The layout of Cars Land in Disney California Adventure combines a challenging blend of artistry and practicality to recreate a fully functioning theme park version of the animated town of Radiator Springs seen in Pixar’s “Cars” films.
“The layout of Cars Land had to be very carefully thought out,” Walt Disney Imagineering’s Kevin Rafferty said.
Rafferty revealed the secrets behind Cars Land’s layout in the Imagineering in a Box online video series on theme park design and engineering.
As an executive creative director at Imagineering, Rafferty oversaw work on Radiator Springs Racers in Cars Land. Rafferty has helped conceive, design and oversee the creation of a number of Disney attractions including Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, Toy Story Midway Mania, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Mickey’s Philharmagic and Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.
The backstory of “Cars” and the Radiator Springs location in the films influenced the layout and location of everything in DCA’s Cars Land.
Ensuring the efficient form and function of Cars Land while also capturing the story, theme and essence of the “Cars” films and the fictional town of Radiator Springs was challenging.
“We’re going to have guests in these places experiencing them all day long every day,” Rafferty said on Imagineering in a Box. “They have to be functional and comfortable. So we take that into great consideration. How are the guests going to navigate through all of these spaces? And we design to that.”
Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A. with Sleeping Beauty Castle at the end of the entry promenade served as the model for Disney’s version of Route 66 in Cars Land, according to Rafferty.
“Radiator Springs in Cars Land is such a perfect example of that,” Rafferty said on Imagineering in a Box. “As soon as you step into the land you look down the street. The castle is the courthouse. Behind that the radiator cap butte. Behind that the Cadillac Range and Ornament Valley.”
But the buildings in the film version of Radiator Springs were built at a scale to accommodate anthropomorphic cars instead of living, breathing human beings. That scale would take up too much space in Disney California Adventure and feel foreign and distant to visitors.
“We are at human scale” Rafferty said on Imagineering in a Box. “If we had designed Cars Land to be at car scale — which it was designed to be in the movie — everything would be much larger. Everything would be bigger. It would feel bigger.”
Disney Imagineers knew they needed to recreate the main thoroughfare of Radiator Springs in a way that felt intimate and approachable for visitors.
“What we did to enhance and celebrate the charm of Radiator Springs was to bring that scale down for all of the buildings in Cars Land,” Rafferty said on Imagineering in a Box. “The scale came down to a inhabitable, comfortable scale for human beings.”
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Let’s Hear From You
Does Cars Land feel like the Radiator Springs in “Cars” to you? Would you have expected that Cars Land was based on Main Street USA? What’s your favorite part of Cars Land? Let us know in the comments below.
