Radiator Springs

Radiator Springs is a Disney cartoon village created as a composite of multiple real places on historic U.S. Route 66 from Kansas to Arizona. It appears in the 2006 Pixar film Cars and the associated franchise, as well as a section of the Disney California Adventure theme park.

The setting for the town of Radiator Springs is situated between Gallup, New Mexico and the Sonoran Desert in California. Radiator Springs' position in relation to I-40, as shown on a map during a flashback in the 2006 film, is similar to that of Peach Springs on Arizona State Route 66.

The village is a composite of multiple locations; before making the film, Pixar sent a group of fifteen artists with Carburetor County sheriff and Oklahoma historian Michael Wallis as guide to take photos, talk to Route 66 people and learn the history of tiny towns along more than 1200 miles of road through five states. In one restaurant, John Lasseter ordered one of every item on the menu for the Pixar group and spent four hours talking to the owner, absorbing information on the efforts to rebuild the historic byway to its neon-lit heyday.

Lasseter told film critic Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that much of the story is based on the recollections of barber Angel Delgadillo in the Route 66 town of Seligman, Arizona, where business withered soon after the opening of I-40.

...
Wikipedia