The walkway between Cars Land and Avengers Campus reopened Saturday morning at Disney California Adventure, sixteen months after construction walls closed it off. Guests can once again cut between Radiator Springs and the Marvel land without looping back toward Pacific Wharf, and the path now runs past a brand new building, the Take-A-Brake Rest Stop, that anchors the whole transition. TheDisneyScoop.com was there as the area opened on August 29.
A Tire Shop Turned Rest Stop
On the Cars Land side, the new restroom building plays as an old Route 66 mechanic shop that found a second life as a roadside rest stop. A lamp-topped marquee reads Take-A-Brake Rest Stop, with restrooms promised open 24/7, while the side wall carries a faded mural for Pop N Patch Tire Repair and its slogan, No Spare, No Problem, a nod to the shuttered tire shop seen in Cars. A weathered Dinoco logo hides on the far wall for guests who look closely.
The amenities answer a question Imagineers posed in their own preview video: what does a water fountain look like in a world of talking cars? The answer is Stanley’s Oasis, drinking fountains and a water bottle filling station styled as vintage pumps dispensing nature’s own fixer elixir, branded for the founder of Radiator Springs and inviting travelers to fill up and cool down. The building also includes a service animal relief area, and the finishing touches run deep. A Rust-eze Medicated Bumper Ointment thermometer hangs on one column, promising Rust Free, Race Ready results from the rear end formula that launched Lightning McQueen’s career.
A Stark Bunker On The Other Side
The same structure tells a different story from the other direction. Approached from Avengers Campus, the building reads as an aging bunker built for the Strategic Scientific Reserve in Howard Stark’s era, keeping with the land’s backstory as an old Stark Industries and SSR facility handed over to the Avengers. In Walt Disney Imagineering’s Pardon Our Pixie Dust episode released four days before the opening, an Imagineer named Caleb described the challenge of making a brand new plaster building read as an old “Howard Stark-era bunker,” a look achieved through textures, materials and color. The pathway shifts gradually between the two design languages, with intentionally cracked and aged asphalt selling the idea that this stretch of road has always been here.
The First Piece Of The Expansion To Open
The connector closed in April 2025 so crews could work on the Avengers Campus expansion, which will roughly double the Marvel land with two new attractions, Avengers: Infinity Defense and Stark Flight Lab. At D23 earlier this month, Disney said only that the two lands would “soon reconnect,” with no date attached, and Disney Tourist Blog guessed the path might stay closed until the October fall break. We covered the walkway’s first look when Imagineering previewed it on Tuesday, and the reopening follows another new permanent addition at the Campus entrance, the Jack Kirby tribute plaque revealed Friday. The larger expansion continues behind the remaining walls, with the new attractions set to open in 2028.
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