Something that’s always bugged me about the Cars franchise- how exactly do the vehicles pick up items if all they have are rounded tires? I mean, I can give credit to Guido being a forklift and everything but what about everyone else? Do they bend their antennaes like the Chevron commercials to pick things up or do they use other parts of their body?
Jess…you are needed in this forum… 
She can answer better than I can…
But they have buttons for everything…though…
That’s good for mechanics and stuff but what if they actually need to pick something up such as if they hit something and their side view mirror completely breaks off? Unless there’s a pit crew car nearby, how else are they going to pick it up with those donut things attached to their axels? Would they just push it?
I don’t really think they ever have to pick up anything. I mean, everything they make is designed so that they can use it with what they have. I don’t know if this is making sense, but that’s just how I see it.
Yeah,everything is made so they woudn’t have to do that in the first place…
Funny you should mention that. On the Blu-Ray for Mater’s Tall Tales there’s a short called McQueen Has No Hands where they talked about how they had a big debate over the scene at the end of the first movie where Lightning tells Sally that “the town is back on the map” and showed all these different ideas they came up with for how a car would take out a map, until they finally decided “Why doesn’t he just say it?”. The idea of actually having to show a map never once occurred to me watching the film on it’s own, so to learn about all that really makes them look silly.
I don’t know why it should concern people anyway… 
Well if I was creating the characters, I would probably think a lot about what makes them work myself. It seems like they did try to put some thought into what cars do for hands, but I guess they avoided having to show/explain it for the most part because it wasn’t important for the story. I mean, Cars really is a cartoon world in a sense, but it’s through the character’s story and their relationships with each other that we can relate to it. If we’re lucky, Cars 2 might at least show us some new things to help understand the logic of that world better.
Yeah…I agree…it’s a cartoon… NOT real…
I always assumed they used their tires. I’m just dumb like that I guess.
I don’t think they have need for hands, but I guess they could use their mouth or tires if they were really desperate?
I don’t think it’s dumb, that was always my impression too.
Yeah, it’s kind of a dumb question I guess. But it’s always just be something I’ve been really curious about you know? Like where’s Andy’s father, where is Boo right now, or how come there’s animals in WALL-E’s credits.
My expertise is needed here apparently, according to xCarsLuverx. 
They have suction cups and bars on (pretty much) all items needed to be held.
Ex. Cameras, some flags (they stick them in their treads sometimes), they would grab the item behind their tire sometimes. There’s so many ways I’ve seen, that it’s hard to name them all.
Flik-E, I thought that little bit was funny. Especially when they talked about a monkey coming out of Lightning’s window. xDDDD
No worries, there’s no dumb questions! Plus we have something new to discuss, Cars hands!
Another thing confused me a little bit, since their bodies are cars, do they drive CARS for the cars characters? Also, considering the piston cup championship, it’s more like the olympics than a racetrack considering that they are “sprinting” about nearly 20 marathons long (if assuming their tires are there legs).
and how about stairs? Are there ANY buildings that has stairs, or even more than one floor? How would the stairs even work?
They don’t even use stairs,they have inclines…no offence but you guys are thinking WAY TOO MUCH into this…
No, they drive themselves. I thought that was made pretty clear considering the movie is talking cars. However, they go in planes and rocket ships, according to what I’ve seen. When they get tired, they have motels on the side of the road just like us. You need to think of it like this, they’re not humans, they’re cars. They can do way more than us. They’re made to drive for as long as they can. As for going to different floors in different buildings, they use elevators and ramps.
xCarsLuverx, I think it’s fun to look way to into this because it’s fun to think about different ways they can do things. I do get annoyed when people literally look way too much into things like, “Well, if a tractor is an animal, what do the others look like.”
To answer that, I would just simply say, “Ask Pixar.”
Alligators and Crocodiles have wheels though. As you can see in Moon Mater.
My main issue with cars having no hands is that while I can somewhat buy into the idea that this is a world nearly identical to ours but with animate cars instead of humans, there’s simply too many things hands are needed for to be dismissed so quickly. For instance, if everything is push button activated, how exactly were those intricate push buttons created (soldering, wiring, delicate engineering) done on those clunky wheels? Also, what about things like computer keyboards? Surely not all cars have built in 3GS or Wifi yet they do seem to have the technology for computers, so how does that work? And again, there’s the simple issue of being able to pick something off of the ground or table or whatever that one really can’t do with donuts attached to their arms.
Yeah, I’m probably overthinking it, but I agree with x3haijessiex3. Fan speculation is FUN!
I would guess it would start out with the tool they’re going to need. Then, attatched to that tool would be a long bar. At the end of the bar will be a suction cup (they same thing they use for their cameras) that sucks onto their hubcabs/rims.
Does that even make sense?
This one is easy. Their keyboard is just car sized. Much like their buildings. You can see that the buildings would be even bigger for us in the Cars 2 trailer. The cars look like tiny people in that airport. Finn and Holley look like normal cars in that suite they have their conversation in. Yet, the building is the perfect size for them.
When I’m confused as to what they use or how they use it, the first thing I think about is this:
Can it be used by them if it was on a car’s scale?
This one is a mystery for everyone! Even Pixar! If you notice in Mater Private Investigator, when Tia throws the newspaper on the desk for Mater to read, Pixar never shows her actually throwing the newspaper!
I just got an idea! I’m totally going to draw this stuff out!!! 
I called it!