Cars Movie Trivia
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119 free Cars Movie trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
67 free Cars movie trivia questions with answers, including a full Cars 3 trivia section. Cars movie trivia for anyone who has watched Lightning McQueen limp into Radiator Springs more times than they can count. This quiz covers all three Pixar films: the road trip along Route 66 that inspired the first movie, why McQueen's number is 95 and not 57, the Hudson Hornet behind Doc, the NASCAR fan who gave Mater his name, the spy plot and the lemons of Cars 2, and Cruz Ramirez, Jackson Storm, Sterling, Smokey and the Florida 500 in Cars 3. It also covers the voice cast from Owen Wilson and Paul Newman to Michael Caine and Armie Hammer, the box office and the awards, the songs, the Planes spin-offs and Cars Land at Disney California Adventure. Questions run from easy ones any kid will get to genuinely tough production trivia, each labelled by difficulty. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 119 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who voices Lightning McQueen in the Cars films?
Owen Wilson
Owen Wilson voices Lightning McQueen in every feature film; Keith Ferguson takes over the role in the Cars Toons shorts and most of the video games.
Q 02Why was Lightning McQueen's racing number changed from the planned 57 to 95?
To mark the year Toy Story was released
To mark the year Toy Story was released, 1995, Pixar switched the number to 95; the original 57 would have referred to director John Lasseter's birth year.
Q 03In which forgotten town does Lightning get stranded in the first film?
Radiator Springs
Radiator Springs is the faded town, bypassed when Interstate 40 was built, where Lightning is sentenced to repave the main street he tore up.
Q 04Which championship trophy is Lightning chasing throughout the first film?
The Piston Cup
The Piston Cup is the prize; the season ends in a dead heat between Lightning, Chick Hicks and The King, forcing a tiebreaker race at the Los Angeles International Speedway.
Q 05Which legendary actor voiced Doc Hudson in his last non-documentary film role?
Paul Newman
Paul Newman, himself a serious racing driver, voiced Doc Hudson; after his death in 2008 Doc was written out of Cars 2, then returned in Cars 3 through unused recordings.
Q 06Doc Hudson is a 1951 example of which car?
Hudson Hornet
Hudson Hornet: Doc is a 1951 model, and his 'Fabulous Hudson Hornet' past echoes the real Hornets that Herb Thomas and Marshall Teague drove to NASCAR dominance in the early 1950s.
Q 07How many championships did Doc win in his racing days?
Three
Three championships, won in 1951, 1952 and 1953, sit gathering dust in Doc's garage; he waves them off as 'just empty cups' when Lightning finds them.
Q 08Who voices Tow Mater?
Larry the Cable Guy
Larry the Cable Guy voices Mater, the rusty tow truck, in every film; the Blue Collar Comedy Tour comedian has stuck with the role across the shorts and series since 2006.
Q 09What was the job of Douglas Keever, the NASCAR fan Mater is named after?
Construction boss
Construction boss Douglas 'Mater' Keever, a site superintendent from North Carolina, introduced himself as 'Mater, like tuh-mater without the tuh', a line that went straight into the film.
Q 10Mater's design was inspired by a rusty old wrecker spotted on Route 66 in Galena, in which state?
Kansas
Kansas: the rusty 1951 boom truck that inspired Mater sits in Galena outside a restored service station, where it is billed as 'Tow Tater'.
Q 11Sally, the town attorney voiced by Bonnie Hunt, is what kind of car?
A 2002 Porsche 911
A 2002 Porsche 911 Carrera is Sally's model; in 2022 Porsche and Pixar built a real one-off 911, the 'Sally Special', which sold at auction for charity.
Q 12Which local business does Sally run in the first film?
The Cozy Cone
The Cozy Cone Motel is Sally's business, with rooms shaped like giant traffic cones; it was modelled on the Wigwam Motel, with its teepee-shaped rooms on the highway in Holbrook, Arizona.
Q 13Chick Hicks, Lightning's cheating rival voiced by Michael Keaton, wears which racing number?
86
86 is Chick's number, a nod to 1986, the year Pixar became an independent company; his grille is styled like a 1980s moustache and he apes Lightning's 'ka-chow' as 'ka-chicka'.
Q 21Cars was dedicated to Joe Ranft, a Pixar story chief and co-writer who died how?
In a car crash
In a car crash: Joe Ranft died in August 2005 when the car he was riding in went off Highway 1 in Mendocino County, California; the film is dedicated to him, and he voiced Red the fire truck.
Q 22Where did Cars hold its premiere on May 26, 2006?
Lowe's Motor Speedway
Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, hosted the premiere on 26 May 2006, a racetrack screening for NASCAR country; the film opened nationwide on 9 June.
Q 23Cars was the last film Pixar made independently before which company bought the studio in January 2006?
Disney
Q 14Which NASCAR legend voices Strip 'The King' Weathers, a 1970 Plymouth Superbird?
Richard Petty
Richard Petty, NASCAR's record-setting champion, voices Strip 'The King' Weathers; his real wife Lynda Petty voices The King's wife, and Darrell Waltrip appears as announcer Darrell Cartrip.
Q 15Which comedian voiced Fillmore, the hippie Volkswagen bus, in the first film?
George Carlin
George Carlin voiced Fillmore, the peace-sign-painted 1960 VW bus, in the first film; after Carlin died in 2008, Lloyd Sherr took over the role for the sequels.
Q 16Luigi's tyre shop is famous for a stack of tyres shaped like which landmark?
The Leaning Tower of Pisa
The Leaning Tower of Pisa inspired Luigi's 'Leaning Tower of Tires'; Luigi is a 1959 Fiat 500 voiced by Tony Shalhoub, and his forklift sidekick Guido speaks only Italian, except for 'pit stop'.
Q 17Which Pixar regular voices Mack, Lightning's transporter truck?
John Ratzenberger
John Ratzenberger, Cliff on Cheers and Pixar's long-running good-luck charm, voices Mack, the 1985 Mack Super-Liner who hauls Lightning from race to race.
Q 18Lizzie, the elderly Model T who runs the curio shop, is the widow of which car?
Stanley, the town's founder
Stanley, the town's founder, was Lizzie's husband; his statue stands in the middle of town, and Lizzie was voiced by Katherine Helmond, who voiced her through Cars 3 before her death in 2019.
Q 19Which Route 66 historian voices Sheriff and led Pixar's animators on research trips down the highway?
Michael Wallis
Michael Wallis, author of the 1990 book The Mother Road, voices Sheriff; he guided John Lasseter and the Pixar crew on their research drives along the highway before production.
Q 20What was the working title of Cars in 2001, dropped to avoid confusion with a 1960s TV series?
Route 66
Route 66 was the working title, dropped to avoid confusion with the 1960s TV series of the same name; Jorgen Klubien's earlier pitch, The Yellow Car, had been about an electric car in a gas-guzzling world.
Disney announced its $7.4 billion purchase of Pixar in January 2006, so Cars, released that June, was the last feature Pixar made as an independent studio.
Q 24Cars lost the Best Animated Feature Oscar to which film?
Happy Feet
Happy Feet, George Miller's dancing-penguin musical, took the Best Animated Feature Oscar in February 2007; Cars did win the inaugural Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film and the Annie Award.
Q 25Which song from Cars won a Grammy and was nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar?
Our Town
Our Town, sung by James Taylor over the montage of the town's decline, won the Grammy for best song written for a film and lost the Oscar to 'I Need to Wake Up' from An Inconvenient Truth.
Q 26Which country act recorded the version of 'Life Is a Highway' heard in Cars?
Rascal Flatts
Rascal Flatts recorded the cover of 'Life Is a Highway' for the film's cross-country montage; Tom Cochrane's original had been a number-one hit in Canada in 1991.
Q 27Cars is often compared to which 1991 Michael J. Fox comedy about a doctor stuck in a small town?
Doc Hollywood
Doc Hollywood, in which Fox's hotshot surgeon crashes in a South Carolina town and is sentenced to community service, shares its skeleton with Cars so closely that some critics cried plagiarism.
Q 28Which three-race international event does Lightning enter in Cars 2?
The World Grand Prix
The World Grand Prix is the series created by Sir Miles Axlerod to promote his alternative fuel, Allinol; Lightning enters after the Italian star Francesco Bernoulli needles him on a TV chat show.
Q 29Which British actor voices the spy Finn McMissile in Cars 2?
Michael Caine
Michael Caine voices Finn McMissile, the British secret agent whose silver-blue styling evokes the Aston Martin DB5 of the Bond films, and Caine's own 1960s spy roles as Harry Palmer.
Q 30Which city hosts the first of the three international races in Cars 2?
Tokyo
Tokyo hosts the opening race; at the promotional party there Mater mistakes wasabi for pistachio ice cream, and his dash to the bathroom is where the spies mistake him for their contact.