ADuring the course of living in Radiator Springs, Lightening decides to join the community by getting Luigi to change his tires and having Ramon give him a metal flake red paint job. It can be assumed that Harv and Mack made his change back into his racing mode for the final race. However, no answer can be found for why his bumper stickers disappear after the old lady car puts them on him.
AAlthough the town was based loosely on Amboy, California (a town on Route 66 that also saw a drastic decline after the grand opening of a section of I-40; additionally, there are also suggestions of Seligman, Arizona and Gallup, New Mexico), its landmarks are said to be based on buildings in other Route 66 towns. For example, Ramone's body-art business closely resembles the U-Drop Inn in Shamrock, Texas; the neon sign from Sarge's Army Surplus Store is a reference to a similar sign that advertised a now-defunct business in Galena, Kansas; The Cozy Cone Motel is similar to the Wigwam Village in Holbrook, Arizona; and cacti filling the landscape, as well as the red mountain backdrop, suggest that the town might be in Arizona or New Mexico. Seligman, Arizona has a white "S" in the nearby mountains just as Radiator Springs had "RS" in the film. The real "Fabulous Hudson Hornet" upon which Doc Hudson was based can be found at the Darlington Raceway museum in Darlington, South Carolina. The geological rock formations around the town seem to resemble automobiles in a few different ways. Specifically, the so-called Cadillac Range features hills resembling the up-ended cars of Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo, while other formations resemble the front-end grilles, wheel-wells and headlight arrays of non-distinct 40's and 50's autos.