Piston Peak: Disney’s New Cars Land for Magic Kingdom

This week, Walt Disney Imagineering shared a video of itself carefully packing a miniature mountain range into wooden crates. The clip shows rocky ridges and dark green pines being nestled into a shipping box, a detailed model of Piston Peak National Park. It is bound for the D23 show floor in Anaheim, where the doors open August 14, and it is the closest fans have come to standing inside this future land. The land itself is still years away, and this model offers an early look at what is coming.

The story began in August 2024. At that year’s big fan event, Disney shared that a new area “inspired by the Pixar film Cars” was coming to a reimagined slice of Frontierland at Magic Kingdom. It started as an exciting concept, with the name and artwork still to come.

The details arrived on June 3, 2025. Disney gave the land its name, Piston Peak National Park, along with a full design language to match. The vision draws from the National Park Service and a style called Parkitecture, where buildings are designed to blend into the landscape. In Disney’s own words, it will be “an awe-inspiring wilderness filled with towering trees, snowcapped mountains, breathtaking waterfalls, roaring rivers and impressive geysers.” Two rides are planned. A marquee off-road rally where you race across the terrain, climb mountain trails, dodge geysers, and splash through mud, plus a smaller family attraction aimed at younger kids. Both are billed as all-new, meaning they are original designs distinct from the Cars rides that already exist in California.

That California connection is worth clarifying, because there is already a Cars Land and the two are easy to mix up. Cars Land opened at Disney California Adventure on June 15, 2012, a 12-acre recreation of Radiator Springs anchored by Radiator Springs Racers. That land is a beloved, well-established destination located 2,500 miles from Florida. Piston Peak is its own place with its own look, a national park theme, and it will live at Magic Kingdom in Orlando. So while both celebrate the world of Cars, they are two separate lands with two different names.

Progress on the ground

Real progress is now underway. To make room, Disney closed the Rivers of America, Tom Sawyer Island, and the Liberty Square Riverboat on July 7, 2025. These were longtime favorites. The Rivers of America had circled that part of the park since Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, and Tom Sawyer Island offered one of the quietest corners of the park. Fans hold fond memories of these spots, and Piston Peak is rising in a place with a rich history.

Since then, the foundational work has been moving along. Crews have handled site prep and grading, underground utilities, and a tall concrete retaining wall rising near Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to separate the new land from the existing one. Construction walls have extended into the Frontierland walkway. The next phase, vertical construction of the ride buildings and mountains that will eventually rise over the fence, is still ahead. For now the site is in its early groundwork stage.

A quick word on the 2028 figure you may have seen. In February 2026, Disney indicated that infrastructure work for Piston Peak and the neighboring villains land would be complete by 2028. That refers to the utilities and groundwork beneath the land. Disney has not announced an opening date for Piston Peak yet.

Which brings us back to those crates. The model debuts at D23 the weekend of August 14 to 16, and Disney has teased that more detail is coming during its “Horizons” showcase on Saturday night. That is the moment to watch. A physical model means the design is locked in enough to build in miniature, and a fan event with the whole industry watching would be a natural place for Disney to share ride names or more about the land’s timeline.

The latest

This story is tracked live and will be updated as the D23 2026 showcase this weekend brings news.

This is part of our live tracker of every new land and ride Disney announced at D23 2024. See where all eleven stand: D23 2026, live: every Disney parks reveal, and the latest on what is coming.

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Live updates

[Aug 14, 4:13 p.m. PT] At the Imagineering: Horizons pavilion, Disney showed a 19 by 19 foot model of Piston Peak National Park, a first look at the land’s second attraction, and a land marquee display featuring a Goat Cart.