The premise is familiar: arrogant hotshot youth gets waylaid among “simple folk” and, though first disgusted by his circumstance, eventually comes around to appreciating a more respectful way of living life. Assumptions are made and then dashed, stereotypical characters gradually show their depth, and arrogance gives way to its opposite: empathy.

But this is Pixar we’re talking about. None of the themes in any of their movies are particularly new; it’s what’s in their delivery that matters. And, like every movie they’ve made to date, Cars has heart and soul to spare.

We first meet Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) as a dashing up-and-coming race car on the Piston Cup circuit. You read that right: he’s the car, just like everyone else in his world. He wants to win the Piston Cup, and even more than that he wants to hook up with Dineco, the crème de la crème of race car sponsorship. Standing in his way are the venerable (and retiring) King (Richard Petty) and perpetual underdog Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton). Things do not go as planned for Lightning; the three competitors tie, and a second race will be held on the other side of the country in a week’s time to decide once and for all who’ll take the top prize.

Lightning wants the prize, and he wants it bad. He wants to shake off his fogey old sponsors at Rust-eze, whether they gave him his start or not. He wants the spotlight. The penthouse. The shelf of Piston Cups. The glory. The girl-cars. But who doesn’t?

Alas, it’s not meant to be. A series of unfortunate events interrupts Lightning’s cross-country journey and lands him in Lightning in Radiator Springs, Nowhere, and he’s stuck until he’s done the community service he owes the town for busting up their road. (Long story.) If representing the creaky old fogies of Rust-eze is Purgatory for a guy like Lightning, then toiling for the rural types in Radiator Springs must surely be Hell.

The archetypes of the denizens of Radiator Springs are stock. There’s the sassy waitress, the big-city girl fallen in love with small-town life, the well-meaning country bumpkin a few spark plugs short of a full engine block. Heck, there’s even an Elder with a Mysterious Past. Even the town itself has its own past: once a bustling little burg on the legendary Route 66, now a dying town hanging on by its fingernails (or, I guess, bumpers) since the new interstate passed it by.

How the story unfolds should come as no great surprise to anyone familiar with movies. It’s that aforementioned delivery that Cars finds its own particular magic. Not just in the creativity and innovation in the setting itself or the cleverness of the character names and expressions so perfectly rendered in a front grill, but in the true love for the material evident in every frame. If the sequence where the various members of Radiator Springs go cruising down the main strip together doesn’t have you smiling like a fool, then you have no soul.

The Pop Culture Reference factory at Dreamworks’s studio has us expecting a standard joke-punchline approach to animated movies, but Pixar’s tastes are more rarified. Like The Incredibles or Finding Nemo, Cars takes longer to build up its charm, but the experience is infinitely more rewarding and has resulted in certifiable classics. This one is no different.