Cars recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 2006 · Film

Cars recap

Lightning McQueen, a cocky rookie race car, ties for the Piston Cup with the veteran The King and the dirty racer Chick Hicks, forcing a tiebreaker race in California. On the way, he falls out of his transporter, Mack, and gets lost on Route 66, tearing up the main road of Radiator Springs, a forgotten town. The town's judge and doctor, Doc Hudson, sentences him to repave it. McQueen makes friends with the tow truck Mater and falls for Sally, a Porsche who left the fast lane for the town. He discovers that Doc is the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, a three-time Piston Cup champion whose career ended in a crash. He learns to slow down and helps bring the town back to life.

How Cars ends

In the tiebreaker, with Doc and the Radiator Springs cars as his pit crew, McQueen leads until Chick sends The King into a violent crash. McQueen stops just short of the finish line, goes back and pushes The King over the line so he can finish his last race. Chick wins the cup to boos, and McQueen wins respect. He turns down the Dinoco sponsorship and makes Radiator Springs his racing headquarters.

Post-credits scenes

During the credits, an epilogue shows Radiator Springs thriving, and the cars watch car versions of Toy Story, Monsters, Inc. and A Bug's Life at the drive-in. The tourists Van and Minny are still lost in the desert. Nothing sets up a sequel.

No. 02 · 2006 · Film · optional

Mater and the Ghostlight recap

Mater and the Ghostlight (2006) is a Pixar short in which Mater, the Radiator Springs tow truck, gets a taste of his own pranks. John Lasseter and Dan Scanlon directed it for the Cars DVD. Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) spends his days scaring the town, startling Luigi, Guido, Sally and Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson). When he mocks the Route 66 legend of the Ghostlight, Sheriff tells him it is real: a glowing blue orb that made a young couple vanish and hates clanking metal. Left alone in the dark, Mater jumps at junk piles and a firefly, and then a blue light appears behind him.

How Mater and the Ghostlight ends

Mater and the Ghostlight ends with Mater racing through town in terror until he finds the blue light is a lantern Lightning and Guido tied to his tow cable as payback. Sheriff tells him the only thing to fear on Route 66 is his imagination, and Doc teases him about the Screaming Banshee. After the credits, Mater meets the real Banshee, a giant monster truck, warns it about itself and runs home. Mater's Tall Tales follows in 2008.

No. 03 · 2008 · Series · optional

Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales recap

Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales (2008) is a run of shorts in which Mater tells Lightning McQueen outrageous stories about his past. Eleven episodes came out from 2008 to 2012; they premiered on Toon Disney and Disney Channel, on home video, and in one case in theaters, when "Tokyo Mater" played before Bolt. Each follows a formula: something reminds Mater of an old adventure, he tells it, and when Lightning doubts him, Mater insists Lightning was there too, so Lightning gets pulled into the story. Mater is a fire truck in "Rescue Squad Mater", a daredevil in "Mater the Greater", a matador facing bulldozers in "El Materdor", a drift racer in "Tokyo Mater", a friend to a small flying saucer in "Unidentified Flying Mater", a wrestler in "Monster Truck Mater", a rock star in "Heavy Metal Mater", the first tow truck on the Moon in "Moon Mater", a detective in "Mater Private Eye" and a stunt plane in "Air Mater". Most episodes close with Lightning dismissing the tale until someone from it turns up, suggesting it really happened.

How Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales ends

Mater's Tall Tales ends with "Time Travel Mater" (2012), in which Mater slips back to 1909, meets Stanley, the founder of Radiator Springs, and helps the town get started, including Stanley's match with Lizzie. Lightning is dragged along through time, and it is Lightning, not Mater, who ends up introducing the young Lizzie to Stanley; she thanks him for it. Unlike most of the run, the episode does not end with Lightning denying the story. Tales from Radiator Springs follows in 2013.

No. 04 · 2011 · Film

Cars 2 recap

McQueen agrees to race in the World Grand Prix, set up by the oil baron Sir Miles Axlerod to promote his new alternative fuel, Allinol, and takes Mater along. In Tokyo, British spy Finn McMissile and the rookie agent Holley Shiftwell mistake Mater for an American agent and recruit him. Mater embarrasses McQueen, who snaps at him, and Mater leaves. The spies discover that the German scientist Professor Zundapp and a crew of old, unreliable cars are using a camera disguised as an electromagnetic pulse weapon to make Allinol cars explode, to discredit alternative fuel. Mater infiltrates the gang's meeting in Italy, where Grem and Acer try to take out racers, and learns they plan to kill McQueen at the London race.

How Cars 2 ends

In London, the lemons fit a bomb to Mater, which only the mastermind can switch off. Mater realises the mastermind is Axlerod himself, who planned to discredit Allinol so he could keep profiting from oil, and forces him to disarm it. Mater is knighted, and McQueen apologises. The racers come to Radiator Springs for a friendly Grand Prix, and Finn and Holley invite Mater on another mission.

No. 05 · 2013 · Series · optional

Tales from Radiator Springs recap

Tales from Radiator Springs (2013) is a set of four short episodes about everyday life in the town from Cars, released on Disney Channel from 2013 to 2014. Three premiered together on March 22, 2013. In "Hiccups", Lightning McQueen gets the hiccups, Sally cures them with a kiss, and Mater chases Sheriff to try the same cure on him. "Bugged" follows Red the fire truck as a bug ruins his morning, the only episode without Lightning or Mater. In "Spinning", Luigi has Guido spin a sign to bring in customers, and Guido turns out to be a gifted sign spinner who draws a crowd. The episodes are short comedies of a few minutes each with no running story, built around the residents Lightning (Owen Wilson) and Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) live among: Sally, Sheriff, Red, Luigi and Guido. The fourth episode arrived a year later, first on Disney Movies Anywhere in May 2014 and then on Disney Channel that August.

How Tales from Radiator Springs ends

Tales from Radiator Springs ends with "The Radiator Springs 500 1/2" (2014), in which the town holds a Founders Day celebration in honour of its founder, Stanley, and a gang of off-road racers turns up and challenges Lightning to a race through the desert. A fifth short, "To Protect and Serve", was announced at the 2013 D23 Expo for 2015 but never released. Cars 3 and its tie-in short came next in 2017.

No. 06 · 2013 · Film · optional

Planes recap

Planes (2013) follows Dusty Crophopper, a crop-dusting plane from Propwash Junction, Minnesota, who dreams of racing in the Wings Around the Globe rally. Klay Hall directed it for Disneytoon Studios. Dusty (Dane Cook) is afraid of heights but barely qualifies and talks the retired navy plane Skipper Riley (Stacy Keach) into training him. On the rally he befriends the Mexican racer El Chupacabra (Carlos Alazraqui) and the British plane Bulldog, and falls for Ishani (Priyanka Chopra), who tricks him into taking a new propeller from the champion Ripslinger (Roger Craig Smith). Ripslinger's henchmen break Dusty's antenna over the Pacific; he lands on the aircraft carrier Flysenhower, learns Skipper's war stories are not what they seemed, and crashes into the sea in a storm. Skipper confesses that his whole squadron died on a mission he led and that he has not flown since.

How Planes ends

Planes ends with Dusty winning the rally. The other racers donate parts to rebuild him, Ishani gives him her own propeller, and he beats his fear by riding a jet stream. Skipper flies again to stop Ripslinger's attack, and when Ripslinger slows down to pose for cameras near the finish, Dusty passes him. Dusty becomes an honorary Jolly Wrench, and he and Skipper race home. Planes: Fire & Rescue follows in 2014.

No. 07 · 2014 · Film · optional

Planes: Fire & Rescue recap

Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014) sends Dusty Crophopper, now a racing champion with a failing gearbox, to train as a firefighting plane. Roberts Gannaway directed it for Disneytoon Studios. Dusty (Dane Cook) learns his discontinued gearbox means he may never race again, and pushing too hard, he causes a fire at the Propwash Junction airport. The old fire truck Mayday (Hal Holbrook) is found to be outdated, and the airport will close unless it gets a second certified firefighter. Dusty goes to Piston Peak National Park to train under the rescue helicopter Blade Ranger (Ed Harris), alongside the super scooper Lil' Dipper (Julie Bowen), the heavy-lift helicopter Windlifter (Wes Studi), the transport plane Cabbie and a team of smokejumpers. The park superintendent, Cad Spinner (John Michael Higgins), spends the park's money on a luxury lodge instead of firefighting, and a wildfire breaks out as the lodge opens.

How Planes: Fire & Rescue ends

Planes: Fire & Rescue ends with Dusty certified as a firefighter. During the fire he saves two elderly campers, Harvey and Winnie, from a burning bridge, but his engine fails and he crashes; the mechanic Maru rebuilds him with a new gearbox so he can race again. Propwash Junction's airport reopens with a restored Mayday. A third film, Planes: Beyond the Sky, was announced for 2019 and cancelled when Disneytoon Studios closed in 2018.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. A mid-credits scene shows Cad Spinner working as a park ranger in Death Valley.

No. 08 · 2017 · Film

Cars 3 recap

Lightning McQueen is being overtaken by a new generation of high-tech racers led by Jackson Storm, and pushing himself too hard, he crashes badly. Months later, he returns to train at the Rust-eze Racing Center, now owned by the businessman Sterling, under the young trainer Cruz Ramirez, who once dreamed of racing herself. McQueen wrecks a simulator, and Sterling wants to retire him and sell his brand, so McQueen makes a deal: if he wins the Florida 500, he decides when he retires. He and Cruz train on beaches and at a demolition derby, where Cruz wins, and McQueen snaps at her. In Thomasville, they find Doc Hudson's old mentor Smokey, who teaches McQueen how Doc found new joy in training him.

How Cars 3 ends

In the Florida 500, McQueen pulls over and lets Cruz finish the race in his place, using Doc's old trick to flip over Storm and win, with both credited. Cruz joins Tex Dinoco's team, and McQueen becomes her crew chief, painted in Doc's Fabulous Hudson Hornet colors, still racing for fun. Back in Radiator Springs, McQueen and Cruz race each other on the dirt track, the way Doc once raced him.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. After the credits, Mater sings in his shack until a ringing phone startles him, part of the roof falls, and he says "Technology." It is a gag, not a setup.

No. 09 · 2017 · Film · optional

Miss Fritter's Racing Skoool recap

Miss Fritter's Racing Skoool (2017) is a short styled as an infomercial for the demolition derby school run by Miss Fritter, the school bus from Cars 3. It runs about three minutes. James Ford Murphy wrote and directed it, and it was released on October 24, 2017 with the digital and Blu-ray editions of Cars 3. Miss Fritter (Lea DeLaria) pitches her school while members of her derby crew, the Crazy 8s, deliver straight-faced testimonials about how the Skoool turned their lives around, while Miss Fritter promises to make champions of anyone who signs up.

How Miss Fritter's Racing Skoool ends

Miss Fritter's Racing Skoool ends with Miss Fritter laughing so hard that Cruz Ramirez's Thunder Hollow trophy falls and breaks, prompting Lightning McQueen to comment to Cruz that the school might be too dangerous to attend. Cruz won that trophy in Cars 3 at the Thunder Hollow demolition derby, where she first ran into Miss Fritter. Cars on the Road, the next Cars release, follows in 2022.

No. 10 · 2022 · Series

Cars on the Road recap

Cars on the Road (2022) follows Lightning McQueen and Mater on a cross-country drive to the wedding of Mater's sister, Mato. The Pixar series premiered on Disney+ on September 8, 2022 with all nine episodes at once, directed by Steve Purcell, Brian Fee and Bobby Podesta. Owen Wilson voices Lightning and Larry the Cable Guy voices Mater. Each episode is a stop with its own genre: Mater dreams they are cave cars hunted by dinosaurs, Lightning spends a night in a haunted hotel, and Mater meets the Speed Demon, a car version of the Grim Reaper, on the salt flats. A Bigfoot hunt turns up Ivy, a monster truck hiding from her career crushing cars, who joins the trip and later finds a home with a travelling circus. Mater wonders if he is a real truck, the pair get fired from a B-movie set, and spiked cars force them into a battle royal.

How Cars on the Road ends

Cars on the Road ends at Mater's childhood home, where his family turns out to be wealthy and Mato is marrying Mateo, the cousin of Cruz Ramirez. Cruz helps Mater and Mato make peace, and Mater's speech helps Lightning come to terms with the trip. Lightning decides to drive home to Radiator Springs instead of flying. A closing scene shows Mato and Mateo honeymooning at a tire maze from earlier in the trip. It is the latest Cars release.