That’s right, Lightning McQueen, Mater and more will be taking on the world in Cars 2, a sequel to Disney & Pixar’s box office smash, Cars. Unfortunately, we are going to have to wait a whopping 4 years! That’s right, Cars 2 is scheduled for release in the summer of 2012. That seems like an awful long time, considering my 7 & 9 year olds will be 11 & 13, but I’m more than sure they will still appreciate the flick. Maybe they’ll enjoy it more given that this version will be released in full on 3D, which the Disney folks excel at.

More details at Cinematical via Autoblog

Those crafty marketing guys over the big pond at Opel have hooked up with Disney and Pixar to create animated versions of real life Opel models, just like the stars of Cars the Movie. They’ve even created a micro site similar to the Cars site, with screen savers, wallpapers and a colouring book for the kids.

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Tonight was the night. The pre release preview of Cars at the Varsity theater in downtown Toronto. Of course this is the new Toronto, so our evening began with a few waves of the metal detector wand. It’s ok though, I’d rather know that no misguided open wheel racing fan is going to blow up the screening of the biggest oval racing flick this side of Days of Dunder.

As the story begins, our hero is introduced as the self absorbed rookie who can do it all, but prefers to do it all by himself. The young whipper snapper is dressed down by The King (none other than King Richard hisself) for his attitude, as his crew is abandoning him. A sleep driving incident by Mack the transporter lands the arrogant little dude in Radiator Springs, a sleepy little town that travellers forgot when the interstate bypassed Route 66. In Radiator springs, we meet a wonderful cast of characters and watch as they teach young Lightning Mcqueen what it means to have friends. Along the way, we get to see the Cars version of cow tipping and watch Ramone the low rider change paint more often than I could count. Paul Newman is perfectly cast as the grumpy old guy in town who turns out to be the legendary Hudson Hornet who won the Piston Cup 3 years in a row way back in the Fifties. Perhaps my fave moment in the movie is when Lightning sees Doc Hudson proving to himself that he’s still got it. That cartoon stocker can drift just like old Mr Newman himself when strapped into a Super Mod. The Pixar folks have outdone themselves with the animation this time. The desert scenery is stunning (not to mention imaginative, check out those buttes) and some scenes look quite real. When Filmore raises the Stars & Stripes, I thought it was a real flag.
As one would expect, “Stickers” finds his way as the movie unfolds and becomes a true racer. I don’t want to spoil any details, so you’ll just have to head out this weekend to see Cars: The Movie.

The Garage rates Cars as 5 spark plugs out of 5.

After a full three hours of running around yesterday afternoon, we arrived at the NASCAR Speedpark at Vaughan Mills. We actually reached the mall about 2 minutes after the display ended, which turned out to be a good thing, as we got to see a little bit more than most people did. Just like the Camaro concept that Alex wrote about, these things are runners!

Sally Carrera really is based on a Porsche chassis, with stock appearing brakes & rear end body work. The engine sounds like a stock flat six. Lightning Mcqueen is a “real” little cartoon race car, complete with that race car sound, or so the kids thought. In reality, it sounds like an untuned small block, breathing through mildly muffled side pipes, but at least it gets the idea across. If you look closely, you can even see a full roll cage inside. The racing slicks are cartoonishly large, so I’m not sure if it would be able to do much other than muddle around a parking lot.

We got to see both cars loaded into Mack the transport truck and the kids thought it was pretty cool that they travelled in a real race car hauler. The fact that my kids know what a real race car hauler looks like just shows how well I’ve corrupted them.

The lady who was representing the Toronto based promo company heard that we had driven a while to get there and graciously offered to mail us a set of free movie passes. When she asked how we heard about the display, I told her about The Garage and that I had seen it on the Pixar blog. She then said she would also be sending off some swag for the kids. The Garage is hardly a media outlet, but we’re not proud…bring on the payola!! Besides, it’s all for the kids right?

See more pics of Lightning, Sally and Mac in the gallery