
Florida’s Disney World is creating an off-road Cars-themed ride
If you’ve ever been to the Cars Land in Southern California‘s Disneyland. Especially at night, when all the neon signs are playing, the Cadillac-themed mountains are lit up, the old 1950s music is playing, and a Lightning McQueen animatronic is perusing the freshly paved main street.
During the day, it’s gorgeous too, as guests can see the scenic waterfall McQueen and Sally drove by and shop in the many themed merch shops disguised as storefronts in the movie.
Well, Imagineers in Florida decided to take their park’s upcoming version of Cars Land up a notch and create an off-road track. Pictures of the dirt track being developed blew up on X, where Drew Smith posted a photo of an engineer using a Polaris RZR to get an idea on how to engineer the ride cars to mimic the feeling.
“Disney shared a new video of a custom dirt track built during concept testing for the Cars-themed area coming to Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World,” his post read. “Walt Disney Imagineering worked with a motocross company to build a track with elements being considered for the attraction.”
The off-road ride cars look amazing as concepts
Michael Hundgen, an experienced Disney Imagineer, told attendees at “The Future of World Building at Disney” talk in Austin, Texas, that ride cars will be “customized” to add to the off-road experience.
“We’re using a customized production vehicle,” he said. “It has sensors all over it, and we’re taking it for test drives on our dirt track to gather data on how the vehicle responds to different terrain. This is where we turn that feeling we want into real-world engineering.”
The concept art shows different dirt-ready race cars with rally lights, lift kits, knobby tires, and roof baskets. They look amazing, especially if you’re into off-roading.
It works especially well, considering the Radiator Springs 500 Cars Toon episode showing a Baja-style race with a lifted Lightning McQueen, Disney touched on NASCAR’s moonlighting history in the third movie and dirt racing, and a lifted Lightning McQueen with knobby tires was shown in an episode of Cars on the Road.
Dirt and rally racing was also shown in Cars 2 during the World Gran Prix.
The Imagineer said there will be characters you recognize, and some you won’t—but you’ll love ’em anyway
Just like the concept art shows, the ride cars will go through the Disney treatment to emulate the cars in the movie. But the ride cars will be ready to impress guests when the tarmac turns to dirt.
“Our primary goal is creating an emotional experience for our guests,” said Hundgen. “For this Cars attraction, we need to invent a new type of ride vehicle. No one builds these in a factory because it has to do so much more than just carrying you from one place to another. We have to create a car that conveys a feeling when you ride in it.”
While the new ride is amazing for Cars fans, we’ll have to wait as the new Cars-themed land (with this amazing off-road ride) isn’t set to open until 2028.