This article is about the Cars character. For the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. character, see Alphonso Mackenzie.
- “Oh, these best friend meetings get longer every year.”
- ―Mack seeing Mater reuniting with Lightning McQueen
Mack is a major character in the Disney•Pixar Cars franchise. He is Lightning McQueen's loyal transporter who takes McQueen to his races and is his closest friend.
Background[]
Official Description[]
Endless days on the road and sleepless nights crisscrossing the country.... For some this life would quickly grow old. But not Mack. No, sir. Mack knows how important his role is. He's driving Lightning McQueen, the world's fastest racecar. He's part of a team, and everybody knows there's no I in team, just like there's no I in Mack.
"Mack is Lightning McQueen's trusted long-haul driver, crisscrossing the country from race to race, always with a smile on his grill. After dropping Lightning off in Radiator Springs with his fourth Piston Cup championship trophy, Mack sets off with the rest of the pit crew for a well-deserved vacation. Who knew that Lightning would end up jetting off to a race around the globe in the World Grand Prix?"
If there is one vehicle that has been with McQueen since nearly the very beginning, it's Mack. Although he's technically a race transporter, Mack is so much more than just a part of Team McQueen. Mack is McQueen's confidant, his good friend, and his sounding board. He's always there, and always ready to roll, whether it's to get McQueen to the demolition derby or transporting him all the way to the Florida 500."
Physical Appearance[]
Mack is based on a 1980s-era Mack Super-Liner semi cab, with a compatible trailer. His license plate is RUSTEZ3. Though there are indications that his license plate reads RUSTEZ4.
Mack's cab is painted red, and has a grey grille with his name on it. The trailer he hauls around is red and grey, with a picture of Lightning McQueen, the Rust-eze logo, the number 95, and Lightning's name painted on each side. He has chrome rims.
Personality[]
Mack is incredibly loyal to his friends, particularly McQueen. As Lightning's transporter, Mack does his best to adhere to the race car's wants, though their wishes do not always line up. Mack supports Lightning in times of need, such as when Lightning did not have a pit crew at the tie-breaker race in Los Angeles, and Mack stepped in to serve until Hudson and more of McQueen's friends showed up.
Mack thinks positively about his job, and he is always eager to transport McQueen to his next race. He seems to enjoy long road trips, especially when he is able to listen to music. The music can be distracting to Mack, however, and he often has trouble staying awake when driving late at night. He usually drives the speed of traffic along the highway in the lane that he is in but can inadvertently drive slower when he is drowsy.
Additionally, Mack can occasionally act childish, doing things like making funny faces to his reflection on the back of a tanker truck.
Powers and abilities[]
Mack is a very strong vehicle, allowing him to pull Lightning's trailer with ease. In Cars 3, Mack is very good in creating clever disguises.
Appearances[]
Cars[]
After Lightning McQueen finishes his race where he ends up in finishing it in a tie with The King and Chick Hicks, Mack congratulates McQueen on his tie, but McQueen brushes it off and asks what he did to his trailer. Mack tells McQueen that he parked his trailer at the back of his sponsor's tent, so that McQueen can easily exit after making a personal appearance. However, McQueen hates appearing in front of rusty cars, and though Mack reminds him that Mack reminds him that Rust-eze gave him his big break, he is just brushed off and told to get ready to leave. After McQueen's presentation, they leave for California for the tie-breaker race.
Mack being harassed by the Delinquent Road Hazards.
Due to a bet McQueen made with Chick, he tells Mack to drive through the night. Though Mack is nervous about the task, McQueen assures him that he will stay awake with him, though he falls asleep shortly after, leaving Mack alone and sleepy on the highway. The Delinquent Road Hazards mess with Mack as he dozes off, causing one of Lightning McQueen's toys inside the trailer to fall down, releasing McQueen from the rear exit. When the Delinquent Road Hazards leave, Mack wakes up which unknown to him, causes McQueen fall out into the rear exit and onto the highway.
Upon his arrival at the speedway, Mack opens his trailer to reveal McQueen to the swarming press, but everyone is confused when they realize McQueen's absence. Mack is also confused when he finally notices that McQueen is missing, just as the media begins to swarm about McQueen's disappearance.
Mack and the press finding McQueen in Radiator Springs.
A few days later, the media receives a call from Doc Hudson who informs them on McQueen's location. So, Mack and hundreds of reporters and camera cars arrive in Radiator Springs to retrieve McQueen. Elated to see his boss, he apologized for losing him, but McQueen assures him that he's glad to see him. Mack then detached from the trailer to shield McQueen from the press so he could talk with his agent, Harv on the phone and so he could say his goodbyes to Sally Carrera. Soon enough, he urged McQueen to get into the trailer otherwise Harv would have him fired, though McQueen was hesitant to leave his new friends and is forced to leave by the press.
Mack praises McQueen for his heroism and selflessness.
At the final race, Mack acted as McQueen's pit crew which McQueen thanked him for. When McQueen was having trouble focusing on the race, Mack asked if he was okay before the Radiator Springs folks came to help and support McQueen, giving him the encouragement to continue the race. When Chick Hicks shoves into McQueen causing him to flatten a tire, Mack worries that McQueen will never win the race if he's not back out on the course on time. However, Guido makes a fast pit stop, allowing McQueen to continue the race and Mack praises Guido. When McQueen forfeits his chance to win the Piston Cup and chooses to help the King finish his last race after Chick causes him to crash, Mack cheers for McQueen and congratulates him for his loss.
After McQueen decides to build his racing headquarters in Radiator Springs, Mack resides in the town with him and continues being his transporter. During the credits, he watches parodies of other Pixar movies at the Radiator Springs Drive-In Theatre and notes that all of them feature a character voiced by John Ratzenberger, and amusingly, he is voiced by Ratzenberger as well.
Cars 2[]
In the second film, Mack makes a couple minor appearances as part of McQueen's Piston Cup racing team. He also has some slight differences in his design in this film, possibly to take on McQueen's own redesign: while in the original film his cap-shaped wind deflector is white, here it is red. The design of his trailer is also different.
Mack is Lightning McQueen's trusted long-haul driver, crisscrossing the country from race to race, always with a smile on his grill. After dropping McQueen off in Radiator Springs with his fourth Piston Cup championship trophy, Mack sets off with the rest of the pit crew for a well-deserved vacation. Who knew that McQueen would end up jetting off to a race around the globe in the World Grand Prix?
In the film, he is briefly seen at the beginning when McQueen comes back to Radiator Springs, where he says one of his only two lines, "Oh, these best friend greetings are getting longer every year." He doesn't accompany him to the World Grand Prix, due to being on vacation. At the end, he talks with Lizzie and says the other of his only two lines of the movie, "Oh, those two are perfect for each other."
Cars 3[]
Mack returns in Cars 3, but like in the first two films, remains Lightning McQueen's driver. In the opening scene, he taps Lightning's trailer, asking his boss if he was ready for his race.
Four months after McQueen's accident, Mack drives him, Luigi and Guido to Rust-eze Racing Center, where his boss planned on training to boost his speed to beat Jackson Storm. After an unsuccessful week training under Cruz Ramirez in both the racing center and on Fireball Beach, McQueen decided to go to Thunder Hollow to race at the dirt track. When Luigi and Guido advised going to a public place where the press would easily recognize him, Mack assure the group that he was a master of disguise. To that end, Mack camouflaged his cap and his trailer to resemble a party truck and upon arriving at Thunder Hollow, had Luigi cover McQueen in mud. Unfortunately, as they all discovered, the racetrack was actually a demolition derby, which Cruz won but McQueen was exposed to the crowd.
As they were leaving Thunder Hollow, Mack uncomfortably had to listen to McQueen taking his anger out on Cruz, telling her she's no racer and accidentally breaks her trophy, causing her to order Mack to pull over, forcefully opening the trailer when Mack hesitated. Cruz then told everyone that she dreamed of becoming a racer but lost her confidence at her first race. She resigns as McQueen's trainer and heads back to the racing center.
Mack later parked underneath an underpass to retire for the night while McQueen considered his future as he watched Storm setting a new lap record on TV, leading him to calling Mater, who advised him to seek out Doc Hudson's old crew chief Smokey in Thomasville. Thus, early next morning, Mack manages to catch up to Cruz, upon which McQueen persuades her rejoin them. Afterwards, they proceeded onto Thomasville, where upon Mack pulls over upon arriving at Thomasville Racetrack.
After a week training under Smokey, Mack had to pull McQueen to reach the deadline for the Florida 500.
During the credits, Mack becomes both McQueen and Cruz's driver with a new trailer sporting Cruz's legendary flip.
Disney Parks[]
Mack appears in Radiator Springs Racers at Cars Land in Disney California Adventure when entering a tunnel, the cars nearly crash into him.
Mack appears in Paint the Night Parade in Hong Kong Disneyland, the very first Disney parks parade that featuring him. He's over 54 feet long, 18 feet tall. Mack also driving along in a larger-than-life fashion, equipped with some very cool, giant "light display" panels affixed to his sides. DJ riding on his fold-deck spinning wild music.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Mack is a 1980s-era Mack Super-Liner truck.
- When Mack watches the Cars-parodies of previous Pixar movies, he thought whoever did the voice of Hamm, P.T. Flea, and the Yeti as cars is one great actor until he realized they used the same voice actor in all movies and wonders, "What kind of a cut-rate production is this?" This is a reference to John Ratzenberger (who portrays Mack) of having to portray at least one character in every Pixar movie. In fact, Mack is nearly breaking the fourth wall.
- At the time of the release of Cars 2, he has the least amount of dialogue in the film out of all of John Ratzenberger's roles because he only had two lines, which together are shorter than the Underminer's line in The Incredibles. However, the record was later broken by Yeti in Monsters University, who only had a single line.
- The wind deflector on Mack's roof actually resembles a trucker cap, which is often worn by many truck drivers in real life. This is extremely noticeable due to the prominent visor protruding above his windshield (eyes).
- Mack and Lizzie are, with Fillmore, the only inhabitants of Radiator Springs that didn't participate to the final battle against the Lemons in England at the end of the second film.
- In the first film, Mack's trailer that McQueen rides in as transport originally had trophies, memorabilia, and even McQueen merchandise inside but in the third film, they're all removed. This was presumably that McQueen realized that trophies aren't important to him anymore since it was about helping others and it could be implied that most of the merchandise were either given away, put into the Hudson Hornet Racing Museum, or sent to Rust-Eze Training Center presumably because Sterling wanted McQueen to be used for product endorsements so his legacy would live on should McQueen lose.
- For some reason, the dog-shaped hood ornament on Mack's hood isn't car-ified.
External links[]
Mack on Pixar Wiki
Mack on Pixar Cars Wiki
