The Cars of “Zootopia”: What Would a Moose Drive?

What would a moose drive? It’s fair to say that’s not a question former Ford design boss J Mays thought much about until Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios chief creative officer John Lasseter asked him to design some cars for the new Disney animated feature “Zootopia.”

Unlike other anthropomorphic animal films, which place the characters either in natural or human environments, “Zootopia” imagines a modern world designed by animals. Apart from a subtle backstory about diverse groups co-existing in a civil society, the idea allows for a wealth of sight gags against a backdrop of a cityscape where 2-inch-tall mice and towering giraffes live side by side with moose, pigs, lions, elephants, and, yes, even honey badgers.

So, what would a moose drive? “I really struggled with that one,” says Mays, who now lives in Britain where, among other things, he spends one day a week lecturing post-grad transportation design students at the Royal College of Art. “They didn’t tell me a lot, other than it would be driven by an older moose, so it would be nice to have an older car.”

Mays settled on a convertible — easier to package those broad antlers — but it wasn’t until he happened to look at a picture of the character upside down that it occurred to him to put all the visual weight at the bottom of the car, balancing the moose’s impressive headwear. The Moose Car therefore has a tall body on a broad platform, and its hood was inspired by the iconic front-drive 1936-’37 Cord 810/812 designed by Gordon Buehrig.

“It’s Cord meets bumper car,” says Mays.

Real cars inspired other Mays “Zootopia” designs. The Pig Car riffs on the quirky Morgan 3 Wheeler, whose design has changed little since the company’s 1927 Super Sport. The Mouse Car is a mildly reworked version of the tiny BMW Isetta 300 bubble car built between 1956 and 1962. A futuristic version with a more rounded profile and faired-in wheels was developed and then abandoned as being too contrived.

 

 

 

Why choose the Isetta as the model for the Mouse Car, and not, say, the little Fiat 500 built between 1936 and 1955, which was affectionately nicknamed “Topolino,” literally “little mouse” in Italian. Was it too obvious? Too much of a car guy in-joke? That was part of it, says Mays. The other factor, though, was ingress/egress; the front-loading door on the Isetta lets the mice get their ears in and out of the car. “Yes, I actually had this discussion,” he deadpans.

Disney’s John Lasseter, who co-wrote and directed “Toy Story,” the first feature-length computer animated film, and whose resume includes “Cars” and “Cars 2,” is a serious car guy. “He has a clinical eye,” says Mays. “He’d look at the designs, and [he] always wanted to know if they would actually work. Everything had to work.”

Creating a car for a giraffe was therefore a challenge. Mays’ solution was a tall, articulated cabin atop a low-slung skateboard-type platform. The cabin allows the long-necked giraffe to lean into turns while driving.

The most conventional Mays car is the Zootopia Police Department SUV driven by the movie’s protagonist, a rabbit called Judy Hopps, voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin. “With the SUV we were trying to give the lead character a vehicle that reflected her aspirations to be a real police officer,” says Mays. “It does fall into the generic, over-the-top SUV stereotype but that’s exactly why it works. You just wouldn’t expect a small rabbit to be driving something as aggressive as this.”

While the end result is lighthearted entertainment, Mays says the “Zootopia” project was a little intimidating. “Disney was quite adamant it wanted me to inject the cars with passion and empathy,” he says. “Making a connection with the customer in a real car is one thing, but making a car connect with a character is a very different way of thinking about auto design.

“I used to joke at Ford the only thing holding me back was imagination. But when you have no boundaries — like you do when designing real cars — if you can’t think of it, it’s your own fault.”

“Zootopia” opens March 4 in U.S. theaters.

 

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