The LEGO Cars theme was introduced in 2010 for DUPLO and licensed by Disney and contained sets for Cars and Cars 2. In 2011 it was transferred to the LEGO System brand. In 2012 was temporarily discontinued. After the release of Cars 3 the theme was reintroduced in 2017 as a subtheme of Juniors and some of the returning characters' designs had slight changes to comply with the Juniors theme. The sets feature characters and scenes from all 3 of the Disney Pixar's Cars movies.
After the DUPLO Cars release in 2011, the System Cars release sets were largely based on the Cars 2 movie. Several more sets were released in 2012 as well based on the second movie. The LEGO box dropped the Cars 2 logo in favour of the original Cars logo. All Cars 3 sets in 2017 where built under the Junior theme.