First Look: Disney Unveils New Cars-Themed Ride Vehicle Designs for Magic Kingdom Expansion

Mar 08, 2025 in "Cars Land Magic Kingdom"

Gallery / 5 Photos
Cars Concept Art

Posted: Saturday March 8, 2025 1:25pm ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Disney has shared new concept art for the ride vehicles set to debut in Magic Kingdom’s upcoming Cars-themed land. First announced at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, this new expansion will see Lightning McQueen and friends leave Radiator Springs behind to take on rugged frontier terrain.

Cars Concept Art

During The Future of World-Building at Disney panel at SXSW, Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter and Imagineer Michael Hundgen offered new details about the attraction’s innovative ride vehicles. According to Hundgen, the Imagineering team is designing a brand-new type of ride vehicle specifically for this experience.

“Our primary goal is creating an emotional experience for our guests,” Hundgen explained. “For this Cars attraction, we need to invent a new type of ride vehicle. No one builds these in a factory because it has to do so much more than just carrying you from one place to another. We have to create a car that conveys a feeling when you ride in it.”

Cars Concept Art

To bring that feeling to life, Imagineers took inspiration from real-world off-road vehicles. The team traveled to the Arizona desert to test-drive rugged vehicles over rocky terrain, simulating the conditions guests will experience on the new attraction. This hands-on research helped the team understand how a ride vehicle should handle obstacles like bumpy trails, sharp turns, and steep climbs — all while maintaining the signature Cars charm.

In their next step, Imagineers worked with a motocross company to build a dirt track and test a customized vehicle equipped with sensors to gather real-time data. The information collected will help shape how the ride vehicles move and respond to terrain.

“We’re using a customized production vehicle,” Hundgen added. “It has sensors all over it, and we’re taking it for test drives on our dirt track to gather data on how the vehicle responds to different terrain. This is where we turn that feeling we want into real-world engineering.”

Pixar’s Pete Docter revealed that the ride vehicles won’t just feel exciting — they’ll also feature their own unique personalities. Concept art shared during the panel showcased race car-inspired designs, with each vehicle having its own name and number, just like a real race car.

A proof of concept model was also shown, which seems to suggest that the ride will follow a track, and will not be trackless as originally thought.

Proof of concept model

Construction is set to begin in 2025, with more details expected to emerge in the coming months.

Closer view of the new Cars-themed attractions at Magic Kingdom

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Agent H13 hours ago

It’s alright.

MrPromey14 hours ago

It doesn't which is why nothing you quoted says anything about Snow White. Go back and re-read your first reply and what you quoted. You're just crazy. ... 😇 ... No, I think you must have read my earlier post (that had part of something relating to a Disney live action remake I think they should have diverted to D+ once things started getting weird in production) which was supposed to be part of a reply in another thread, in another section of this forum, completely. I edited it out, apparently before you had a chance to reply but not before you had a chance to read it. Sorry about that - it wasn't intentional gaslighting.

Agent H14 hours ago

Fair enough but I don’t see how this entire thing has to do with Snow White other then maybe one reference to princess fairytale hall?

MrPromey14 hours ago

For me, Figment is great merchandise for a character Disney killed 25 years ago. We're now two generations in of folks who have no idea what the original hype was about for what everyone today thinks of as the "Epcot Mascot". While I agree with your opinion, I can't imagine most kids would. Would love to see them bring him back, though. Like a lot of things with Disney today, I see tons of wasted potential.

Casper Gutman15 hours ago

Modern Figment is awful. Not appealing.

Brer Panther15 hours ago

No disrespect towards Toothless, but in my opinion, he's no Figment.

Casper Gutman16 hours ago

Yes, a tariff increase, massive decrease in international tourism, and recession will all affect business plans, but those aren’t what I was talking about. I was referring to the erratic, arbitrary, irrational, and incoherent way tariff policy is changing daily, which makes any long term planning a complete impossibility.

MrPromey16 hours ago

Go back and read the post I was responding to with the quote from who they were responding to. I wasn't trying to claim that Disney had NOTHING at their disposal. I was very specifically talking about "dragons and dinosaurs". ... and I was talking about a lot more than the castle with that concept art. Getting the castle right is just the start of it.

AidenRodriguez73116 hours ago

You and me both

Agent H16 hours ago

1. What does Snow White have to do with anything? 2. I was responding to the claim that Disney had nothing to compete with Harry Potter world . 3. The average guest might not have a big appetite for villains land but they might just be surprised when it turns out to be super good. 4. When you say I’m being fooled by some concept art I actually do believe the castle in the concept art will be that small because from the guest perspective it’s supposed to be high in the sky. Hopefully the forced perspective will be better this go round.

EricsBiscuit16 hours ago

If a 10% tariff is derailing your long term plans then your vision and leadership is weak. WDW was built before NAFTA and a myriad of other “free trade” agreements were ratified.

James Alucobond17 hours ago

Yeah, it would likely be very difficult now, especially on the south side of the land. On the north side, you could probably use that weird little refueling depot or whatever it is across from the Droid Depot and Ronto Roasters for load/unload, and the northern extent could just hug the perimeter, but it would be a mess to navigate the southern infrastructure at this point. If they'd incorporated it from the beginning, they could've even had it pass through and over some of the Rise show scenes like a separate tram evacuating non-prisoners.

MrPromey17 hours ago

Absolutely agree with all of this and frankly, the whole Star Wars collection of stories is shallow enough and the IP universal enough that you don't really need to be much of a fan to enjoy any of it. People know what a lightsaber is. They know what a droid is and that the guys in the masks are all (mostly) bad. I think as an IP, it's better than HP in that regard. It would have been fairly easy to make this a complete land from the get-go. How easy from a logistic and engineering point it is to get what they've built to that point, now, I don't know. PeopleMover, for instance, I think would have been near impossible to add to MK tomorrowland after the fact to the degree it's integrated today without tearing out major components of those existing structures to add the needed support to handle the ride system.

James Alucobond17 hours ago

IMO, never has a land more desperately needed a PeopleMover equivalent. It would add a lot to the kinetics and make it feel way more like a lived-in city without needing actors. With a few small indoor mine or docking bay scenes and the rest of the already detailed land for scenery, you’d be good to go. That alongside a Star Tours move-in, the originally planned rideable beast, and table service would make the land feel so much more complete and enjoyable.