Lightning Mc Queen - Characterisation

Characterisation

During the initial research for the film, John Lasseter met with General Motors designers to discuss the new Corvette design but subsequent changes to the storyline left both Lightning McQueen and rival Chick Hicks as generic.

“He’s the new rookie, he’s kinda sexy, he’s fast, he’s different. So he’s invented. We took the best of our favourite things, from GT40s to Chargers… just sketching them out, we came up with what McQueen looks like.” —Bob Pauley, one of two Cars production designers

In order to create a cocky but likeable character for McQueen, Pixar looked at sports figures like boxer Muhammad Ali, basketball player Charles Barkley and football quarterback Joe Namath, as well as popular musician Kid Rock.

“For the other race cars, we looked at how race cars drive. For McQueen, we looked at surfers and snowboarders and Michael Jordan, these truly great athletes and the beauty of how they move. You watch Jordan in his heyday against every other player, he’s playing a different game. We wanted to have that same type of feeling, so that when they’re talking about ‘the rookie sensation,’ you’re seeing that he is really gifted.” —James Ford Murphy, Cars directing animator.

The end result is a character which, despite the usually-meticulous approach to "truth to material" in which each car's animation is mechanically consistent with its respective model's capabilities, can occasionally bend the rules to move more like an athlete than a motorcar.

He is voiced by actor Owen Wilson in Cars, Cars 2, Mater and the Ghostlight, and the Cars video game; he is voiced by Keith Ferguson in Cars Toons, Cars Mater-National Championship, and Cars Race-O-Rama.

In the original film, Lightning is one of three contestants in a Piston Cup tiebreaker race before an audience of "more than two hundred thousand cars" in Los Angeles, California. It is revealed in a sequel that he won the Piston Cup from 2007-2010.

Lightning McQueen appears in Kinect Rush: A Disney/Pixar Adventure.