45

    Cars Blu-ray Combo Pack (2006) - Clip Lightning Pep Talk

    Lightning Pep Talk

    00:51

    Cars Blu-ray Combo Pack (2006) - Clip Tractor Tipping 1

    Tractor Tipping

    For more Pixar videos check out Wikia's video library

    External Links

    References

    pixar.wikia.com

    Cars

    John LasseterJoe Ranft (Co-Director) Darla K. AndersonThomas Porter (Associate) John LasseterJoe RanftJorgen Klubien Dan FogelmanJohn LasseterJoe Ranft, Kiel MurrayPhil LorinJorgen Klubien

    116 minutes (1 hour, 56 minutes)

    All Critics: 74% (Fresh)Top Critics: 73% (Fresh)Audience: 80% (Fresh)

    Metascore: 73 out of 100 (Positive)User Score: 7 out of 10 (Positive)

    Wikipedia has an article related to:

    Cars (film)

    Cars is a movie made in 2006. It is the 7th Pixar fim.

    It is about a rookie racing car named Lightning McQueen who wants to win the Piston Cup, but gets lost in the Radiator Springs, a town on the scenic U.S. Route 66. The Incredibles was made before Cars and Ratatouille was made after Cars.

    Contents

    [show]

    Story

    The last race of the Piston Cup car season ends in a three-way tie between retiring veteran Strip "The King" Weathers (Richard Petty), perennial runner-up and dirty fighter Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton), and the self-centered rookie Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson). A tiebreaker race is scheduled for one week later at the Los Angeles International Speedway. Lightning, eager to start practice in California as soon as possible in order to become Piston Cup champion and take The King's place as the sponsored car of the lucrative Dinoco team, pushes his driver Mack to travel all night long.

    Mack (John Ratzenberger) tries to avoid falling asleep, but becomes a victim of a gang of reckless street racers, subsequently causing the sleeping Lightning to come of the truck unnoticed. Lightning finds Jerry Recycled Batteries (Joe Ranft), but mistakes Mack, becomes lost and ends up in the run-down town of Radiator Springs. A mishap with the local Sheriff (Michael Wallis) causes Lightning to inadvertently destroy the town's main road. Lightning is promptly arrested, then tried the next day by the town's judge and doctor, Doc Hudson (Paul Newman) who at first wants him to leave Radiator Springs immediately; but at the insistence of local lawyer Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt), Doc instead sentences him to fix the road.

    McQueen initially tries to rush through the job, but makes a sloppy, bumpy mess of the road and is forced to do it all over again. As the days pass, he becomes friends with many of the townsfolk, and learns that Radiator Springs was once a popular stopover along Route 66. However, the construction of Interstate 40 had caused cars to bypass the town to save 10 minutes of driving, thus causing many of the businesses and residents to leave. McQueen also discovers that Doc is actually the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, a three-time Piston Cup champion who was forced out of sight after a serious racing accident ended his career over 50 years ago.

    Encouraged by his new friends and a countryside cruise with Sally, McQueen successfully completes the road and spends an extra day in town, visiting the local shops to outfit himself with new tires and equipment. That night, Mack and the media converge on the town, having been tipped off by Doc as to Lightning's whereabouts, and Lightning reluctantly sets off for California. Sally is upset with Doc for thinking only of himself, and the other townsfolk are saddened to see McQueen go. As they retire to their homes, the town's neon is turned off, and as the town returns to its previous quietness, Doc realizes just how much that McQueen meant to the town.

    As the tie-breaker race begins, McQueen's thoughts keep drifting back to Radiator Springs and he is distracted from performing well. However, he is surprised to discover that his new friends have come along to serve as his pit crew, with Doc — once again outfitted in his old racing colors — as his crew chief. Heartened by their presence and Guido's incredible pit stop speed, and using tricks he learned during his time among them, McQueen is able to counter Hicks' dirty driving tactics and take the lead of the race. On the final lap, Hicks, fed up with being seen as the perennial loser, purposely rams The King, causing him to veer off the track and end up in a terrible wreck as deadly as the one that ended the career of the Fabulous Hudson Hornet.

    Lightning sees The King wreck out, and stops just short of the finish line, letting Chick win. Lightning thinks back to Doc's career-ending shunt, then backs up to push The King the rest of the way across the line so he can finish his last race and retire with dignity. Chick's win is rejected and booed off the awards ceremony stage, his Piston Cup victory hollow and meaningless, while Lightning is praised by The King and his wife, Dinoco, the press and the crowd. The King is given as the winner. Lightning is offered the Dinoco sponsorship but turns it down, saying that he would rather stay with the team that brought him this far. Lightning returns to Radiator Springs and decides to move his team's headquarters there, helping to revitalize the town and its businesses, much to the pleasure of his new friends.

    Voice cast

    Production

    Development

    The original script (called The Yellow Car, about an electric car living in a gas-guzzling world) and some of the original drawings and characters were produced in 1998 and the producers agreed that Cars would be the next movie after A Bug's Life, and would be released in early 1999, particularly around June 4. However, that movie was eventually scrapped in favor of Toy Story 2. Later, production resumed with major script changes.

    In 2001, the movie's working title was Route 66 (after U.S. Route 66), but in 2002, the title was changed to prevent people from thinking it was related to the 1960 television series with the same name. Also, Lightning McQueen's number was originally going to be 57 (Lasseter's birth year), but was changed to 95 (the year Toy Story was released), the number seen in the movie today.

    Joe Ranft's Death

    Cars is the last film worked on by Joe Ranft, who died in a car crash in 2005. The film was the second to be dedicated to his memory, after Corpse Bride.

    Animation

    Work-in-progress screenshot

    Unlike most anthropomorphic cars, the eyes of the cars in this film were placed on the windshield (which resembles the characters from The Adventures of Chuck & Friends from Tonka, as well as the characters from Tex Avery's One Cab's Family short and Disney's own Susie the Little Blue Coupe), rather than within the headlights. According to production designer Bob Pauley, "From the very beginning of this project, John Lasseter had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one thing, it separates our characters from the more common approach where you have little cartoon eyes in the headlights. For another, he thought that having the eyes down near the mouth at the front end of the car made the character feel more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point of view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be involved in the animation of the character." [1]

    The characters also use their tires as hands, the exceptions being the various tow truck characters who sometimes uses their tow hooks, and the various forklift characters, who use their forks.

    Setting

    The landscape in the distance behind Radiator Springs is made up of rock formations intentionally reminiscent of Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. The road map shown in the montage history of the town calls the area "Cadillac Range." Some of the mountain peaks in the Cadillac Range, shown during the movie, resemble the quarter panels of late-50's Cadillacs, with their distinctive tailfins.

    The setting for the fictional town of Radiator Springs is situated between Gallup, New Mexico and Kingman, Arizona. A landmark, called Radiator Cap, overlooks the town, and has two white letters ("R" and "S") written upon it. The style and relative positioning of these letters on the landmark closely resemble the "RS" badge used on the first-generation "Rally Sport" Camaros.

    Radiator Springs is loosely based on Amboy, California in the Mojave Desert -- a town that showed a decline in almost all traffic when I-40 opened in 1972. Sally references this in the film.

    Nearby "Ornament Valley" (a reference to Monument Valley) is made of rock formations that project from the valley walls or rise from the valley floor and resemble the front ends of late 1930s to early 1940s American automobiles.

    The Flo's V8 Cafe logo is similar to that used by the '32 Ford V8, the first V8 for mass marketed cars. This logo also appeared on Ford V8 in the sixties as well as third-generation Ford Explorers.

    The track on which the opening race (Motor Speedway of the South) takes place is actually based on and an enlarged version of the real life Bristol Motor Speedway. The venue for the Piston Cup tiebreaker race (the Los Angeles International Speedway) is a conglomeration of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena where the Rose Bowl is located, as well as the California Speedway.

    Route 66

    Many characters and places in the movie are directly inspired on the real Route 66 places and people.

    To quote the Pixar crew:

    "As we traveled on Route 66, we were privileged to visit many places and to meet a number of people who live and work alongside 'The Mother Road.' The following is a list of the places and people we wanted to honor by including their names in our 'Special Thanks' credits at the end of the film." [2]

    The Cars Soundtrack has two versions of the classic Nat King Cole jazz standard 'Route 66' song, one by Chuck Berry and a new version recorded specifically for the film's credits performed by John Mayer.

    Among the many references to Route 66 landmarks and personalities:

    Locations

    Reception

    Box Office

    In its opening weekend, Cars grossed $60.1 million, lower than previous Pixar films such as The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. In the United States, the film held onto the #1 spot for two weeks before being surpassed by Click and then by Superman Returns the following weekend. It went on to gross $461,981,522 worldwide (ranking #6 in 2006 films) and $244,082,982 in the U.S. (the third highest-grossing film of 2006 in the country, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Night at the Museum). It was the highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the U.S., but lost to Ice Age: The Meltdown in worldwide totals.

    Critical reception

    The film has 75% on the Rotten Tomatoes.Com Tomatometer, making it the only Pixar film, until it's sequel, Cars 2, and Brave in 2012 lower than 90%.

    Critics have stated that Cars did not do as well critically as other films. "The movie is great to look at and a lot of fun," says critic Roger Ebert, "but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films." Reeling Reviews wrote that the film's "only real drawback is its failure to inspire awe with its visuals and to thoroughly transport with its storytelling."

    Sequel

    Main article: Cars 2

    Cars 2 was released on June 24, 2011.

    Gallery

    Posters

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    From This Movie Cars

    Character Images

    Concept Art

    References

    pixarcars.wikia.com


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