Lightning McQueen in Eddie's bodyshop

The task to transform cartons into real cars was given by Pixar to Eddie Paul's "Customs By Eddie Paul", a division of EP Industries, Inc.

The project included real-life versions of the characters "Lightning McQueen" (based on a Pontiac Trans Am), "Sally Carrera" (based on a Porsche 911) and tow truck "Mater".

Each vehicle was built in less than one month; the development process included computer 3D modeling - done in Rhino - CNC machining and the bodyshop expertise of Eddie's team.

The cars were displayed at various automotive events to promote the movie and were presented recently at the SEMA Show.

Among the technical difficulties of this particular jobs was the presence of mouths in place of the front grilles. In order to get airflow into the engine, Paul's team installed intake fans to collect air from the underbody and the interior.

The original article on cadalyst goes through some interesting details of the development process.

A complete list and image gallery of the vehicles featured in Pixar's Cars can be found on Top Gear.

About Customs By Eddie Paul

Eddie Paul and "Mater" in real version

Customs By Eddie Paul is the automotive division of E.P. Industries, Inc. specializing in custom cars, rods, trucks and motorcycles. They also create stunt vehicles, show vehicles, props and special effects under extreme deadlines for all of Hollywood’s major film and television studios. Their special vehicles were featured in many movies, including:

• Grease (Greased Lightning & Flamed Merc, 36 vehicles in 2 weeks)
• E.T. The Extraterrestrial (Special vehicles)
• Mask (Custom chopper motorcycles)
• The Dukes of Hazzard (The original General Lee TV stunt cars for the first season)
• CHiPs (Ponch’s Firebird and various cars throughout the series)
• Against All Odds (308 Ferrari and Porsche 911)
• Cobra (4 fully customized chopped-top Mercs for stunts)
• The Mask of Zorro (Full-size robotic horses and flame torches)
• Full-size robotic 14-foot Great White Shark Submarine (Cousteau & The Discovery Channel)
• The Fast and the Furious (all vehicles)
• 2Fast 2Furious (over 200 custom “tuner” cars in 2 months)

In addition to the studio and automotive work, Customs By Eddie Paul produces a series of How-To DVDs and videos geared for the do-it-yourself automotive enthusiast and mechanic.

About E.P. Industries, Inc.

E.P. Industries specializes in the design, development, prototyping and manufacture of many non-automotive technologies for the government, fire-fighting, U.S. Military, and aerospace industries. In addition to our complete automotive capabilities, our 25,000 sq. ft. facility includes 15 CNC work stations, CNC router, CNC plasma-cutting, 3-D digitizing, metal fabrication and welding shop, plastics and woodworking, vacuum-forming, and state-of-the-art digital animation, digital photography, video production and editing.

(Source: cadalyst, EP Indutries, Inc.)