Lightning McQueen

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Lightning McQueen (or simply known as "Stickers", as Sally calls him) is the protagonist in Cars and the deuteragonist in Cars 2.

Cars
Lightning is a red racecar sponsored by Rust-eze Medicated Bumper Ointment ("With Just a Little Rust-eze, you can look like Lightning McQueen!"). McQueen's model is a 2006 handmade race car-one of a kind.



He is #95 in the movie, and at the beginning of the movie, he is racing his first Piston Cup race in Nashville, Tennessee, and is winning.

At first, McQueen is obnoxious and rude to everyone, but one night, on the way to Los Angeles, CA, he is accidentally separated from his transporter, Mack, after a quartet of tuner cars bump Mack's trailer, causing the racecar to fall out. When McQueen wakes up he notices that Mack is gone, and tries to follow him only to lose him in the process, and after a turn of events including almost being hit by a train and running into a grumpy Peterbilt, ends up in Radiator Springs where he accidentally tears up the main road and is arrested by Sheriff, who then tells him, "Boy, you're in a heap of trouble." The next morning, McQueen is put on trial, where Doc Hudson, the judge, want him out of town at first, but eventually changes his mind and has McQueen be forced to fix the road as punishment. While McQueen is still trying to fix the road, he eventually starts to know more about Radiator Springs and its inhabitants, including befriending a tow truck named Mater and falling in love with a sports car named Sally Carrera, who owns the Cozy Cone Motel. McQueen then eventually realizes that Doc Hudson is actually a former racecar whose career ended after Doc suffered a severe accident one day and won four Piston Cups prior, and that Radiator Springs was once a popular tourist attraction but eventually lost popularity due to the construction of Interstate 40. Shortly after fixing the road, McQueen decides to stay at Radiator Springs much longer to help everyone out, only for Mack and several camera cars to eventually find him and send him to Los Angeles so that he can participate in the race. During the race, Lightning McQueen immediately performs several moves that Doc (now his crew chief) showed him during a race against him at Willy's Butte.

At the end of the film, he lost the race out of good intentions, and got a new paint job, but still sponsored by Rust-eze, although at the beginning of the film, he wanted a Dinoco sponsorship.

Cars Toons: Mater's Tall Tales
Lightning now serves as the deuteragonist in Mater's very own show.

The show begins with Mater telling Lightning what he used to be and did in the past. However, Lightning never believes Mater (as he wasn't there), and whenever he asks Mater if the stories really happened, Mater will always say, "Don't you remember? You was there, too!". Then, Mater continues the stories, including Lightning's sudden participation. The episodes end with Mater leaves, often followed by the characters and/or references from Mater's stories, implying that the stories might be real. Here, McQueen is often shown getting hurt or getting some other predicament (such as being chased by bulldozers and being trapped in a burning building) in some of Mater's stories, although not always..

Cars 2
In the sequel, Lightning returns, but as a deuteragonist. This time around, Lightning is racing in the first ever World Grand Prix to determine who's the world's fastest car. But the road to the championship is filled with plenty of potholes, detours, and hilarious surprises.

Number 95 Lightning McQueen is still a hotshot racecar, but his rookie days are past him. Now a permanent resident of Radiator Springs, Lightning has become a bona fide worldwide celebrity as winner of four Piston Cups.

After his latest win, Lightning returns home to enjoy life in the slow lane for a while with sweetheart Sally, best friend Mater and the rest of his Radiator Springs family. His off-season is unexpectedly cut short when Mater inadvertently prompts Lightning to enter the World Grand Prix, a high profile, three-part exhibition race that will take him around the globe.

With a fresh custom paint job and real, working headlights, Lightning sets off to Japan, Italy and England with Mater in tow for the adventure of a lifetime. But competing against the fastest cars in the world tests more than his racing skills when Lightning realizes his wide-eyed best friend may not be the pit chief nor ambassador he needs to navigate the unfamiliar international terrain.

During a race against several other competitors including an Italian car named Francesco Bernoulli, Lightning unexpectly loses the race in Tokyo after Mater is unexpectedly mistaken for a spy and therefore abandoning his position as crew chief. McQueen gets mad at Mater and claims that he doesn't need or want his help anymore, causing the tow truck to go on his own adventure as a spy. When he was in Porto Corsa, he learns from Uncle Topolino that he has been too harsh on Mater and should accept him for who he is. In the middle of the race in London, he chases Mater through the streets, trying to apologize, not knowing that he had a bomb in his engine. After the chase, they hear from Professor Z that it's voice activated and can only be deactivated by the one who activated it in the first place. Mater soon realizes that Miles Axlerod is the criminal behind the World Grand Prix, but is worried that nobody will believe him. Then, Lightning tells him what he learned, and Mater goes to the palace and forces Miles to deactivate the bomb. For that, Lightning decides to bring Mater to all his races from now on.

Personality
Though nice and pleasant, Lightning can be a bit selfish and self-centered sometimes. He is also brave, courageous, and daring.

Specifications

 * Top speed: 200 mph
 * Zero to 60: 3.2 seconds
 * Engine: V-8
 * Horsepower: 750

Lightning has coil-over shocks with tubular A arm front suspension, a solid axle rear end and vented disc brakes at all four wheels. He also has air flaps on his roof to prevent flipping.

Trivia
T-shirt with red sleeves and has in the middle of the shirt the 95 racing number with the lightning bolt of Lightning McQueen. A toy similar to Lightning can also be seen.
 * His racing number, "95" is a reference to the year 1995, when Pixar's first feature-length film, Toy Story was released. Originally, his number was going to be 57, which is the year John Lasseter was born.
 * Lightning's last name "McQueen" is a reference to Glenn McQueen, a supervising animator at Pixar who passed away in 2002.
 * In the first official teaser trailer of Cars 2, for unknown reasons, Lightning McQueen has on his original Rust-eze customization, which never appeared in the sequel. It may be because the new paint job wasn't finalized at the time of the release of the teaser trailer.
 * Lightning, along with other countless versions of him, have been released in the Cars, Cars Toons, and Cars 2 Die-Cast Lines.
 * According to a Storytellers Book, Lightning's original sponsor was Smell Swell before Rust-eze.
 * In Toy Story 3 in the Caterpillar Room at Sunnyside Daycare, you can see one of the kids with a white
 * Lightning's back bumper is yellow. This follows NASCAR's tradition of putting yellow rookie stripes on rookie drivers' cars.
 * Lightning's design was inspired by stock cars, and a more curvaceous Le Mans endurance racers . Mcqueenheadslight.png
 * After Lightning's redesign in Cars 2, he has working headlights instead of stickers. However, Sally still calls him "Stickers".
 * Capture_plein_écran_2011-06-17_145045.jpg Tokyo an advertisement for a vacuum cleaner named "Lightning McClean" is seen.
 * His Spanish name is Rayo McQueen. In Spanish, "rayo" means "beam" or "ray."
 * His French name is Flash McQueen.
 * In Polish, he is called Zygzak McQueen. (z-ih-g-z-ah-k) The word "zygzak" means "zigzag" in Polish.
 * His Danish name is Lynet McQueen. The Danish word "lynet" means "the lightning".
 * His Dutch name is Bliksem McQueen. The Dutch word "bliksem" means "lightning".
 * His Italian name is Saetta McQueen. The Italian word "saetta" means "flash of lightning".
 * His Swedish name is Blixten McQueen. The Swedish word "Blixten" means "the flash".
 * His Albanian name is Vetëtima McQueen. The Albanian word "Vetëtima" means "lightning".
 * His Portuguese name is Faísca McQueen. The Portuguese word "faísca" means "spark".