This Is The True Story About How Porsche Built The Sally Carrera ...

A couple of weeks or so ago, Porsche and Disney unveiled the special, one-off, Porsche 911 Sally Special. This is a one of a kind, special edition Porsche 911 that was recently auctioned off at RM Sotheby’s for a staggering amount, and it is of course based upon the character Sally Carrera from the Cars series of films. More than just a blue 911, the special edition featured design cues from Sally herself, such as her tattoo, and it was about bringing her character to life, as much as possible, in real car form.

Sally herself was a 2002 Porsche 911 Carrera, and lives in Radiator Springs. She was specifically from the 991-generation of the 911, and was clearly based upon the sports car classic. However, it wasn’t as simple as just slapping some eyes and a mouth on an existing car. Sally had to be properly designed to work within the Cars universe, and Porsche and Disney went through quite a thorough design process to bring her to life. Thanks to information from The Drive, we now have an idea of just how Porsche and Disney went about creating a hugely popular character in the Cars universe.

How Sally Came Into Being

via Porsche

From the outset, Sally was clearly envisioned as a friendly blue 911, and of course she is a car that can keep up with Lightning McQueen, her love interest in the film and vice versa for McQueen. Something that the Pixar liked about the 911 is that with the engine in the back, there is no large grille at the front of the car giving it a very smooth and clean design. That, according to Pixar Production Designer Bob Pauley and Creative Director Jay Ward, meant Sally had more room for expression versus, say, Sarge the Jeep.

Initially Sally was going to be a 993 generation Porsche, but Pixar wanted a car that was current like McQueen, so thus they went with the 996 generation. Porsche had to come and approve the design, and initially they seemed skeptical about Sally’s role as the 911, as 85% of the customer base for Porsche were men. Ward and Pixar came back at them though and said “it sounds like the place you need to grow is in female customers”. That resonated with Porsche, who loved it and thus Sally was the first licensed vehicle approved for the film, four years before the film's release.

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Making Sure Sally Looked The Part Of A True Porsche 911

via Bob Pauley

Pixar themselves acquired a 911 Carrera, so they could take a mountain of reference photos to be certain that they got everything right. This included how the blinkers behaved to the reflections across the chrome. Following the drawings and sketches, Sally would become a model to help the animation team, and this was all at a time as Pixar’s own rendering technology was improving in leaps and bounds. The headlights on the Carrera proved to be one of the toughest components to render.

It was around this time that a life-size model of Sally was first made, based on a real 1999 Carrera but, unlike the recently auctioned off car, this was simply a model not a road legal car. But she is drivable despite the various mods to get her to look like Sally, and today she resides at the Porsche Museum, after she went around promoting the Cars film alongside a real-life Mater and Lightning McQueen. With the huge eyes on the front, she probably isn’t the easiest car to drive, hence why she isn’t road legal!

Porsche Reverse Engineered The Process

via Porsche

It is interesting to note that, to create the real-life, drivable Sally Special, Porsche had effectively reverse engineer the process. They had to bring a cartoon character back into the real world, and there were lots of things to think about that might simply slip our mind. Things like the Sally Blue paint color, the headlights needing simplifying to resemble Sally more closely, and there were other design cues too like the tattoo under the wing. The wheels on the new car feature an update of the Y2K-era Turbo Twists that we can instantly recognize from Sally herself, and to avoid looking into “Sally’s brain”, the new car has no sunroof.

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Sally Became A Disney Pixar Icon

via Porsche

Lightning McQueen might have stolen the show in the original film, but Sally herself became an iconic character. She was the voice of logic and reason for much of the original film, and of course has reappeared in sequels to the original too. Her character has clearly resonated given that she is now being fully recreated again but this time as a fully functioning car. Its incredibly interesting to see the design process that went into bringing her to life in the first place, with Porsche and Pixar ensuring they created a Disney Pixar icon.

Sources: The Drive, Porsche, Pixar