It’s official! While Disney confirmed that a new Cars-themed area was coming to Magic Kingdom a while back, we only had a handful of details about it.
Cars Area Concept Art ©Disney
But, that’s all changed, because not only do we know more details about this new part of the park — we also know what it will officially be CALLED!
Get ready to travel to Piston Peak! Disney Imagineers have revealed the name of this new Cars-themed area coming to Magic Kingdom. Inspired by the United States’ National Parks — and Rocky Mountain National Park, specifically — this new spot will officially be under construction beginning on July 7th.
©Disney
If Piston Peak sounds familiar, it’s for a good reason! Piston Peak National Park is the setting for Disney’s 2014 animated film, Planes: Fire & Rescue, which is part of the Cars universe. Imagineers shared that the Piston Peak coming to Magic Kingdom is not directly from the Planes movie, but it is where Disney is pulling some of its inspiration from.
©Disney
Piston Peak is based on Rocky Mountain National Park, which includes red rocks, mountains, rivers, and tons of diverse landscapes. But it’s also based on Disney animated parks, and even existing park buildings like Disney’s Wilderness Lodge and Grizzly Peak in Disney California Adventure!
Wilderness Lodge
The buildings in Piston Peak will have “car-ified” elements like lower windows so that cars can see out of them, entrances and building additions that are big enough for cars, and architecture that shows the cars are using found materials — like old wagon wheels — in their buildings.
Disney also shared that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will be subtly updated to fit into the Piston Peak area — you’ll see rainbow geyser pools scattered around the base of the mountain, and possibly even some tire tread tracks in the dirt!
Coming to Frontierland at Magic Kingdom, a new area themed to Pixar Animation Studios’ “Cars” will leave Radiator Springs and head to the wilderness with two new attractions, including an off-road race.
Oh, and did we mention that this area will have a LOT of water elements and shade?! Both are things that have been sorely missing in some of the other lands opened recently. Imagineers said they lost count of the number of waterfalls being added to this new area.
We also know that there will be a geyser inspired by Old Faithful called Old Tankful — which is just the best pun.
@Disney
We can’t WAIT to learn more about the new Cars area coming to Magic Kingdom. Piston Peak will certainly add something new to this iconic park! We’ll be on the lookout for more updates on this new area, so make sure you stay tuned to the Disney Food Blog for the latest Disney news and more.
EVERYTHING We Know About Cars Area Coming to Disney World’s Magic Kingdom
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This has me more hopeful and a little excited for future stuff. The Rivers of America are leaving but I feel the water feature is just going to change shape and feature prominently in villains land. The water around the perimeter makes me optimistic about the possibly of a “fiendship” boat ride from Piston Peak to Vilains land through a transition area that becomes the river Styx.
I won’t be experiencing it. The moment they start dismantling the ROA, I am permanently done with Disney. I will sell my stock and never set foot on Disney property again. So the Disney Food Blog is excited because it will have water and shade…it already has that and it’s gorgeous. This is just another one of Iger’s ‘brilliant’ plans that will never look as good as the concept art, nor will it work as well either. Which new ‘attraction/building/redesign has actually worked properly in the several years? Destroying the most beautiful part of the Magic Kingdom makes absolutely no sense, especially since Walt made sure there was plenty of property so they could grow. This is just destroying Americana which the Board and Iger seem to hate. Bye bye, Disney; you used to be great but now you’re just another amusement park. I can get all of that much closer to home and for a whole lot cheaper.
Interesting…
You know what makes an excellent water feature? Rivers of America! I just hope they stay true to the spirit of our national parks which do have rivers & ponds & shade
Does anyone else find this a bit disturbing that Disney is using motor vehicles as the defining feature of our national parks? Not a fan of the new land…
Hurry up, Disney, and get this done! I can’t wait!
Splash Mountain would have fit in perfectly with this. The red rocks, mountains and rivers as you described really would have blended great.
It “looks” a little better than I expected (assuming they stick to the concept pics, I’m relieved to see water features included. But what I’ve been most dreading about this, that also seems implied in those renderings is the noise and potential “dust”. Not exactly frontier-ish.
Cool idea, Rick!
It sounds awesome, just hate they had to destroy something else that was awesome to create it
I have wanted this so bad! I’m super excited for this
Rick, there was nothing in the article about a river “friendship boat” to VillainsLand.
So they are going to incorporate BTM into it also? So instead of making the Cars area fit the already established theme of the area, they are going to change things in Frontierland to fit IT. I mean, tire tracks around BTM? What’s next? A car in front of Haunted Mansion?
I would be more excited if they were not destroying Rivers of America and Tom Sawyers Island. They could have left in the history of the park and still put in this ride. They have plenty of room for both.
What a lovely uptempo article. More like this please DFB!
It totally sucks. Nice ride, totally wrong place. They’re destroying the magic Kingdom. How arrogant do you possibly have to be in order to be willing to stand up and smile when you’re destroying the incredible works of Walt Disney. This totally sucks.