Cars Land at Disney California Adventure is a marvel of a theme park land, with its backdrop mountain range that nods to the fins of classic Cadillacs from 1957 to 1962, a salute to the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. It is a make-believe area based on a fictional town from an animated film, but its roots are decidedly real, as it was envisioned as a theme park destination dedicated to roadside attractions and trips along the Mother Road.
Route 66 has its tendrils throughout SoCal, and especially in the L.A. area, winding through Pasadena, West Hollywood and culminating in Santa Monica. But the most loving ode to Route 66 may in fact be at the Disneyland Resort, specifically at Disney California Adventure .
Cars Land opened in 2012 as part of a reworking of the theme park and at long last gave it a striking land that could rival — and in many cases surpass — those of its next-door neighbor, Disneyland. Flanked by sun-scarred, reddish rocks that look lifted from Arizona, Cars Land is a marvel of a theme park land, with its backdrop mountain range ever so slightly nodding to the fins of classic Cadillacs from 1957 to 1962.
That design element is a salute to the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, where 10 vintage Cadillacs are buried nose-first in the ground that to many resembles a 20th century Stonehenge. Yet before the area was attached to the 2006 film, it was envisioned as a theme park destination dedicated to roadside attractions and trips along the so-called Mother Road.
Cars Land is a make-believe area based on a fictional town from an animated film, but its roots are decidedly real.
'We very much acknowledge that up front, that you're walking down Route 66,' says Kathy Mangum, the retired Walt Disney Imagineer who served as the executive producer of Cars Land. 'But you're also not walking down a part of Route 66 that exists anywhere,' Mangum continues. 'There's no part of Route 66 where you're looking up at a Cadillac range surrounded by red rocks. It's the spirit of Route 66.
I wouldn't even call it a 'best-of.
' It's just a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and combined it feels real. ' Before those at Walt Disney Imagineering, the secretive arm of the company devoted to theme park experiences, were even aware that Pixar Animation Studios was working on the 'Cars' film, an automotive-focused land was in the planning stages for Disney California Adventure.
The park had opened in 2001 and had struggled in its early years to pull in crowds, with audiences zeroing in on a lack of Disneyland-style attractions and an absence of grandly designed vistas. In an effort to rejuvenate the park, then-Imagineer Kevin Rafferty envisioned an area to be called Car Land — without the 's' — pulling heavily from his family's road trips and Route 66-like roadside attractions and oddities.
Among its standout attractions was to be one initially named Scoot 66, later changed to Road Trip, USA, a slow-moving ride that took guests on a cross-country journey through nature and roadside quirkiness, although its showcase scene would have been a trip trough a miniaturized Carlsbad Caverns, a bit of a detour from Route 66.
'It was kind of tongue-in-cheek,' says Rafferty, now retired, of the never-built ride. 'You were going to be seeing all these roadside attractions that would draw you in, like giant bunnies.
' Rafferty believed a place such as Car Land would be ripe for exploration in a Disney park, as it was to be set from the late 1950s to the early 1960s and tap into a collective nostalgia for a time when a vehicle meant the freedom to explore the open road. Cars Land today still has some of that ageless energy, boasting a vintage rock ’n’ roll soundtrack and a strip of a street filled with colorful neon, its lights, especially at night, beckoning guests to come closer.
'The reason why I thought it would fit into a Disney park, especially Disney California Adventure, is because cars are so much a part of the California story,' Rafferty says. 'Cars are designed in California, even though they're built elsewhere. There's more custom shops in California. There's more design studios in California.
There's more car clubs. And all the cars songs.
'She's so fine, my 409. ' It was all the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean. ' Development on Rafferty's Car Land idea would change course when Imagineering and Pixar eventually aligned. But it was also a shift that would more formally ground the area in the culture of Route 66, which heavily influenced the film.
Both the filmmakers and, later, those with Imagineering, embarked on 10-day research trips along the road led by historian Michael Wallis, author of “Route 66: The Mother Road.
' Those at Pixar, in fact, were so charmed by Wallis' tours that the author was asked to voice the role of the film's sheriff. Wallis says he took the teams out in rented Cadillacs.
'I like to stop every 300 yards,' Wallis says. 'If I'm doing a road trip, I get into it. So we stopped to move box turtles off the road. I waded them into winter wheat to dance, to pick wild grapes.
I introduced them to people that I guaran-damn-tee that they never would have met, the great characters of the road, and I showed them the man-made and natural sites of the road.
' Though the fictional 'Cars' and Cars Land community of Radiator Springs has no single inspiration, it echoes the scenery and history of several small towns between Tulsa, Okla. , and Kingman, Ariz. , including Tucumcari, N.M. , Seligman, Ariz.
, and Oatman, Ariz. And the single, graceful bridge that is centered upon the land's backdrop mountain range closely resembles Pasadena's own Colorado Street Bridge, although there’s no roaring waterfall next to the original. Elsewhere, Ramone’s House of Body Art connects with the U-Drop Inn, a 1936 Art Deco gas station in Shamrock, Texas, that now serves as a visitor center and cafe.
The Cozy Cone Motel nods to the Wigwam motel chain, which once included seven locations from Kentucky to California. Two remain in business along Route 66: the Wigwam in San Bernardino and another in Holbrook, Ariz. While Imagineers had visual references from the animated film, Mangum says the research trip was invaluable in lending authenticity to the park.
'We could walk into a building in Shamrock, Texas, that looks so much like what Ramone's House of Body Art looks like and see that those tiles are made of raised terra-cotta,' Mangum says. 'So we could get the actual texture. It's a movie world, but it's also a real world.
' Flo’s V8 Cafe isn’t a direct match with any Route 66 eatery, the Imagineers say, but was certainly influenced in spirit by the Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, Texas. 'We sampled all their pies and food and made copious notes on this stuff,' Rafferty says. 'The two women who owned the Midpoint Cafe had what they said was their mother's recipe for 'ugly crust pies. ' We fell in love with ugly crust pies.
I met with the head chef of Disneyland, who was a Frenchman at the time, and I said we wanted to serve ugly crust pies at Flo's V8 Cafe. And he said, 'No, no, no, nothing at Disneyland will be ugly.
'' No, but it may be influenced by abandoned buildings. Mangum says a key locale for the land was the deserted structures of Two Guns, Ariz. Gas station remains led to sketches that would inspire parts of the 'Stanley's Oasis' area of the Radiator Springs Racers queue, which Rafferty and company filled out with an oil service station and then a building composed of empty oil bottles.
The story goes that Stanley's Oasis is a roadside attraction settlement that led to the development of the town of Radiator Springs.
'That kind of Route 66-inspired story was all made up,' Rafferty says. 'It wasn't in the film. ' That backstory, however, would inform the 2012 short 'Time Travel Mater. ' The enduring strength of the land, however, isn't just due to the popularity of the animated properties that led to it.
While Route 66 wasn't magic for everyone — the history of the road is dotted with tales of extreme poverty and horrific racism — it's become romanticized as a slice of Americana and stands as a jumping-off point to further delve into our past. The land is, in a word, timeless. It's also representative of the ideal of a working small town, the sort of place we forever long for.
'It may not be the America of today,' Mangum says, 'but in a way it is. ' Times staff writer Christopher Reynolds contributed to this report.
Theme Parks Disney California Adventure Cars Land Historic Route 66 Cadillac Ranch In Amarillo Marksmanship Pixar Animation Studios
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
New Jason Momoa Adventure Show & More HBO Max Releases This WeekLooking for the HBO Max release schedule for this week (May 11-May 17, 2026)? Here's the full list of upcoming releases.
Read more »
Indiana Jones Is Reimagined For The 2020s In Paramount's 2-Part Adventure SeriesSean Connery and Harrison Ford tied up in a flaming building
Read more »
New Disney cruise ejects every passenger after boarding — leaving families stranded thousands of miles from homeGuests onboard Disney Cruise Line’s all-new Disney Adventure learned their four-night sailing embarking from Singapore was canceled — mere hours after they already boarded the ship.
Read more »
Disney Adventure back sailing after technical issue canceled Singapore cruise last week for thousandsDisney Cruise Line’s Disney Adventure is back in operation after a four-night cruise last week was canceled due to technical issues leaving thousands of travelers' plans ruined.
Read more »