The stars of Disney and Pixar’s Cars are to reunite at Rennsport Reunion 7 between September 28 and October 1 at the WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. The full size Sally Carrera and Lightning McQueen now call the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart and the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles their respective homes. For this event, the two museums have kindly loaned Sally and Lightning to allow them to be brought together once again.
“You can’t have a celebration of motorsport and Porsche without Lightning McQueen and Sally Carrera!” explains Jay Ward, Creative Director of Franchise of Pixar Animation Studios. “The life size cars were created back in 2006 for the premiere of the original Cars movie, held at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte. Sally was made from a real 996-generation 911 and actually runs and drives. Sally and Lightning often travelled together to celebrate key moments and they got to see a lot of the world as new Cars movies were launched. In the past decade, though, they’ve been on display far apart, an even on different continents – it’s wonderful that they’re being reunited at Rennsport after so many years.”
Both Jay Ward and Cars production designer, Bob Pauley (who originally designed Sally over 20 years ago) will be attending the Rennsport Reunion 7.
Making its return to the limelight after its record-breaking sale last year, the 2022 “Sally Special” will, thanks to its generous owner, also be on display at Rennsport. A one-off equipped 911 with dozens of unique parts and finishes specifically designed for the car and created in collaboration between Pixar and Porsche, the car sold for $3.6M at the Sotheby’s auction at Monterey. Every dollar of the sale price was split between two charities; Girls Inc. and the UNHCR, respectively providing help and educational support to young girls across America and aid to children and families as a result of the war in Ukraine. Sally and Lightning will be positioned right at the heart of the Rennsport Reunion displays, allowing visitors to get up close to both beloved characters.
More information about Rennsport, and how to obtain tickets, can be found here.
Until I saw “Cars” with my 7yoa stepson and 7yoa nephew, I always thought of 911s as male. That changed. Such a sweet and endearing series of family films; we could use less gunplay and vulgarity in Hollywood, donchathink?