Disney is finally bringing its beloved Cars franchise to the Magic Kingdom park in Orlando, Florida. As part of a massive expansion to Frontierland, the company announced a Cars land with two new attractions on the former site of Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island. Disney recently released more details on its upcoming Cars expansion—and it looks pretty promising.
The main attraction will be a high-speed, rally-style course meant to simulate "racing over rocky terrain, ascending to mountain peaks, and dodging around geysers," the company says. The second, yet-to-be-announced attraction will be geared toward smaller children and families.
"Our primary goal is creating an emotional experience for our guests," said Imagineer Michael Hundgen during a presentation at SXSW in Austin, Texas. "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."
To get a better idea of how everything will look and feel, Disney built a dedicated dirt track in Florida to simulate things like elevation changes, rocky bypasses, and high-speed off-roading. The company released a video showing Imagineers and executives traversing said course in Polaris RZRs.
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But don’t worry, the final ride vehicles won’t look like these run-of-the-mill off-roaders.
"We’re using a customized production vehicle," Hundgen confirmed. "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."
Disney and Pixar will create custom vehicles based on characters from the Cars franchise, including favorites like Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater. Plus, there will be a few other new characters we haven’t seen yet, complete with rugged off-road elements, special names, and even racing numbers—"Just like a real race," Hunden says.
Disney has already started construction of the new Cars attractions at its Magic Kingdom park, but the company says the new Cars land in Orlando likely won’t be ready until 2028. But, it seems like it could be worth the wait.
Source: Disney Parks Blog
