In Pixar’s Cars, which company sponsors Lightning McQueen’s rival Chick Hicks?

In Pixar’s Cars, Hostile Takeover Bank sponsors Chick Hicks.

Chick Hicks is Lightning McQueen’s aggressive rival in the Piston Cup championship. His green body carries the Hostile Takeover Bank name and logo, while McQueen is initially sponsored by Rust-eze. The sponsorship marks Hicks as a major competitor and visually distinguishes him from both McQueen and the veteran racer Strip Weathers, better known as The King.

The sponsor name is a financial pun: a hostile takeover is an attempt to acquire control of a company against the wishes of its management. That wording suits Hicks’s confrontational personality and his willingness to use rough tactics during races. The character’s design deliberately echoes the appearance of a fictional stock car rather than a normal road vehicle.

A frequent mix-up is confusing Hicks’s sponsor with Dinoco. Dinoco is the famous blue racing brand associated with The King and later becomes important to McQueen’s career. Rust-eze, meanwhile, is the bumper-ointment company that sponsors McQueen at the beginning of the film.