You’ve heard of Stars on Ice?
Welcome to Cars on Ice!
Characters from the Disney Pixar movie “Cars” are part of Disney on Ice currently performing at Ottawa’s Canadian Tire Centre.
If you know who Lightning McQueen is then you likely have children in your life, and you know how big a deal this is. The Cars movies have grossed well over a billion dollars at the box office.
This is the first time the popular show has featured actual cars tearing around on the ice. “We’re the only show in the world that gets to have them,” says skater Eric Palin. “It’s pretty special.”
The cars are specially designed and built. They are roughly 85% the size of the original models the characters are based on. They are powered by 48-volt electric motors. The tires are filled with foam and lined with spikes for traction.
Each car is programmed with special animatronics. The characters of Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater even have moveable rubber mouths for talking.
“They took about 2,000 man hours to construct over about 3 months to get them ready for this production,” says Palin.
“Ka-chow!” says Lightning McQueen.
The show has plenty of other Disney characters as well. Palin plays the character of Ken, as in Ken and Barbie from Toy Story.
But it just might be the cars that race away with the show.
Disney on Ice presents Worlds of Fantasy, Feb. 25th to Mar. 1st at the Canadian Tire Centre.
