Cars was the first Pixar Cars film to receive an Academy Award nomination.
The 2006 film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 79th Academy Awards. It competed alongside Pixar’s own entries from the broader animation landscape and became the first Cars title recognized by the Academy in that category. Cars did not win the award; the winner was Happy Feet.
The film also received major attention for its original song, “Our Town,” written by Randy Newman. That song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, giving Cars a separate Oscar victory even though the film itself did not win Best Animated Feature.
Cars 2 was released in 2011 and Cars 3 in 2017, so neither can be the first Cars film nominated. Planes belongs to the related Disneytoon Studios franchise rather than Pixar’s Cars feature-film series. The question concerns the Pixar films, not every production set in the wider Cars universe.