Most car films get the details wrong. Movie goers usually must endure glaring inaccuracies and technical gaffes to get their dose of big-screen automotive entertainment. Ask any car guy/racing enthusiast about "The Fast and the Furious," "Days of Thunder," or (shudder) "Driven."

How unexpected then, that the car movie that gets the fine points right is a G-rated animated feature aimed as much at children as it is at adults. Despite the inherent fantasy of the "Cars" concept--sentient, living vehicles populating a human-and-animal-free America--all of the niggling automotive details are spot-on.

The Cast of "Cars"
	Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson). Modern-day NASCAR stock car. Cocky rookie on the Piston Cup circuit.
	The King (Richard Petty). 1970 Plymouth Superbird. Strip Weathers, reigning Piston Cup champion.
	Doc Hudson (Paul Newman). 1951 Hudson Hornet. Radiator Springs' doctor, judge, and patriarch.
	Sally Carerra (Bonnie Hunt). 2002 Porsche 911. Owner of the Cozy Cone Motel in Radiator Springs.
	Flo (Jenifer Lewis). 1950s-era GM Motorama-inspired show car. Owner of Flo's V8 Cafe, Radiator Springs' diner.
	Fillmore (George Carlin). 1960 Volkswagen Microbus. Radiator Springs' resident hippie and "organic gasoline" supplier.
	Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton). Early-'80s vintage NASCAR stock car. Piston Cup contender.
	Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). 1950s-era tow truck. Proprietor of Radiator Springs' salvage/impound yard.
	Ramone (Cheech Marin). 1959 Chevrolet Impala lowrider. Owner of Ramone's House of Body Art, Radiator Springs' custom paint shop.
	Mack (John Ratzenberger). 1985 Mack Super Liner. Lightning McQueen's 18-wheeler tow rig.
	Luigi (Tony Shalhoub). 1959 Fiat 500. Owner of Casa Della Tires in Radiator Springs.
	Sarge (Paul Dooley). 1942 Willys army jeep. Gruff owner of Sarge's Surplus Hut in Radiator Springs.
	Sheriff (Michael Wallis). 1949 Mercury patrol car. Radiator Springs' enforcer of law and order.
	Guido (Guido Quaroni). Fantasy forklift. Luigi's sidekick and assistant at Casa Della Tires.

The "Cars" story follows Lightning McQueen, a cocky, self-centered race car on the "Piston Cup" circuit. McQueen is vying for the coveted Piston Cup trophy against aging champ Strip Weathers, aka "The King" (a 1970 Superbird voiced by real-life stock-car legend Richard Petty) and unscrupulous Chick Hicks (a 1980s-vintage stock car sponsored by "Hostile Takeover Bank.")

McQueen gets sidetracked en route to the big championship race, ending up in a dilapidated, small Southwestern town called Radiator Springs. There, he runs afoul of the local constabulary, and must repay his debt to the townsfolk before he is allowed to leave.

Radiator Springs is inhabited by a colorful cast of characters. There's Mater, the rusty tow truck, Sally Carerra, the sassy Porsche 911, and Doc Hudson, a 1951 Hudson Hornet who serves as the town's judge, "doctor," and overall patriarch. True to Hollywood feel-good movie conventions, McQueen eventually befriends the quirky residents of this off-the-beaten-path burg, and learns some life-changing lessons in the process. We won't delve deeply into the story here, but the basic plot should satisfy both children and adults. Since Consumer Guide® is an automotive website, we'll talk about the cars. 

Some of the "Cars" cars are mostly faithful re-creations of their real-life counterparts, others are slightly "genericized" vehicles that were clearly inspired by actual cars, and others are pure fantasy, drawn from the imagination of Pixar's creators. The vehicular variety is broad, so most any car/racing buff should find something they like.

The visuals in each new Pixar movie raise the bar for cutting-edge digital wizardry, and "Cars" is no exception.  The quality of the animation is truly jaw-dropping. Difficult-to-replicate automotive surfaces and textures are rendered perfectly. Chrome emblems glisten. Metalflake paint sparkles. There's realistic rust, and glowing neon signs reflect in shimmering, mirror-finish paint jobs.

The automotive action is dazzling as well. Tire smoke billows. Water puddles splash. A 1970 'Cuda-like street machine has a case of the sniffles, and shoots nitro flames out of his zoomie pipes with every sneeze. The racing scenes are electric; the visual and aural assault of a full field of race cars thundering past at 190-plus mph is accurately replicated, down to the tiny pebbles of kicked-up tire rubber.

The painstakingly accurate soundtrack is another highlight--each vehicle sounds exactly like its real-life counterpart. Lightning McQueen's V8 roars like a typical modern-day NASCAR stocker. A pack of sport-compact "tuner" hoodlums buzz like raspy 4-cyl bumblebees. When Doc Hudson shows his true race-car colors, the engine sound is an actual race-tuned "Twin H-Power" six. It sounds as thrilling today as it must have sounded 55 years ago.

The animation staff at Pixar reportedly took high-performance driving courses and cross-country road trips in preparation for this movie. It was time well spent. Though the cars are obviously cartoon characters--early in the movie, McQueen leaps over a track-clogging wreck with his tongue a-wagging, ala Michael Jordan soaring toward a slam dunk--their unique movements obey the proper physics. Doc, the '51 Hudson, moves differently than Luigi, the tiny '59 Fiat 500. Going in, we were a bit skeptical about how well the movie could pull off the anthropomorphizing without being hokey or strained, but for the most part, it works.

The movie is chock full of clever, keenly observed automotive details that will delight any enthusiast. All the living beings in the movie are vehicles. The flying insects are tiny winged VW Beetles--"bugs"--and their buzzing is actually the sound of a real air-cooled Beetle engine sped up. Cud-chewing tractors stand in as cows--the tractors' rear axle bolts bear an uncanny resemblance to a cow's udder. The buttes and mountain ranges surrounding Radiator Springs are patterned after 1950s and '60s Cadillac tailfins, vintage hood ornaments, and art-deco front grilles and fenders. Even the important bit of knowledge that Doc Hudson passes on to Lightning McQueen is an accurate, realistically portrayed racing technique.

Nestled into the automotive minutiae and crowd-pleasing comedy are broader observations about the US interstate system. In part, "Cars" offers a nostalgic look back at small town America. It laments the multilane highways that slice through the countryside, eventually sapping the adventure and local color out of cross-country travel in the name of speed and efficiency.

Car guys will love "Cars" because the details are correct, but the broader strokes of the movie are endearing as well. If there was ever a Hollywood movie that came close to articulating America's proverbial love affair with the automobile, "Cars" is it. If "Cars" connects with its scores of younger viewers the way we think it will, that love affair will continue for many years to come. 

"Cars" Spotter's Guide

"Cars" is jam-packed with automotive references and inside jokes. Here are just a few we noticed. (Don't read if you want to discover this stuff on your own!)

A character voiced by racing legend Mario Andretti makes a cameo appearance. The car is patterned after the 1967 Ford Fairlane Andretti drove to win the 1967 Daytona 500, his only NASCAR victory.

Darrell Cartrip, the Piston Cup commentator, is voiced by NASCAR commentator and driver Darrell Waltrip. The car's design recalls the mid-Seventies Chevy Monte Carlos that Waltrip drove early in his racing career, but the paint scheme is similar to Jeff Gordon's current NASCAR Monte Carlo.

A character voiced by Ferrari F1 champ Michael Schumacher makes a late-movie cameo. He is (not surprisingly) a Ferrari F430.

The architecture of Flo's diner, like much of Radiator Springs, is inspired by car parts. Look closely at the awnings over the drive-in area; the awnings themselves resemble Hemi valve covers, and they're supported by posts that look like piston connecting rods. The "spark plug" neon lights on top of the awnings glow in a V8 firing sequence!

Doc Hudson's mysterious racing past mirrors the real-life history of the Hudson Hornet. The cars clinched NASCAR championships in 1951, '52, and '53.

The climax of the final championship race bears a strong resemblance to the famous Dale Earnhardt/Bill Elliott shootout at the 1987 NASCAR All-Star race, complete with a "pass in the grass."

As a pair of touristy minivans pass through town, they are pestered by the business-starved Radiator Springs residents. Ramone, the '59 Chevy lowrider, offers the pair a deal on custom paint jobs, complete with "Von Dutch" pinstriping. Von Dutch was a cantankerous California artist who is credited with the invention of custom automotive pinstriping and other custom auto paint techniques.

Lightning McQueen is sponsored by Rust-eze Bumper Ointment. Company founders Rusty and Dusty Rust-eze are voiced by brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hosts of the popular NPR radio show "Car Talk."

Comedian George Carlin voices Fillmore, the hippy VW bus. Fillmore wears a front license plate that reads "51237." Carlin's birthday is May 12, 1937. The number is also the zip code for a small town in Northwest Iowa. The town's name? George.