In 2002, BBC Two premiered a motoring magazine TV series that would grow to eventually take the automobile and driving worlds by storm: Top Gear. Four years later in 2006, Disney and Pixar released an animated feature film that would become the first chapter of a new recognizable franchise: Cars.
Now, BCC and Disney-Pixar have decided to do some epic cross-promotion for their respective franchises with the help of a surprise collaborator: LEGO. The result is a zany 3D short film that crosses Cars and Top Gear in one epic race around the familiar UK racetrack, with a familiar white-suited-racer-turned-car.
The short, lengthily titled “Mater, Cruz Ramirez, Lightning McQueen and The Stig Race Europe in New LEGO Juniors Top Gear video!” has LEGO Junior-version Lightning, his trainer Cruz Ramirez and mechanic buddy Mater visiting the Top Gear track. McQueen has personal reasons to drop in: wanting to race The Stig.
Rendered as a white car with dark windshield and spoilers, nobody knows what model the mysterious Top Gear presenter has been rendered in the Cars world. All we know is he’s still called The Stig. And from what we see him do, LEGO Stig must be a Master Builder too.
After an initial rebuff, the Stig is convinced to race Lightning and Cruz on the track, after he uses his Master Building skills to turn some nearby LEGO bricks into scale models of famous European landmarks to make a real European race. All goes well until Mater decides to fix the LEGO Leaning Tower for being “structurally unsound”. Hilarity ensues.
It’s certainly quite the adventure, and makes for great promotion of the Top Gear and Cars franchises, and the LEGO Junior line. You can see other short videos, of Disney-Pixar’s Cars and the other LEGO product lines, at their official YouTube Channel.
