Cars is Pixar’s seventh feature-length film.
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 was released in 2006, establishing a new setting built around talking automobiles and American road culture.
The film was directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft. It was also the final Pixar feature to be released under the Buena Vista Pictures Distribution name before Disney’s distribution branding changed. The question concerns Pixar’s feature-film sequence, not the number of films in the Cars franchise. Cars 2 and Cars 3 were Pixar’s twelfth and eighteenth feature films, respectively.