Crashing the Pixar Motorama car show

The animated film studio Pixar sits behind newly aged brick walls on a sprawling campus in the East Bay that looks and seems a little like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, especially since you can't get inside. But we've been inside, and it is a pretty wonderful place.

On July 12 Pixar's Jay Ward, guardian of the "Cars" franchise and all the wheeled wonders that entails, organized the latest Pixar Motorama, the greatest car show you'll never see.

Motorama is for Pixar employees and their families only (and for us), but since you know us, we can get you in, at least figuratively, with this report.

Why a car show at an animation studio? At Pixar, there are almost as many extracurricular activities as there is animation work, from an improv comedy club to employee musical groups, the latter which get their own special day on the campus known as “Pixarpalooza.” But last Friday it was all about the cars or, we should say "Cars," the franchise that has made somewhere around $1 billion of the more than $8 billion the studio has amassed so far.

“We started developing 'Cars' after 'Toy Story,'” said John Lasseter, the animation genius behind the studio and a lifelong car guy. “I noticed a lot of Pixar employees had interesting cars. So we had a car show.”

That was 12 years ago, and while it started out as just an employee show, it kind of grew. Ward inherited the show after that first year and you couldn't have picked a better organizer. He took it from a nice employee diversion and built it into something extraordinary.

“In the summer of 2000 we had no manufacturer relationships, no studio relationships, no real contacts, it was the early days of (working on) 'Cars'

(the movie),” Ward said. “Then in 2001, 2002, 2003 we started meeting people at car shows and manufacturers and designers started asking, 'Would you like a car?' Then real GM show cars started showing up and it just started accelerating.”

Past Motorsrama have had real concept cars from the EcoJet and the Ford Fortynine to the Stingray concept, as well as new cars that weren't in showrooms yet. There were no concepts at this year's show but there were some cars that would make you yelp if you saw them on the street:

- The only 911 GT3 in the United States

- A Tesla Model X with Falcon doors in the upright and locked position

- A Ferrari F12

- McLaren MP4-12C Spider

- Jaguar F-Type

- SRT Viper

- Audi R8 V10 Plus

- Maserati Quattroporte

- Aston Martin Rapide S

- Aston Martin Vanquish

Jay Leno, longtime supporter of the show, sent a ghastly perfect Volga GAZ -21 Series 3. The Petersen Automotive Museum trucked Steve McQueen's Jag and the Round-Door Rolls up. Mechanical whiz Tony Bottini brought three Disneyland Autopia cars he had converted to electric power and not only showed them, but let people drive them around Pixar's jogging track at speed. LIT Motors, the guys who are going to make 10,000 gyroscopically stabilized two-wheeled enclosed motorcycle things a year and revolutionize transportation, brought prototype #2 of their mechanical animal. There was something that looked like a kid's tricycle with a backwards set of handlebars, carbon-fiber frame and electric drive called the YikeBike. There was an all-titanium bicycle called a Co Mooter. There was a 1936 Pierce Arrow vacation trailer pulled by a Diamond Truck with a Henderson motorcycle in the back, the latter which itself was powered by a longitudinally mounted inline four.

By sheer luck, collector car dealer Fantasy Junction is directly across the street from Pixar in Emeryville. They brought two cars from their vast inventory: a Nash Healey and an AC Bristol.

Employee cars ranged from a 2CV , 914, two split-window VW camper vans in great shape and a pop-top VW Synchro to a couple of cool Honda racing motorcycles and Pixar Lighting VP Ian Megibben's beautifully restored 1974 Honda CB550.

“I have become more infatuated with automobiles because of Motorama,” said Megibben.

He got his Honda five years ago “…with the hope of maybe one day bringing it here.” That hope lead him to fix the brakes, among other things, making the bike much safer.

“So you could say the Motorama saved your life?” chimed in Pixar employee Bob Pauley, who showed off his own freshly painted Volvo P1800.

“Yeah!” Megibben said.

The manufacturers loved the show, too.

“It's fun,” said McLaren's Michele Shapiro. “It's always fun to have people see the car, jump into it, touch it; it's always fun.”

“We never sell anything at these type of events but it's good for the brand,” said Ferrari of Mill Valley's Emmannuel Turin.

“We honored Mr. Lasetter last year,” said Paige Wheeler of the Petersen Automotive Museum. “We bring cars here to thank him for all he's done; hopefully we will inspire some artists with these cars, but mostly we're here to thank Pixar.”

“This is very, very, very, very cool,” said Dustin Goodwin, who works at Cole European, which brought out a beautiful red F-Type.

Ward looks for specific things in the cars he recruits. “They've got to be: special, super, racing, unique, cool, different.”

“Our goal with 'Cars' is to never forget the car guy,” said Lasseter. “Have fun, make it funny, but it's gotta be authentic.”

Now the Motorama will be every other year, alternating with the Pixarpalooza. On the off years, there will still be a car show but it will be like it was in the first year, with just employee cars, and they'll all be gathered in a far corner of the Pixar parking lot called the Pixar Back 40. “A keg and a couple of pop ups,” Ward said. That'd still be pretty cool. Wonder if we can weasel our way into that, too?

By Mark Vaughn