This is a nice looking set.

Mater! I love this one!

How'd you solve the 'Tow Mater'lettering, @PurpleDave?

@Modeltrainman:
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=87079pb0426

I got 10733 just for a pair of those tiles. I was wrong about the mouth tile, though. I think I used this one:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2431pb160

I had originally planned to use the 2x4 bricks that were used in the original Cars 2 version of Mater, and even bought a pair along with the closed mouth tile. However, when looking at how big a 6-wide build would be, vs how small the printed design was, they just weren't going to cut it if I couldn't fill in more of the painted color around them. When they used 2x4 tiles instead of bricks for the updated version a few years later, that increased the print about 67%. The tile is actually too large for the 4-wide Mater, and looks really awkward hanging on the side like a sandwich board sign, but it was perfect for my needs. Mine are flush with the body, though.

I had the rest of my Pixar Cars (except I think I only had one version of Holley built, that I could switch between ground and air modes) at Brickworld Chicago back in, I wanna say, 2014, but I didn't build Mater to go with them until the fall of 2018. That was the last year I've made it to BWC, so he has yet to make an appearance there. Same goes for my 1969 Ford F250 Good Humor ice cream truck, my flying Ford Anglia, my Ferris Bueller Fauxrari, and my Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story _2_ (the TS1 version won Best Earth Craft in 2011, but I made a few minor updates to the body design, as well as coming up with smaller versions of the five toys that actually operate the vehicle in the movie). I think that's it for cars that I've built in the past five years. I really slowed down a lot on those. No longer do I need to just bulk up my collection to fill roads at shows, so I mostly only take on projects of significant interest to me. Excluding the minor revisions to the Pizza Planet truck, those four are easily the most complex vehicles I've designed to date.

@namekuji said:
"Some modern day Speed Champions are about the size of this model."

Well now I just want to see them race against each other

I came here to read about PurpleDave's Tow Mater MOC, as that was the first thing that came to mind. I was not disappointed :)

The set is... nice? For what it is anyway, a semi-UCS Tow Mater. Proportions are a bit off, but it sure is a model of the character alright!

(Disclaimer: I have not seen the movies and currently have no plans on doing so. There's far better films I's like to see first!).

I never knew this set existed!

Cars 2 is the transformers of Pixar. It's goofy and stupid,but you can get an ironic enjoyment out of it. (By transformers,I mean the whole movie franchise)

How does one use this to mate a build, anyway?

@Train_of_Thought_Creations:
I don’t, no. I do enough public displays (I think my 8th of 11 this year is coming up Labor Day weekend) that I don’t really have a lot of drive to get my backlog of photography done. However, I displayed at Concours d’Lemons Michigan with my dad in 2021. He wasn’t thrilled that there wasn’t a single pic of his 1987 Toyota pickup, while the table of MOC cars I had sitting next to it showed up in the event photos something like five times. I can’t guarantee they’re still there (there’s a metric crapton of photos to load, and I’m on a slow connection), but if you browse this page, you might see shots of my Pixar Cars cars, my award-winning Toy Story 1 Pizza Planet truck, and my 1969 Ford F-250 Good Humor ice cream truck (I _think_ that was all I took with me):

https://24hoursoflemons.com/2021-concours-dlemons-michigan-pics-and-winners/

@Brickalili:
It’s well-known that Mater is the fastest backwards-racer in the Cars world, so it doesn’t sound like much of a contest.

@NotProfessorWhymzi:
I think he got a suite of spy gear installed briefly in Cars 2, which is when that set came out.

@PurpleDave Thanks! I get that, I have a YouTube, but I rarely post to it as I'd rather put the effort into making more MOCs than publishing the existing ones.

@brick_r said:
" @NasaNerd: No, "Darth Mater" was the Star Wars UCS reject...think I'm kidding:
https://pixarcars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Vader
"No Lightning...I am your MECHANIC...":D"

Wow, this is such a missed opportunity by Lego!

@NasaNerd said:
" @brick_r said:
" @NasaNerd: No, "Darth Mater" was the Star Wars UCS reject...think I'm kidding:
https://pixarcars.fandom.com/wiki/Darth_Vader
"No Lightning...I am your MECHANIC...":D"

Wow, this is such a missed opportunity by Lego!"

There was enough wailing when they gave him a mech…

@Train_of_Thought_Creations:
Ain’t that the truth. I already had the TS1 Pizza Planet truck built, and it still took me a month of pulling up the LDraw file to figure out how to brick-build eyes for Todd (but they’re sloped, with appropriately colored irises, and the ability to build them in different expressions). The Good Humor truck was even worse. I got pics of the real truck it’s based on in 2019, and it took me six months to figure out how to build a pontoon fender, and another three months to design and troubleshoot the rest of the model. At only 298pcs, it’s still a more complex build than Mater, actually using a pair of The One Rings to help hold the cold-plate box together, and the pontoon fenders each contain two floating cheese wedges (trapped from six directions, but not connected to any other parts).

@PurpleDave said:
" @Modeltrainman:
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=87079pb0426

I got 10733 just for a pair of those tiles. I was wrong about the mouth tile, though. I think I used this one:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2431pb160

I had originally planned to use the 2x4 bricks that were used in the original Cars 2 version of Mater, and even bought a pair along with the closed mouth tile. However, when looking at how big a 6-wide build would be, vs how small the printed design was, they just weren't going to cut it if I couldn't fill in more of the painted color around them. When they used 2x4 tiles instead of bricks for the updated version a few years later, that increased the print about 67%. The tile is actually too large for the 4-wide Mater, and looks really awkward hanging on the side like a sandwich board sign, but it was perfect for my needs. Mine are flush with the body, though.

I had the rest of my Pixar Cars (except I think I only had one version of Holley built, that I could switch between ground and air modes) at Brickworld Chicago back in, I wanna say, 2014, but I didn't build Mater to go with them until the fall of 2018. That was the last year I've made it to BWC, so he has yet to make an appearance there. Same goes for my 1969 Ford F250 Good Humor ice cream truck, my flying Ford Anglia, my Ferris Bueller Fauxrari, and my Pizza Planet truck from Toy Story _2_ (the TS1 version won Best Earth Craft in 2011, but I made a few minor updates to the body design, as well as coming up with smaller versions of the five toys that actually operate the vehicle in the movie). I think that's it for cars that I've built in the past five years. I really slowed down a lot on those. No longer do I need to just bulk up my collection to fill roads at shows, so I mostly only take on projects of significant interest to me. Excluding the minor revisions to the Pizza Planet truck, those four are easily the most complex vehicles I've designed to date."

That sounds amazing!

It doesn’t have the machine guns, what a shame. Does Mater in the film even use a missile like the one included in this set?

If you want some laughs I recommend the series Mater’s Tall Tales. Each episode is roughly 5 minutes long, some great Mater antics in short form.

@PurpleDave said:
" @Train_of_Thought_Creations:
Ain’t that the truth. I already had the TS1 Pizza Planet truck built, and it still took me a month of pulling up the LDraw file to figure out how to brick-build eyes for Todd (but they’re sloped, with appropriately colored irises, and the ability to build them in different expressions). The Good Humor truck was even worse. I got pics of the real truck it’s based on in 2019, and it took me six months to figure out how to build a pontoon fender, and another three months to design and troubleshoot the rest of the model. At only 298pcs, it’s still a more complex build than Mater, actually using a pair of The One Rings to help hold the cold-plate box together, and the pontoon fenders each contain two floating cheese wedges (trapped from six directions, but not connected to any other parts)."

That sounds absolutely wild!

@B_Space_Man said:
"If you want some laughs I recommend the series Mater’s Tall Tales. Each episode is roughly 5 minutes long, some great Mater antics in short form. "

Don't forget the "CARS on the road" shorts! Mater and McQueen have to go on a road trip back east, and hijinks ensue! There is a episode with several classic horror movie references, albeit made kid friendly and cars centric. (Instead of REDRUM, the walls say RACECAR. And the elevators spill red brake fluid, not blood.)

@Trigger_:
It’s been a few years, so I’m uncertain. As I said, I remember him getting a spy suite installed by Holley and Finn, but other than the glider-chute (seen in at least one of the Tiny Turbo-scaled sets), I don’t remember much of what it entailed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGXkG8caVyM&pp=ygUNTWF0ZXIgbWlzc2lsZQ%3D%3D

Apparently it involved pop-out rocket thrusters mounted to the truck bed. This may be what they were trying to convey instead of a missile.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B1m43KPeqUA&pp=ygUNTWF0ZXIgbWlzc2lsZQ%3D%3D

Supposedly this is every use of a weapon in Cars 2, and Grem and Finn are the only cars I saw fire missiles (Grem at Finn, and Finn at Grem’s missile).

@B_Space_Man:
Got that on DVD.

@Murdoch17:
Don’t think I have that. I know there’s some stuff that’s restricted to the D- streaming service.

@PurpleDave:..."getting a spy suite installed"...Hmmm...you 'jogged' a 'train of thought' I had back then: Would something like that be "Major Surgery" in the "Cars-Verse"? I mean, adding all that gear "into" Mater...and one-would-assume taking stuff "out"...Then a side-question hits: Is Mater a "Doctor"...a 'Country' one at that...:) (and I'm still good with skipping '3':))

@brick_r:
Between Cars and Cars 2, it's suggested that it's pretty easy to swap out parts. Changing tires is about as difficult as changing shoes, except that someone else has to actually do the work for you. Mater gets the spy gear installed, removed, and partially reinstalled without any fuss. Holley mentions getting flight gear installed. Celine Dephare offers headlights for sale. The Lemons are constantly having to replace broken or worn out parts.

Cars 2 and Cars 3, on the other hand, makes it clear that there's a limit to how far you can go with this. The Lemons are seemingly restricted to the parts that are authentic to their original design, and can't simply swap out their garbage engines for new, well-built ones. Lightning gets beaten at every turn by younger racecars, and there's no option to just have a bigger, faster engine installed. So, you can replace parts on the engine, but not the entire engine itself.

@PurpleDave: Yeah...It'd be interesting to do a parity-list of "Human" to "Car" to explain what-does-what...is 'the engine' the 'heart'? 'The Brain'? Both?...Actually, I think 'the engine' is the 'the Heart', and 'the Motor' (the vehicle's means of generating electricity from its 'engine') is 'the Brain'...but that's just spitballin'. Could be worse, there could be a 'caveman' trapped in the interior (seriously, Pixar pitched that idea as how/why the 'Cars' are 'alive'...)...crazy:D

@Train_of_Thought_Creations:
Just in case you hadn't had a chance to browse through the pics (or the page wouldn't load that far down because of memory usage), here are direct links to the five that other people posted to the feed:

https://24hoursoflemons.com/wp-content/gallery/cdlmi21/SFD_9728.jpg
https://24hoursoflemons.com/wp-content/gallery/cdlmi21/SFD_9730.jpg
https://24hoursoflemons.com/wp-content/gallery/cdlmi21/SFD_7774.jpg
https://24hoursoflemons.com/wp-content/gallery/cdlmi21/SFD_7775.jpg
https://24hoursoflemons.com/wp-content/gallery/cdlmi21/SFD_7779.jpg

The base is supposed to represent the road that Lightning has to repair, so the three characters that appeared in the first Cars film (Todd, Lightning painted like a C1 Corvette, and Mater) are on a section that has jagged edges and random splotches (from when he tried to rush the job). Continuing to the right, the pavement has crisp edges, and the majority of the characters are from Cars 2 (Holley Shiftwell in both ground and air forms, Grem the Gremlin, Rod "Torque" Redline, and Acer the Pacer). At the far end, because the year I made this BWC did a special Batman contest, I Cars-ified two Batman characters (I am...Batmobile!, and Harley Davidsquinn). I also had out die-cast versions of the Pixar Cars cars that I'd used to model my MOCs after, where applicable, which is what ended up convincing me to build both Lightning and Holley as 8-wides when the rest of those characters are all 6-wides.

In front in the third pic, on the far left, is the original Pizza Planet truck with the award it won. Sorta visible in the first pic is the TS2 version (it's blurry, but you can see a green blotch where the Studios theme's baby T-Rex serves as Rex, and the comb on Al's chicken suit as he's being chased by the truck). In the lower left corner of the fourth pic, you can see about half of the hood (again, blurry) of the Good Humor truck. So, I got a dose of what my dad went through, with what was, at the time, my newest creation being completely ignored in favor of the Pixar Cars cars. I think pics of the Good Humor truck got posted to MichLUG's Facebook page by another member, but I block Facebook from loading on every device if I can figure out how to do so.