Walt Disney Imagineering pulled back the curtain on Piston Peak National Park’s design process during a Center Stage presentation called “Exploring Nature in Piston Peak.” The panel ran all three days of D23 Expo 2026 inside the Imagineering: Horizons pavilion. Sunday’s edition added new artwork and details not shown Friday or Saturday, following the Disney Experiences Showcase reveal Saturday night. Executive Creative Director Jason Grandt and Senior Show Producer Chelsea Whikehart led the discussion, covering creative guidelines, research trips, concept art, construction progress, and new specifics about both Piston Peak attractions.
Imagineering Panel: Adding Piston Peak National Park to Frontierland
IN THIS ARTICLE:
- Imagineers explained the four creative pillars behind Piston Peak’s design
- New details were shared about both Cars Ridge Run Rally and Miss Fritter’s Daredevil Spin Along
- The panel covered research trips, concept art, and the project’s construction timeline
Before we talk about the nuts and bolts of this particular presentation, I just want to say that these types of talks are insanely cool for theme park fans. While a lot of pre-opening discussion of new rides or lands takes place on social media among fans, it’s always great to hear directly from the creatives working on the projects. I found that each and every Imagineer who hosted a panel was passionate about their project and truly wants to create a space or experience that guests will love for generations to come. So, shout out to Walt Disney Imagineering for making such wonderful panels available to fans at D23 Expo, and shout out to the Imagineers for sharing a look into their process of creating the art that we call theme parks.
Grandt opened the panel by walking through the creative guidelines Imagineering set for itself early in the project. Those goals grew out of the Blue Sky process, as the team began focusing on what Piston Peak National Park should become. Now Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro and Imagineering President Bruce Vaughn helped shape the direction, and “one of the things we decided was we wanted these to be Frontierland attractions,” Grandt said. He added that D’Amaro wanted the new attractions to feel like part of the Magic Kingdom’s DNA. They shouldn’t feel like a haphazard addition or something that is out of place in the magical theme park.
The second pillar centers on telling a new story with familiar characters. Imagineering already created Cars Land at Disney California Adventure. Grandt said the team wanted Piston Peak to stand apart from that experience rather than repeat it. “Let’s take characters people know and love and put them in this new Frontierland setting where we can tell a new story with them,” he said. He described the goal as an original attraction built around the Cars universe. It’s not a retelling of the Radiator Springs storyline or setting.
The third pillar is the pairing of the land’s two attractions. Grandt confirmed a family thrill attraction, Cars Ridge Run Rally, alongside a family fun attraction, Miss Fritter’s Daredevil Spin Along. He said the two rides are designed to complement each other, with more to come on how that plays out through the land’s storytelling.
The fourth pillar centers on humor drawn from a world where every living thing is a vehicle. Grandt pointed to small details already built into the Imagineering pavilion at D23 Expo as examples of that tone. A “goat-kart” sits on the attraction marquee, and a small frog-shaped car sits near the ride vehicle display. “There’s a lot of humor in a world where all living things are vehicles,” he said.
Whikehart also addressed how Piston Peak’s version of Frontierland differs from other Disney parks. Disneyland’s Frontierland leans into an Old West-style vibe. Walt Disney World’s take has always been more nuanced, she said, and the team has tried to be a good neighbor as it builds the new area into that existing space.
Grandt noted that Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland is the only one in the Disney parks portfolio that doesn’t touch the central hub. He explained that it functions instead as a sister land to Liberty Square. Together, the two lands form a journey across the United States. That journey starts in upstate New York at Haunted Mansion and ends in Arizona at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Grandt said the team looked for a setting that could not only bridge those two ends, but also complement and enhance both of them. Piston Peak was the answer, drawing on the fictional national park previously seen in “Planes: Fire & Rescue.”
Research Trips Shaped the Land’s Look and Feel
That complement-and-enhance goal shaped the terrain Imagineers pulled reference from during early research trips. The team traveled to Rocky Mountain National Park specifically because its landscape offers both gray granite rock formations and red rock features. Granite echoes Liberty Square’s stonework, while the red rock ties into the reddish formations near Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. That combination gave Imagineers a palette built to bridge the two neighboring areas rather than clash with either one.
The team also studied what Grandt called a “virtual road trip” through Disney’s own animation library. Imagineers revisited classic shorts featuring Humphrey the Bear, Ranger Woodlore, Donald Duck, and Chip ‘n Dale. Grandt said those shorts carry a sweetness that lines up with the tone of the Magic Kingdom. The team pulled ideas from them for color palette and staging, and also studied comparable themed environments built elsewhere. Those references included Camp Woodchuck at Tokyo Disneyland and Grizzly Peak at Disney California Adventure.
Whikehart said those early references fed directly into the land’s first concept sketches. Those sketches leaned into rustic National Park Service-style architecture. The distinctive A-frame silhouette from those earliest sketches has carried through to the current design, she noted. Grandt said the team always begins with hand sketches. Those loose ideas come before more detailed concept art. One of his favorite early drawings for the lodge already incorporated what Imagineering calls “carchitecture.” Pixar uses that term to describe buildings and spaces designed around the scale of a car character, not a human one. The concept shows up throughout Cars Land in California too, Grandt said. He pointed to doorways wide enough for a car to pass through, and windows positioned low enough for a car character to look through them.
Later concept art pushed further into the specific environments guests will pass through on Cars Ridge Run Rally. Those included snowy mountain sections and a geyser field. For one series of paintings, Grandt said the team asked the artist to imagine the perspective of American West landscape painters from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Thomas Hart Benton served as a reference point. The resulting piece, filled with tire-shaped rainbow pools, drew a strong reaction the first time Imagineering showed it internally, according to Grandt.
From Concept Art to Construction
Once the broad creative direction was settled, Imagineering moved into more technical concept architecture passes. The team began blocking out building shapes, sizes, and functions, working alongside Walt Disney World operations and ride engineering partners. Grandt highlighted the project’s gatehouse building as an early example. He noted that even at that stage, the team scaled structures specifically to car-sized proportions.
Piston Peak National Park is currently under construction in the footprint formerly occupied by Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America. That area closed permanently in July 2025 to make way for the project, as we reported at the time. Grandt confirmed that construction is visible today from the queue for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. He told the audience that guests can look out over the walls and see the site directly, something we do often to check on the latest progress.
Grandt also discussed real-world test drives the team conducted to fine-tune the feel of Cars Ridge Run Rally. One sequence involves a series of camelback hump drops on the descent from the peak. Imagineers tested a version of that sequence at roughly seventy-five percent scale in a mock-up ride vehicle. The team also tried other, more intense configurations that ultimately didn’t fit the ride’s family-friendly positioning, Grandt said. He recalled joking with Whikehart afterward that neither of their mothers could have handled those rougher versions. “Our goal is our mom’s going to ride this,” Whikehart said, underscoring the ride’s intended audience.
Both Attractions Get New Details
Grandt and Whikehart walked through several of the specific environments guests will experience on Cars Ridge Run Rally. A snowy mountaintop section draws inspiration from the Mine Train Through Nature’s Wonderland attraction. It also leans into the novelty of racing through snow in Florida. Whikehart called the geyser field her personal favorite section of the ride. She described a sequence where vehicles dip and dodge around active geysers before racing to the finish line.
Grandt said the geyser field sits in a part of the park where guests already have sightlines to both Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. He described the geysers as an added layer of kinetic energy for that whole area, comparing the effect to a fountain show. Grandt also confirmed that the ride is being engineered to operate in the rain. A system built to handle a geyser field’s water output, he said, should hold up fine during a typical Florida afternoon shower.
Whikehart said the most common question she has fielded from fans at D23 involves the ride system behind Miss Fritter’s Daredevil Spin Along. Grandt described the attraction as a series of figure-eight turntables, comparing the sensation to a spinning teacup-style ride. The vehicles will pass close to one another as they spin. They’ll hand off between turntables in a system similar to the one used for Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree at Disney California Adventure. Whikehart added that each vehicle will seat up to four guests.
New Characters and the D23 Model
The panel also introduced new character details for the land. Imagineering showed development art for a new original character, referred to on stage as Ranger J. Autobahn Woodlore, who will appear as a full-size animatronic in the queue for Cars Ridge Run Rally. Grandt said the character draws reference from a classic animated short featuring Ranger Woodlore, Chip, and Dale.
Whikehart also discussed the land’s “goat cart” characters. She described them as mischievous, playful figures. They keep busy while the rangers are occupied with the race and with Miss Fritter’s attraction. Grandt compared their personality to a mischievous puppy. Guests will be able to spot the goat carts in multiple spots throughout the dimensional model on display at D23. One pair appears floating in inner tubes near the geyser field.
Whikehart also referenced a small frog-shaped car that appears among the land’s background vehicle characters.
Much of the panel’s visual material centered on the large-scale dimensional model of Piston Peak National Park. Imagineering’s Florida model shop built it, and it sat on display inside the Imagineering: Horizons pavilion. Whikehart called it one of the first major models to come out of that shop and praised the team behind it. Grandt used the model to walk through the different terrains guests will pass through during the off-road rally. He described the design as inspired by the varied landscape of Rocky Mountain National Park. Nature’s Wonderland’s history at Magic Kingdom fed into it too.
While it was impossible to get overhead views of the physical model in the Imagineering pavilion, the presentation included a short video from overhead.
Piston Peak National Park was first announced at the 2024 D23 Expo. The project has been under construction since Tom Sawyer Island and the Rivers of America closed. Imagineering has not shared an opening date for the land.
If you’d like to watch the full presentation, we’ve included a video below!
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!
Great to see the aerial shots over the model. What is impressive is that this is a big ride with no backstage area to hide a ride building. They have done a great job of using Piston Peak and the range to build show building while surrounded.