Cars was Pixar’s seventh feature film, released in 2006.
Pixar’s first six feature films were Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. Cars followed The Incredibles and continued Pixar’s practice of building emotionally driven stories around unusual protagonists—in this case, anthropomorphic vehicles.
The film was directed by John Lasseter and Joe Ranft, and its production was influenced by research into American road culture and Route 66. Its setting, Radiator Springs, combines fictional characters with visual ideas drawn from real roadside towns and landscapes.
Cars is sometimes mistaken for Pixar’s sixth film because it followed The Incredibles, but The Incredibles is number six. The next Pixar feature, Ratatouille, was released in 2007. Cars also became the first Pixar film to receive a theatrical sequel, although Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3 had already extended the Toy Story story.