Cars was Pixar's nominee for Best Animated Feature at the 79th Academy Awards.
The 79th Academy Awards honored films released in 2006 and were held on February 25, 2007. Cars was nominated alongside Happy Feet and Monster House. Happy Feet won the award, so Cars was a nominee rather than the winner.
The nomination reflected Cars' position as one of the major animated releases of 2006. The film was also nominated for Best Original Song for Randy Newman's Our Town. That song lost to An Inconvenient Truth's I Need to Wake Up, written by Melissa Etheridge.
Cars 2 was not eligible for this ceremony because it was released in 2011. The Incredibles was a nominee at the 77th Academy Awards for films released in 2004, while Ratatouille competed at the 80th Academy Awards for films released in 2007. These release-year differences explain why the films are easy to mix up.