Goofs for
Cars (2006) More at IMDbPro »

• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In the courtroom there is a Latin motto over the doorway, that should read "Justitiae via strata veritate" (The way of justice is paved with truth). But the first word is misspelled as "Justitae."
  
  
• Factual errors: Before the last race, when the airplane that writes "Piston Cup" flies toward the screen, the wrong aileron is in the downward position....in other words, it should be turning the opposite direction.
  
  
• Continuity: Guido, when painting the wall of the tire store, skips to the side when seen from the inside.
  
  

• Continuity: Before the final race, when Chick flashes the silver C at Lightning, the reflected C is open toward the rear of Lightning but it should be open to the front, just like it is on Chick. This backwards reflection is also shown during the race when Chick uses it to blind Lightning temporarily.
  
  
• Continuity: During the tie-breaker race, Lightning spots the Radiator Springs residents in the crew pits. In the immediately following closer shot there are several noticeable differences: Mack no longer wears a headset, Ramone stands behind Flo and Mater (he was just standing between them), Sarge and Fillmore move closer to the others, and Sheriff shifts closer to Doc. In the next shot, showing the same group from behind, the positions of the cars change again slightly and Mack's headset is back.
  
  
• Miscellaneous: When Lightning is loaded onto Mac after the first race, they are using video to communicate back and forth. Lightning is trying to convince Mac to drive all night to get to California. Inside the trailer, Lightning's monitor shows all of Mac's face, yet when the camera view switches outside the trailer, there is no camera for Mac to have been looking into.
  
  
• Continuity: When Lightning first goes to Radiator Springs and tears up the street, he is caught in the middle of the road on a electric wire between 2 poles. When that area is shown again there is no wire going across the road at any point.
  
  
• Continuity: As Mini and Van are approaching Radiator Springs, there is nothing on the sides of the road where the damage begins. As they continue through town everyone is in front of them or following them as they pass. After they leave there is a zoom shot down the damaged road. There are now 2 "END CONSTRUCTION ZONE" signs, one on either side of the road. When McQueen "finishes the road" moments later, the signs are gone. The signs stay gone in every available shot except one. When McQueen does finish the road and the townsfolk think he left the signs have suddenly returned.
  
  
• Continuity: When McQueen, Chick, and The King cross the finish line during the first race, McQueen can be seen, on close inspection, sticking out his tongue out and downward, curling it under considerably. When the race officials review the instant replay, his tongue is shown sticking nearly straight out and level.
  
  
• Continuity: Throughout the first race, Chick's two front stickers ("htB" and "86") have blue backgrounds, but during the final race, the backgrounds are white. When he's on the stage after the race, the backgrounds around the two stickers are blue again.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: After the first race, McQueen is being interviewed by a reporter as his pit crew changes his tires from racing slicks to wide street tires with treads. They change the left side, but quit while doing the right side, however the next shot has treads on the right side. In fact, "Chuck" has just finished loosening the lugnuts on the front right when he throws done his impact wrench and quits.
  
  
• Continuity: At the start of the film, The King has brown eyes. However, when he opens them after crashing, they have somehow turned blue. During the credits when he is seen in the museum with his wife, they have turned brown again.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In the second race, when Chick makes Lightning lose control, McQueen passes him in reverse. So McQueen's race position is now second. But a few moments later, we see the board at lap 190 and we see number 43 in the lead and the top part of number 86 (Chick's number) as position two. However, the position board is not updated until cars pass the start/finish line.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Lightning talks to Harve on the phone while in his trailer, establishing that telephones exist in the "Cars" world. Doc later contacts the media, presumably by making a call as well. The question then arises as to why Lightning didn't phone his 'people' to get them to send someone to fix the road so he can go on to California; however, for all intents and purposes, Lightning is a prisoner on a work gang, and most jails/prisons do not allow inmates unrestricted use of a telephone - especially for long-distance calls.
  
  
• Continuity: In the opening race, both the "Re-Volting" and the white "Apple" car are #84.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Lightning McQueen wakes up in the impound yard, the boot is on the driver's side front tire. Mater hooks up to Lightning's rear to tow him in. He should have hooked to the front since one of front tires was incapacitated.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The entire premise of the film revolves around the fact that Lightning, Hicks, and the King are tied for the top spot in the points in the closing laps of the final race. It's been argued that according to the rules of the much similar Nextel Cup Series, the chances for such a tie would be astronomically small. Evidently, the rules of the fictional Piston Cup are different enough to make such a situation much more likely, even if not common (the announcer did say that this was the first three-way tie in Cup's history).
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: When Lightning McQueen is first being chased through Radiator Springs, we see a shot of an intersection with flashing amber lights at a right angle to each other. Though such a configuration may be atypical in US (usually one of the lights is flashing red to determine the right-of-way), it shouldn't cause any confusion. In fact, such a configuration occurs often in some countries during the night on a less busy intersections. In such cases, when neither the traffic light, nor the signs can determine the right-of-way, all vehicles must yield to the traffic on the right or in front of them. Besides, this happens in a town, which, apparently, hasn't seen an organized traffic in years, so an accident due to confusion is very unlikely. For all we know, the locals arranged the lights in this way just for their personal entertainment. Subsequent scenes show that they indeed don't give much thought to the traffic laws, for example while "cruising" together on the new road section.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: After Lightning chases down a truck and discovers it is not Mac, he wants to get back to the Interstate. At a first glance it may seem as if he turns and goes back the way he came (to the Interstate), but arrives to Radiator Springs. However, a closer look reveals that he makes a U-turn after turning right (to watch the truck leave), which means that eventually he went left on the T-junction (possibly becoming confused in the dark), instead of going back.
  
  
• Continuity: After Lightning catches up with a truck he thought was Mack (to discover it's a Peterbuilt), he turns left on the T-junction from what is clearly an asphalt road (the one he just came from). During the actual turn, however, this road suddenly seems to be made of gravel or dirt.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Lightning has a full re-spray just before he leaves Radiator Springs, including white sections with a yellow lightning bolt. But when we see him in the race, he's back in his old colors, and when he gets back to Radiator Springs he's in his new colors again. Evidently, cars change their paint job as readily as humans change clothes, which Ramone demonstrates repeatedly throughout the movie. McQueen's changes are consistent with the plot and the character - he likes his new paint job, but can't use it in a race, because it doesn't feature his sponsor's ads, in particular.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: All the pit crew chiefs (among others) in the movie use headsets similar to those of humans to communicate with their race cars. The race cars themselves, on the other hand, are able to communicate with their pit crew chiefs without any visible headsets. The need for those awkward headsets, which the cars can't put on without someone's help (having no fully functional hands), is never explained.
  
  
• Continuity: This may be an intentional goof by the filmmakers: While Mack is hauling Lightning on the Interstate at night, they are overtaken by a minivan fighting wind resistance from a mattress strapped to his roof. Since the cars in this movie don't use furniture or beds, what do they need mattresses for?
  
  

• Continuity: SPOILER: In the final tie-breaker race, when Lightning stops just before the finish line, he is about a quarter of his body length from it. But in the subsequent wide shot he is almost adjacent to it, and in the next shot when he's about to move backwards, he's almost half of his body length away from it.
  
  
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: SPOILER: During the second race, when Lightning slams on his brakes to prevent himself from crossing the finish line, a female voice is heard saying "What's he up to, Doc?". It has been claimed that no character could've said those words, but the voice clearly belongs to Flo, who is standing on the Doc's left side (as seen in the previous shot).
  
  

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