Disney/Pixar reveals the new characters in the upcoming animated adventure “Cars 2,” the highly anticipated sequel to 2006’s blockbuster “Cars.”

Below are the images and the individual character descriptions. “Cars 2” hits the track on June 24, 2011, and will be presented in Disney Digital 3D™ and IMAX® 3D in select theaters.

Finn McMissile is a master British spy. Though charming and eloquent, it’s his stealth maneuvering, intelligence and years in the field that enable him to thwart unexpected attacks from bad guys, making quick daredevil escapes.. Finn’s design is sleek and timeless, but he’s also prepared for any tricky situation with an arsenal of ultra-cool gadgets and weaponry, including front and rear grappling hooks, a missile launcher, deployable magnetic explosives and a holographic disguise emitter.

Holley Shiftwell is a beautiful young British desk agent, turned spy-in-training who’s stationed in Tokyo. Well-educated and sharp, she knows every trick in the book—or rather, she relies on every trick in the spy manual. She’s armed with the latest state-of-the-art spy equipment imaginable, from hidden cameras and concealed weapons to a telescoping utility arm and a holographic pop-up display. Holley is a highly motivated agent, but is fresh out of the academy, so her experience is based on lessons learned in school rather than real-life situations.

World Grand Prix contender Carla Veloso hails from Rio de Janiero, Brazil. The sweet but powerful Latin diva can dance the night away at “Car-nival,” but spends most of her time on the racetrack. After setting a new track record at the local Interlagos circuit, she was drafted to join the 24-hour endurance racing team in Europe, where she posted a consistent series of podium finishes.

Known as the “World’s Greatest Rally Car,” #6 Raoul ÇaRoule was born in Alsace, France. A restless soul, Raoul joined the famous ‘Cirque du Voiture’ French circus where he learned Gymkhana – a graceful, drift-filled motorsport that taught him pinpoint timing and an unparalleled ability to navigate tricky courses with ease. He’s the first car to ever win nine consecutive rallies.

Shu Todoroki is a Le Motor Prototype racer representing Japan and bearing #7 in the World Grand Prix. Shu was raised at the base of the active Mount Asama volcano in Japan, and soon became a champion on the Suzuka Circuit. His sleek design sports a fiery red Ka-Riu dragon, which Shu borrowed from Japanese legend because he relates to the small, yet fierce nature of the dragon.

Grem is a dented, rusty orange AMC Gremlin. After years of being dismissed for his design, even being called a “lemon,” Grem has a big chip on his fender that has led him to the underworld of international espionage.

Acer has always felt like an outcast in the car world. The beat-up green AMC Pacer joined forces with fellow “lemon” cars as henchmen for the devious Professor Z, whose clandestine mission is to wreak havoc at the highly visible World Grand Prix.

Carl Fredricksen (voice of Ed Asner) is not your average hero, in Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios’ latest comedy-fantasy “Up.” He’s a bit of a grouch, but a grouch you can love.

He’s a retired balloon salesman who is forced to leave the house he and his late wife, Ellie, built together. But instead of moving into the old folks home, Carl takes action. He may be a senior citizen, but he’s not ready to give up; he’s going to live the rest of his life on his terms. He ties thousands of balloons to the roof, lifts the house into the air, and sets off toward South America, fulfilling the promise he made to his wife so many years before.

Carl’s grand plan is challenged with the discovery of an unexpected stowaway, the optimistic, overly eager Russell. Carl’s journey tests more than his patience when the duo must survive the extreme weather, treacherous terrain and strange inhabitants of a lost world – as well as each other.

With their highly caricatured design, the characters in “Up” posed lots of challenges to Pixar’s team of animation experts and designers.  For Carl, they had to learn how to get nuance, emotion and a full range of motion into a character that is three heads high and basically square.

“With Carl, [director] Pete Docter wanted an old man who had literally shrunken in his suit and was swimming in this thing,” says Scott Clark, the film’s supervising animator. “The problem was Carl didn’t look like he had any knees or elbows, so we had to really come up with some innovative ways just to show a break in the cloth. We ended up lengthening his arms and legs so that you would see the break. He is probably the most caricatured thing we’ve ever done. It’s a real testament to our animation crew that they could actually get complex emotions other than just cute or happy out of Carl and Russell. There’s some pretty heavy scenes and great acting.”

But Carl needed a voice, too.  Says Docter, “We had this list of attributes that we wanted him to be—grouchy, curmudgeonly—but with a soft side that you knew he really cared about people.  And funny.  We definitely needed funny.  And the name that just kept coming up again and again was Ed Asner.  It was like he was born to play this role.”

“As soon as we had Ed Asner on board to do the voice, we had Carl,” adds Clark. “You heard it and you had the character. It gave us something to hang the animation on.”

“Ed Asner is the most likeable curmudgeon that you could possibly ask for,” adds John Lasseter, executive producer and chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. “The goal with all Pixar characters is to make them as appealing as possible and Ed brings that to the role of Carl. We’re so honored to have him on the film.”

“I like this character because he dreams beautiful dreams, and he’s willing to fight the dogs of society to maintain them,” says Asner. “I respect that enormously. I think it’s quite a story that this old man is able to transform his adoration for his late wife into a grudging final acceptance of a love for a young boy who needs his love.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Up” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International.

“Up,” the uplifting tale of 78-year-old balloon salesman, who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure, is the 10th film from Disney•Pixar, which has gone nine for nine with an unprecedented streak of hugely successful films, including “WALL•E,” “Ratatouille,” “Cars,” “The Incredibles,” “Finding Nemo,” “Monsters, Inc.,” “Toy Story 2,” “A Bug’s Life” and “Toy Story.”

Pixar now has nine of the 25 top grossing animated films of all time domestically, and all nine have been #1 at the box office on their opening weekends of wide release. “WALL•E,” “Ratatouille,” “The Incredibles” and “Finding Nemo” all earned Academy Awards® for Best Animated Feature, an award that was introduced in 2001.

“I am so proud that ‘Up’ is Pixar’s 10th film,” says John Lasseter, executive producer and chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. “I think it’s the funniest film that we’ve ever made, and also one of the most beautiful. We have a main character that is an amazing hero. Carl Fredricksen is 78-years-old and he travels the world in a flying machine of his own design and still has dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon. He’s the most unlikely hero you can imagine in an action picture. He is a character who learns that the big adventures in life are all the small things that happen in everyday life. Russell is one of the most appealing and charming characters that we’ve ever created. Together with Carl, these two characters light up the screen.”

The film is directed by Pixar veteran Pete Docter, who joined the studio in 1990—just the third animator to be brought on board. Along with Lasseter and Andrew Stanton, Docter developed the story and characters for “Toy Story,” Pixar’s first full-length feature film, for which he also served as supervising animator. He was a storyboard artist on “A Bug’s Life” and wrote the initial story treatment for “Toy Story 2.” Docter made his debut as a director on “Monsters, Inc.,” which received an Academy Award® nomination for Best Animated Feature Film. As one of Pixar Animation Studios’ key creative contributors, Docter garnered another Academy Award nomination for his original story credit on Disney•Pixar’s Oscar-winning “WALL•E.”

Docter says he’s learned a lot over the course of Pixar’s 10 films. “It never gets easier,” he says. “There are always new ways that the story conspires to trick us, to fool us into thinking we have the right solution. It’s only with a lot of reworking—and reworking and reworking—that you get good stuff.

“We still don’t know everything,” he continues. “But we allow ourselves to make mistakes. As Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, says, ‘if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not taking enough risks.’ I hope we never think of ourselves as experts—we learn something new on every film.”

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Up” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International.

Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios take moviegoers up, up and away on one of the funniest adventures of all time with their latest comedy-fantasy “Up.”  Presented in Disney Digital 3D™, “Up” follows the uplifting tale of 78-year-old balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen, who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America. But he discovers all too late that his biggest nightmare has stowed away on the trip: an overly optimistic 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. Their journey to a lost world, where they encounter some strange, exotic and surprising characters, is filled with hilarity, emotion and wildly imaginative adventure.

“I am so proud that ‘Up’ is Pixar’s 10th film,” says John Lasseter, executive producer and chief creative officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. “I think it’s the funniest film that we’ve ever made, and also one of the most beautiful. We have a main character that is an amazing hero. Carl Fredricksen is 78-years-old and he travels the world in a flying machine of his own design and still has dinner at 3:30 in the afternoon. He’s the most unlikely hero you can imagine in an action picture. He is a character who learns that the big adventures in life are all the small things that happen in everyday life. Russell is one of the most appealing and charming characters that we’ve ever created. Together with Carl, these two characters light up the screen.”

“For me personally, what makes a film worth watching is when you go home and you’re still thinking about it,” says director Pete Docter. “You leave the theater and you’re still thinking about it not only the next day, but the next year. In order to have a film affect you that way, it has to have real true emotion and resonate in some way with your own life. So even though the stars of the film may be monsters or bugs, you identify with those characters on the screen and you understand what they’re going through. It’s important to have that foundation of real truth and an emotional attachment to the characters.”

“Along with the humor, you have to have heart,” says Lasseter. “Walt Disney always said, ‘For every laugh, there should be a tear.’ I believe in that.” Filmmakers found a lot of heart in their latest adventure, exploring the love that Carl and his late wife shared and the friendship that develops between Carl and Russell. In fact, Carl discovers that life’s true adventure can be found not in travel or great accomplishments, but in the everyday relationships that we have with friends and family.”

The voice cast for “Up” features legendary actor Ed Asner, as balloon salesman-turned-adventurer Carl Fredricksen. Nine-year-old Jordan Nagai makes his acting debut as the voice of the determined and eager-to-assist Junior Wilderness Explorer, Russell. Christopher Plummer gives a rich and textured vocal performance as the voice of Charles Muntz, a faded hero with an obsession to restore his good name. John Ratzenberger, Pixar’s “lucky charm”—the only actor to lend his voice to all of the Studio’s feature films, provides the voice of a construction foreman named Tom, who tries to encourage Carl to sell his home. Muntz’s dog pack includes vocal performances by Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo and Jerome Ranft.

Opening soon across the Philippines, “Up” is distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures International.

Clearly, a computer-animated story about Bolt, a television superhero dog engaged in a trek across America with a super fan hamster, Rhino and a super cynical cat, Mittens, could not be construed as even slightly autobiographical for anyone behind the film. But in a way, for the executives, filmmakers and talent at the heart of Walt Disney Animation Studio’s upcoming release, “Bolt,” there is something that the onscreenanimals and off-screen humans share in abundance—ENTHUSIASM.

The zeal with which directors Chris Williams and Byron Howard discuss their feature film directing debut is palpable. Williams was hand selected by John Lasseter (Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios and Principal Creative Advisor, Walt Disney Imagineering) to helm “Bolt,” given his talents clearly on view in Chris’ first CGI animated short, “Glago’s Guest.”

Williams felt an immediate and positive connection to the project. He remembers, “I felt that there was a great potential to create really rich characters—that’s sort of our overall goal as filmmakers. We thought we could come up with a trio – a hero dog, a cynical cat and a cheerful hamster — that the audience could spend a lot of time with. And I really feel that we did that. For me personally, I’m just excited to be working at Disney under John Lasseter—you really want to make a movie for him. He’s the best boss you could possibly have in animation. He’s very engaged and involved, and feels passionately about any film that comes out of Disney or Pixar.”

That passion for animation is also evident in the impressive career path of co-director Byron Howard, a member of Disney Animation Studio’s “Story Trust,” a hothouse group of artists creating and developing stories for the Company’s short and feature-length offerings. Howard’s keen sense of animation is put to superlative use in “Bolt,” where a painterly world is inhabited by fully-realized CG characters who feel right at home. Byron explains the rule for this successful combination: “Something that John really stresses is believability—the world you create doesn’t have to be realistic, but it has to be believable, and everything in that world has to obey its own logic. You can see within the animation of Bolt some actual dog mannerisms that have been captured—the more that Bolt gets away from his TV show in Los Angeles, the more he starts to act like a real dog. So the animation incorporates more ‘dog’ physicality. We watched video, we researched some of the dogs of classic Disney films, we brought in dogs to the offices and sketched them. And you can really see it in the character. That’s really gratifying to all of us.”

Bolt believes that he is a lucky canine with superpowers, which he actually doesn’t, but in the end, he finds that his belief and his acting on that notion is enough. In a way, just as the Disney artists do, Bolt becomes the dog, the hero, he always wanted to be by the action he takes.