First I thought that Mama Topolino was another way Pixar made a small tribute to great works before.
Like they did when Lightning McQueen got the number 95 because the first Pixar Movie, Toy Story, was released 1995. And like they did with all the great racers like the King (same number and car as Richard Petty). And tons of other references that fills the films.
So when I got a close look in this nice diecast, I was pretty sure I´ve seen it before.
The car may resemble a 1963 Renault Dauphine but I thought it was a tribute to the old Disney Car Susie The Little Blue Coupe.
Susie is important for the Cars movie. Originally Susie become famous starring a 8 minutes Disney short film back in 1952. But according to the wikipedia page of Cars, Susie was the inspiration with a capital I:
"From the very beginning of this project,
John Lasseter
had it in his mind to have the eyes be in the windshield. For one
thing, it separates our characters from the more common approach where
you have little cartoon eyes in the headlights. For another, he thought
that having the eyes down near the mouth at the front end of the car
feels more like a snake. With the eyes set in the windshield, the point
of view is more human-like, and made it feel like the whole car could be
involved in the animation of the character.
"
But Mama Topolino was no look-a-like to Susie.
So no tribute there. But reading some more about the car I found out that:
Topolino is a tribute to the Fiat 500 "Topolino" as well as a Disney
in-joke: Topolino ("little mouse") is Mickey Mouse's name in Italian.
See. This is what I like so much with Lasseter and Pixar. Nothing just happens. Everything has a reason. Or more than one.
