Chevron Autopia Pull-back Cars from Disneyland

I’ve never failed to ride the cars in Tomorrowland’s Speedway when visiting Walt Disney World, and so it was a no-brainer to ride the cars of Autopia when I visited the attraction (albeit after the Chevron sponsorship had ended) at Disneyland for the first time in January of 2013. To steer one of the original attractions was awesome!

Of course, I wished they didn’t have the guide rails that kept you on track (which they didn’t have on opening day) but we can’t have everything.

So I was delighted while on vacation in Florida this year to come across these two great Chevron Autopia cars:

    

DUSTY and SPARKY

I already had one car of the four-part set, below:

CLASSIC

But I had to wait some time before I could finish my set, with Suzy:

SUZY

So I had to assemble my fleet from three separate locations!

Chevron entered into an agreement with Disney to sponsor this attraction in 1998, as this Press Release announces. Unfortunately, with the rising price of gas and for other reasons, Chevron only sponsored the attraction from 2000 to 2012. When we rode the cars in 2013, Honda had already taken over the sponsorship.

But the real fun comes from all of the great advertising stuff! These sets were released in 2000 to commemorate Disneyland’s 45th Anniversary. You could enter to win a Magic Disneyland Vacation:

    

If I wasn’t a completest, I’d scratch the card just to see what it says!

Same with the stickers: Can’t use them!

I will never stop searching for this playmat!

    

The same postcard is included in all four of the Autopia Cars

Disneyland Autopia Yesterday and Tomorrow booklet

Now this is by far the most awesome inclusion of the sets. It’s a foldout flyer-style publication with seven pages detailing the history of the Autopia attraction, and seven pages containing a story about the Chevron Cars called Road Rally to Autopia at Disneyland.

It doesn’t get any better than that! The history side contains archival pictures and concept art from the original ride in 1955, the redesign of 1967, and finally the Chevron makeover in 2000. The story side chronicles the Chevron Cars’ trip to Disneyland where they continually ask ‘Are we there yet?’, and finally arrive just as Disneyland is closing. But they are let in to play with their Autopia cousins all night long until morning comes and the Park opens again.

This inclusion is superb and so I will be doing a post on each of the stories later.

  

Simply pull the cars back and they will speed away

Figures are removable

To quote Disneyland Autopia Yesterday and Today: “Cars are the ultimate vehicle for our imaginations: get behind the wheel and the world is ours. With a car and an imagination, we can go anywhere.”

Well, on the Autopia track, you can’t go anywhere, but you can let your imagination drive away with you!