What's the Name of the Yellow Car in Cars? And the Blue One?

GuideCharactersCars 1, 2 and 3

A yellow car, a blue one, a black one: each color in the saga matches one or more specific characters. The yellow car in Cars 3 is first and foremost Cruz Ramirez, but Luigi, the little Fiat 500 from Radiator Springs, is yellow too. The blue one is often Sally, the sky-blue Porsche, or Doc Hudson in navy blue. The black one in Cars 3 is mainly Jackson Storm, and the purple one in Cars 2 is Holley Shiftwell. This guide sorts more than fifty characters by color, with their film, and points out the ones whose color changes from one installment to the next.

Summary

• Yellow car, blue car, black car… the short answer
• The red, orange and yellow cars
• The blue cars, from Sally to Dinoco
• The green and black cars, from Chick Hicks to Jackson Storm
• Purple, pink, white, gray: the other colors
• The characters who change color from one film to the next
• Summary Table
• FAQ

---

Yellow car, blue car, black car… the short answer

Kids often refer to the characters by their color, long before they learn their names. Here are the quick answers, before the color-by-color details.

• Yellow car: Cruz Ramirez in Cars 3; in Radiator Springs, the little yellow Fiat 500 is Luigi.
• Blue car: Sally Carrera, the sky-blue Porsche, or Doc Hudson, the navy-blue Hudson Hornet; the “little blue car” can also be Guido, the small forklift.
• Black car in Cars 3: Jackson Storm, black with a blue lightning bolt.
• Purple car in Cars 2: Holley Shiftwell, painted magenta-purple.
• Green number 86 car: Chick Hicks.
• Orange car: Snot Rod in Cars, Grem in Cars 2 and, in Cars 3, Ryan “Inside” Laney, No. 21.
• Pink car in Cars 2: Tamiko, pink and white.
• Brown, rusty car: Mater, the tow truck.

If your child isn't sure, ask which film the car was in: the same color doesn't mean the same character from one film to the next, and some characters even change their paint job along the way.

🧩 Sally's sky blue and Doc Hudson's navy blue come together piece by piece in our Cars puzzles.

---

The red, orange and yellow cars

Red is, above all, Lightning McQueen's color. In Cars, he wears his Rust-eze Piston Cup livery, a red body with an orange and yellow lightning bolt across the doors and his sponsor's logo on the hood. Several characters share this shade.

• Lightning McQueen: red, with an orange and yellow lightning bolt (Cars, then Cars 2 and Cars 3, with the variations detailed below).
• Mack, his truck — a red 1985 Mack Super-Liner (Cars).
• Red: almost entirely red, with thin gold detailing on his sides (Cars).
• Mia and Tia: twin 1992 Mazda MX-5s, both red (Cars).
• Francesco Bernoulli: in the colors of the Italian flag, with red on his nose and the middle of his body (Cars 2).
• Frank, the combine harvester — burgundy red, a little rusty and dirty (Cars).

For orange, the answer depends on the film, since each one has its own orange cars.

• Snot Rod, from the tuner gang, who sneezes a lot — orange (Cars).
• Grem: an orange AMC Gremlin (Cars 2).
• Rip Clutchgoneski: orange, with green and red graphics (Cars 2).
• Smokey: modeled after a Hudson pickup, orange with patches of rust on the fenders and the bed (Cars 3).
• Ryan “Inside” Laney: mostly orange with a wide blue stripe, No. 21 for the Blinkr team (Cars 3). Before him, No. 21 was Speedy Comet, orange at the front and blue on the sides and rear.

Yellow, meanwhile, brings together characters from all three films.

• Luigi: a yellow 1959 Fiat 500, in Radiator Springs (Cars).
• Cruz Ramirez: entirely yellow, with the Rust-eze Racing Center logo; a sports car that borrows features from the Jaguar F-Type and the Chevrolet Corvette (Cars 3).
• Jeff Gorvette: a bright yellow Chevrolet Corvette C6.R, with the American flag on his sides and No. 24 on his doors (Cars 2).
• Miguel Camino: yellow, with red, black and orange patterns (Cars 2).
• Miss Fritter: shaped like a yellow school bus and perched on big tires (Cars 3).

---

The blue cars, from Sally to Dinoco

Blue is worn by several Radiator Springs mainstays and by the Dinoco team. If your child talks about the “little blue car,” it could be Sally or Guido, the small forklift.

• Sally Carrera: a 2002 Porsche 911 Carrera with chrome wheels, painted sky blue, or baby blue (Cars).
• Doc Hudson: a navy-blue 1951 Hudson Hornet; back in his Piston Cup racing days, he was painted royal blue (Cars).
• The King: a 1970 Plymouth Superbird in Dinoco light blue, No. 43 (Cars).
• Cal Weathers: a sky-blue stock car who raced for Dinoco (Cars 3).
• Guido: painted in several shades of blue, with two gray lifting arms; a forklift who speaks almost nothing but Italian, and whose model is fictional (Cars).
• DJ, from the tuner gang — entirely blue, with a green pinstripe on his doors (Cars).
• Finn McMissile: metallic blue, chrome wheels, a two-part grille that suggests a mustache; a 1965 Faultless GT, a fictional British model very close to the Aston Martin DB5 (Cars 2).
• Shigeko: blue and white, one of the film's three dancers (Cars 2).

At the end of Cars 3, Lightning McQueen turns blue in tribute to Doc Hudson: his new livery is described below, along with the other color changes.

🏁 Cal Weathers in Dinoco sky blue and Lightning in his end-of-film blue livery can be found in miniature, alongside other racers, among our Cars 3 toy cars.

---

The green and black cars, from Chick Hicks to Jackson Storm

Green is, first and foremost, the color of Chick Hicks, Lightning McQueen's rival in the first film, who spent years in The King's shadow. He has a white number 86 on his doors, yellow wheels and a grille that gives him a mustache.

• Sarge: a World War II Willys MB Jeep, khaki green (Cars).
• Fillmore: a light-green 1960 Volkswagen bus, covered in rainbows, flowers and stickers (Cars).
• Flo: a 1950s show car, light green verging on turquoise, with white stripes and long tail fins (Cars).
• Wingo, from the tuner gang — green and purple (Cars).
• Nigel Gearsley: a British Aston Martin DBR9 in a green livery (Cars 2).
• Acer: a lime-green 1975 AMC Pacer (Cars 2).
• Professor Z: light green at the front, rear and top, a darker green on his sides (Cars 2).
• Sir Miles Axlerod, the main villain of Cars 2 — dark green, with a gray and black roof.
• Carla Veloso: green and blue patterns, in the colors of the Brazilian flag (Cars 2).
• Van — a forest-green minivan (Cars).

And the green car with only one eye? It does exist: it's Mike Wazowski, called Bob in the French version, a green microcar who shows up in the end credits of Cars, in a parody of Monsters, Inc.

In Cars 3, black belongs mainly to Jackson Storm, with a black, gray and blue livery slashed by a thick blue lightning bolt across his doors. That big bolt sometimes gets him mistaken for “the blue car in Cars 3,” but the sky-blue one is Cal Weathers, and the blue one at the end of the film is Lightning McQueen.

• Lizzie: a black 1923 Ford Model T (Cars).
• Sheriff: a black-and-white 1949 Mercury police car (Cars).
• Lewis Hamilton: entirely black with a yellow pinstripe, No. 2 (Cars 2).

---

Purple, pink, white, gray: the other colors

The purple car in Cars 2 is Holley Shiftwell, with a magenta-purple paint job, chrome wheels and trim, and jade-green eyes.

• Ramone: a 1959 Chevrolet Impala whose signature color is purple, even though he keeps repainting himself (Cars).
• Boost, from the tuner gang — purple on the doors and the outer rims, with a big gray spoiler (Cars).
• Max Schnell: a deep blue-violet carbon fiber body, with the German flag on his trunk and roof (Cars 2).
• Bobby Swift: the Octane Gain racer, in a purple livery decorated with two orange polygons (Cars 3).
• Danny Swervez: a purple and orange Next-Gen racer, No. 19, who replaces Bobby Swift at Octane Gain (Cars 3).
• Minny — a purple minivan, modeled after a 1996 Chrysler Town & Country (Cars).

The pink car in Cars 2 is Tamiko, pink and white, one of the three dancers. Holley Shiftwell's magenta-purple can also pass for pink, and in the Cars Toon “Heavy Metal Mater,” Mia and Tia, now working as waitresses, wear a pink livery.

That leaves white and gray, worn by two racers and a dancer from Cars 2, by Sterling in Cars 3 and by Darrell Cartrip in Cars.

• Shu Todoroki, No. 7 — white with fiery red patterns, including the Ka-Riu dragon (Cars 2).
• Okuni: white, red and black, the third dancer (Cars 2).
• Raoul ÇaRoule: in the colors of the French flag, blue, white and red (Cars 2).
• Sterling: a silver and chrome paint job (Cars 3).
• Darrell Cartrip, Piston Cup race commentator — a gray, red, yellow and blue 1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo (Cars).

And the brown car? That's Mater, covered in rust. He left the factory painted a pale cyan blue, and the only paint still visible on him is on his sides and rear; in Cars, the hood he had lost more than twenty years earlier is sky blue, the color of his original paint. Don't mix him up with Frank, the combine harvester, who is a little rusty too: his paint is burgundy, not brown.

---

The characters who change color from one film to the next

Lightning McQueen changes livery in every film. In Radiator Springs, he is repainted a darker, metallic red, with a white oval on his doors; in Cars 2, he gets an entirely new design, in which his original lightning bolt comes back, redrawn as a flame.

In Cars 3, after his crash, he spends a while in plain primer, with a red 95 on his doors, before Ramone gives him back his red racing livery. At the end, now Cruz Ramirez's crew chief, he adopts a blue livery inspired by the Fabulous Hudson Hornet, Doc Hudson's racing name: his doors read “Fabulous Lightning McQueen,” and his rear bumper reads “95 For Doc Hudson.”

Cruz Ramirez, for her part, signs with Dinoco right after her win in Florida: she gets her new sponsor's logo and the Fabulous Hudson Hornet's number 51, without taking on the Dinoco blue of The King and Cal Weathers.

Ramone, meanwhile, has no fixed color. With no customers, he repaints himself every day in Cars, in purple, gold, red or green; purple remains his signature livery.

In Cars 3, two cars from the same team can also wear the same colors, one after the other. Blinkr's orange and blue No. 21 is Speedy Comet at first, until he is fired and replaced by Ryan “Inside” Laney; Octane Gain's purple and orange car is Bobby Swift at first, then Danny Swervez, who replaces him before the last race of the 2016 season.

Finally, in Cars 2, a detail that varies with each country's dub: at the welcome party in Tokyo, Lightning meets Lewis Hamilton and, in the French version, Raoul ÇaRoule in the colors of the French flag, in place of Jeff Gorvette, the yellow American car.

---

Summary Table

---

FAQ — Frequently Asked Questions

• What is the name of the yellow car in Cars?
  In Cars 3, it's mainly Cruz Ramirez, an all-yellow sports car. In Radiator Springs, the little yellow car is Luigi, a 1959 Fiat 500 who appears in all three films; in Cars 2, Jeff Gorvette is bright yellow too.
• What is the name of the blue car in Cars?
  In the first film, it's usually Sally Carrera, a sky-blue 2002 Porsche 911 Carrera, or Doc Hudson, a navy-blue Hudson Hornet; the “little blue car” can also be Guido, the small forklift painted in several shades of blue, who speaks almost nothing but Italian.
• What is the name of the black car in Cars 3?
  It's Jackson Storm, whose black, gray and blue livery is slashed by a thick blue lightning bolt across his doors.
• What is the name of the purple car in Cars 2?
  It's Holley Shiftwell, painted magenta-purple, with chrome wheels and jade-green eyes. Max Schnell, for his part, has a deep blue-violet body, with the German flag on his trunk and roof.
• What is the name of the green number 86 car in Cars?
  It's Chick Hicks, Lightning McQueen's rival in the first film, who spent years finishing second to The King. He has a white number 86, yellow wheels and a grille that gives him a mustache.
• What is the name of the pink car in Cars 2?
  It's Tamiko, pink and white, one of the three dancers in Cars 2. Holley Shiftwell's magenta-purple can also pass for pink.
• What is the name of the orange number 21 car in Cars 3?
  It's Ryan “Inside” Laney, mostly orange with a wide blue stripe, who races for the Blinkr team. Before him, No. 21 was Speedy Comet, who was fired and replaced by this next-generation racer.

🎨 Lightning McQueen's number 95, the Dinoco logo or a yellow lightning bolt: each one has its own decal in our Cars stickers.

↑ Back to top