Porsche and Pixar Animation Studios make a one-of-one Sally Special, a 911 Carrera GTS inspired by the animated film Cars’ character Sally.
It’s not often that an animated film’s character gets realised into physical material. Even if they are made hyperreal and life-sized, they are not built to function as the actual organisms or objects that they represent until Porsche and Pixar came together to turn Cars’ Sally Carrera, the quick-witted and lawful love interest of Lightning McQueen, into a living, breathing, street legal car.
In the film, Sally Carrera is based off of the 2002 Porsche 1996 generation 911 Carrera, an agile and speedy model chosen because of its ability to keep up with a race car and its sleek, curvaceous body. But more crucially, the car also aptly reflects Sally’s tenacious, adventurous spirit, her love of long drives the very reason that sparked the idea for this screen-to-road project.
Made under Porsche’s Sonderwunsch scheme, a programme that lets customers design their dream cars, the 911 Sally Special takes the concept of customisation to the most extreme. Based instead on the current 911 Carrera GTS, the car has a seven-speed manual gearbox and is hand-painted wholly in Sallybluemetallic, a light blue chrome colour that also appears on the dashboard, centre console, and door trim.
It also has a bespoke Turbo-esque rim made to fit the wheel dimensions of the current 911, as well as for the first time, creating what Sally might look like from the inside — the interior is decked in a special Pepita houndstooth fabric upholstery and a chalk-coloured leather, stitched in Speed Blue.
Aside from its impressive technical feats, the fact that they included Sally’s pinstripe tattoo, a drive mode selector knob that says “Kachow! Mode”, and the placement of the Cars logo in places like the door panels shows just how much love has gone into making this unique car the epitome of such a collaboration. In fact this is the first time Pixar has supported such a project, reuniting the original Cars team that brought the film character and life-sized Sally Carrera to life more than 20 years ago.
But beyond the car itself, this project extends the themes of friendship and mutual support from the movie into real life with its very purpose of manufacturing being for charity. This Saturday, the one-of-one Sally Special will be auctioned by RM Sotheby’s as part of Monterey Car Week in California with proceeds going to Girls Inc, a non-profit organisation that benefits young women, and USA for UNHCR, an organisation that supports refugees from Ukraine.
The lucky buyer will also be treated to a watch that uses the same Sallybluemetallic and chalk leather in its design, and a book of drawings from Cars designers Shuichi Yamashita and Bob Pauley. In the world of cars, nothing is truly impossible.
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