In what year was the first Cars movie released?

The first Cars movie was released in 2006.

Produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures, Cars opened in the United States on June 9, 2006. It was Pixar’s seventh feature film and followed The Incredibles, which had been released in 2004. The story introduced Lightning McQueen, Mater, Doc Hudson, Sally Carrera, and the rest of Radiator Springs.

Cars began as an idea about an animated world populated by vehicles and developed into a story inspired partly by Route 66 and the decline of small towns bypassed by modern highways. Director John Lasseter and Pixar artists researched the historic road while developing the film’s setting and visual details. The movie became a major commercial success and launched a franchise that later included Cars 2 in 2011 and Cars 3 in 2017.

A common mix-up is confusing the original film’s year with the sequel’s release year. The first Cars film is from 2006; Cars 2 arrived five years later.