Forum,
With a daughter growing up, she now develops a healthy interest in trains, planes and automobiles and last week we saw the Cars movies (1, 2 and 3). We tried to identify the branches (makes?) and of course a lot of Italian cars were involved, mainly 500's old and new, but my heart jumped a little when Mater was blocked entering the after-party by two guards: Fiat Panda's typo 169! Always nice to see this appreciation for this type of car!
Kind regards and ciao,
Aad
My boy (3yo) is obsessed with cars. and "lightning"
Depending how much of a car geek you are, you can go really deep on cars 2. Luigi travel back to Italy. They meet his Uncle Topolino, who is a Fiat Topolino, the predecessor to the Fiat 500 (luigi is of course a fiat 500) while there, Luigi is seen trying it on with younger newer Fiat 500s in the square outside the family home, in the center of which is a large fountain.
Now if you know your car history, you will know that Maserati was founded by the 5 Maserati brothers, Alfieri, Carlo, Bindo ,Ernesto and Ettore. There was another brother Mario who it is rumored went for a walk one day in their home town of Bologna and came upon the fountain of neptune in the Piazza Maggiore. If you look at the Piazza of Maggiore and the town square in cars two it is clear that the fictional world of cars have modeled Luigi's home town on the piazza in Bologna.
Now going back to the fountain. This apparently inspired the younger brother, to design a logo for Maserati based on the trident held by Neptune as depicted in the fountain. which is why the Maserati Logo is a trident.
Back to the world of cars, the fountain is featured with a trident but in place of Neptune is a car, that car is the Maserati Tipo 26. the first Maserati that the Maserati brothers made. So the fountain that inspired the Maserati Logo, in the cars world features the first Maserati in place of Neptune.
There are many Fiat Puntos, 500s and pandas featured in the crowds of italy, fiat really went all in on the product placement with this movie.
There is another blink and you'll miss it moment in Paris. They visit a parts Market. and Matter encounters a car selling headlights. This moment is a gag inserted by Pixar to make a joke about all previous films and movies the featured cars always had the headlights for the eyes, and it was only Cars movies that made putting the eyes in the windscreen a common thing to do.
The car "Celine" has headlights in her eyes and it freaks Matter out. This car also happens to be based on an Alfa Romeo Duetto
Jay ward served as the creative director for the Cars films and he is a massive car nerd who obsess about the details, the movies are littered with little references like those above.
I may have gone too deep.. lol
