In Disney/Pixar’s animated feature ‘Cars’, directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft, the autos don’t inhabit a human world; the world is all theirs. Insects are Volkswagens with wings. Flowers look like Calla lilies, but they’re really taillights. Tractors painted with cow-like patterns moo. Mountains shaped liked tail fins in the Cadillac Range rise from sagebrush-covered plains. High altitude clouds look like tire treads and if you look closely, you might see little car-shaped clouds with puffs of exhaust behind them.
“I had the idea that the cars, which were the living beings in this world, would perceive themselves in nature,” says Bill Cone, co-production designer with Bob Pauley. “Once I had the idea of putting car forms into the world, it became a design approach. I’d look for ways to make goofy metaphors.”
‘Cars’ starts at night, at a North Carolina race track where the lead character, Lightning McQueen, a cocky young stock car voiced by Owen Wilson, finishes in a three-way tie for the coveted Piston Cup. Thus, to win the cup McQueen must drive to California for the championship race. A montage of scenes follows his route from North Carolina to a desert somewhere in the Southwest. There, with help from the citizens of rustic Radiator Springs, McQueen learns that the important thing in life is not being first to get the checkered flag - what matters is the journey. A final championship race in California bookends the film.
Cone’s journey into production design - lighting design and concept images - began with pastels. “It’s totally hand work,” he says. “I work my way through problems by sketching with dark blue prisma color on paper. Also, sometimes someone would sculpt parts of the landscape in clay.”
For research, he attended car races, and with the other members of the design and story team traveled Route 66 from Oklahoma to California in a nine-Cadillac caravan. On the way, they became fascinated with the road’s such well-known roadside attractions as teepee motels. The motels became giant traffic cones and turned into Radiator Springs’ Cozy Cone motel. Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt), a Porsche 911, runs the motel - and locks bumpers with McQueen when he crashes into town.
Even the highways became metaphorical once Cone adapted them for ‘Cars’. “The Interstate is a trench dug through the world,” he says. It’s relentless; it, drives through anything in its path. To make the point, Cone sliced the highway along the edge of a Mesa. “There’s a sliver on one side and a big mass on the other,” he says. “The highway could have been built around it, but it represents the new approach: Get from A to B, but don’t enjoy the ride.”
On the other hand, the old Route 66 highway rolls over the contours of the land and winds around obstacles.
For the landscape outside Radiator Springs, Cone referenced Maynard Dixon paintings. “He had a wonderful reductive way of organizing the world of the Southwest,” Cone says. “Also, he looked into the sun or towards the sun a lot, so there is a level of brightness in his imagery. Even though he stylized the world, he got a true sense of the weather and the lighting of the place.”
