Which famous American road inspired the setting of Pixar’s Cars?

Route 66 inspired the setting of Pixar’s Cars.

The film’s Radiator Springs reflects the history of U.S. Route 66, the highway that connected Chicago and Santa Monica after its creation in 1926. Before the Interstate Highway System diverted long-distance traffic, Route 66 carried travelers through many small communities in the American Southwest. Cars uses that history to explain why Radiator Springs loses visitors and falls into decline.

Pixar’s production team researched the highway and visited locations along it. The movie’s landscapes, roadside businesses, neon signs, and emphasis on forgotten towns draw on that research, although Radiator Springs itself is fictional. Several real Route 66 places are commonly cited as visual or thematic influences, including Seligman, Arizona, and Amboy, California.

Route 66 is sometimes confused with Interstate 40, which replaced or bypassed long stretches of the older highway. In the film’s history, it is the newer interstate—not another historic route—that causes traffic to pass Radiator Springs.