Costco Connection - August 2012

travel connection

Cars Land
pops its hood

New Disney attraction gears up

In addition to offering high-speed rides, such as Radiator Springs Racers (left), Cars Land creates an ambience reminiscent of historic Route 66.

By Robin Jones

DURING THE DAY, the new Cars Land at Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim feels like a straight-up reimagining of Ornament Valley, the setting for the Disney/ Pixar Cars movies. As you enter Radiator Springs along Route 66, you pass Fillmore’s hippie geodesic dome and Sarge’s military Quonset hut before reaching Sally’s Cozy Cone Motel. At the center of town, on the four corners of the intersection, sits Flo’s V8 Cafe, Ramone’s House of Body Art, Luigi’s Casa Della Tires and the Radiator Springs Curio Shop.

The hand-sculpted, 125-foot-tall, 280,000-square-foot Cadillac Mountain Range towers overhead, its tailfin-shaped buttes so tall and all-encompassing it completely takes over the view. Rides, shops and restaurants each belong to a particular character, and larger-than-life versions of the cars themselves often show up for photo ops.

Then, at sunset, a whole new aspect comes to life when Car Land’s neon signs flicker on. Designed to pay homage to the 1950s- and ’60s-era signs along Route 66, they bathe the rides and restaurants in a soft, colorful glow and bring a rush of nostalgia for the Mother Road’s heyday.

The 12-acre attraction, which opened in
June and is the first new land at the Disneyland
Resort in 10 years, was created by a team of
more than 600 contractors, artisans, design-
ers, carpenters, landscapers and model makers
to bring the adventures of Cars anthropomor-
phic vehicles Lightning McQueen, Mater and
friends to life. But it also harkens back to
another era, when the highway ruled and road
trips on Route 66 were a rite of passage.

Capturing a historic ambience

“We wanted Cars Land to feel real, not just to the characters, but also to the classic parts of the road,” says Kathy Mangum, the executive producer of Cars Land.

While they were designing Cars Land, Mangum and her team took three road trips along Route 66 and stopped in at dozens of independent restaurants and shops. Their experiences influenced the colors, light, vegetation and props throughout the attraction, and they really show up in the shops and restaurants.

“Every shop we went to had
the personality of the owner,”
Mangum says. “They have fam-
ily photos on the wall, and you
really get the feel of the owner.
We wanted to make Cars Land
like that.”
So Flo’s V8 Cafe, a diner
that serves the type of eclectic menu you
might find at a Route 66 roadside eatery
(think tamales, rotisserie chicken and thick
milkshakes), displays gold records earned by
Flo, the “show car”-turned-diner-owner in
the Cars movies. Fillmore’s Taste-In sells
fresh fruit, water and juice, in tune with the
film’s VW microbus hippie character.

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Rides with personality

Likewise, the rides all reflect the person-
ality of one or more characters from the Cars
movies. Radiator Springs Racers channels
Lightning McQueen and Sally Carrera; it
starts with a leisurely drive through Ornament
Valley and ends with a high-speed, side-by-
side race with another car around tight curves
and over hills. Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree is
playful and surprising: “Baby” tow trucks
move in figure-eight patterns, whipping rid-
ers from side to side. And on Luigi’s Flying
Tires, riders sit in huge tires on a floor cov-
ered in air vents (a lot like a huge air hockey
table) and lean forward and backward to
move the tires amid an “Italian garden”
decked out in red, white and green banners.