Characters / Roary the Racing Car

Racecars

In General

• Animate Inanimate Object
• Affectionate Nickname: They are often called "bambinos", "son" (sans Cici) or "sunshine".
• Calling Parents by Their Name: They refer to Big Chris and Marsha as is.
• Catchphrase
  • Roary: Light 'em up!
  • Maxi: Mamma Mia!
  • Cici: Catch me if you can!
  • Drifter: Go, go, Nitro boost!
  • Tin Top: Hammer me in, tape me up and send me out!
• Color Motif
  • Roary - red
  • Cici - pink
  • Maxi - yellow
  • Drifter - orange
  • Tin Top - blue
• Cool Car: Being racing cars, they are this by proxy.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • Roary and Cici: Sanguine
  • Maxi: Choleric
  • Drifter: Phlegmatic
  • Tin Top: Melancholic
• Idiot Hero: They all have their moments, though particularly Maxi and Tin Top.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: All the male racecars are this to some extent.
  • Roary is quite sensitive and nurturing towards his friends.
  • Maxi has a tendency to cry when upset.
  • Tin Top is afraid of mice and also has a nurturing personality.
  • Drifter is very submissive, passive and is notable for his serenity.
• I Just Want to Be Special: All the cars experience this at one point.
• Kid Hero: Almost all the cars are this at some point.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Drifter and Tin Top are nice, Maxi is mean, and Roary and Cici are in between.
• Playing Sick: Whenever one or more of the cars don't want to do something, this will be their excuse. Maxi is particularly guilty.

Roary

Light 'em up!

The titular character of the series. He is a British single-seater. He is young and excitable, and has the spirit of a pre-teen boy. He can occasionally be slightly rebellious, but has a good heart and is the most sensible of the cars. He often assumes a role of leadership among the other cars. Overall, Roary is very playful and enjoys racing around the track. His catchphrase is "Light 'em up!" He is based on the Formula 1600.

• All-Loving Hero: He is very nice to everyone he meets.
• Always Someone Better: He feels this way about Maxi.
• The Baby of the Bunch: He is the youngest and is often reminded of this.
• Badass Adorable: Is very cute yet capable of beating Maxi's lap record.
• Berserk Button: Do NOT damage his paintwork.
• Big Brother Instinct: Is this towards the other cars. Also Extremely Protective Child towards the humans.
• Birds of a Feather: Him and Cici.
• Break the Cutie: He faces some awful teasing from Maxi.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Is the brooding boy to Cici's gentle girl.
• Can't Live Without You: When he loses his lucky teddy, he becomes a crying mess and doesn't feel like doing anything.
• Child Prodigy: The most sensible and mature of the racecars.
• Children Are Innocent: He often finds himself in dangerous situations without realizing until it's too late.
• Cosmic Motifs: Stars are a common symbol of him, being the no 1 star of the racetrack.
• Cultured Badass: He may be a racecar but he knows how to make a romantic dinner for Big Chris and Marsha.
• Cute Machines: He's a little red race car, and he's pretty adorable.
• The Cutie: He is the cutest car on the track.
• Didn't Think This Through: In "Tall Story Roary" he tells everyone he can drift around Harepin Bend, yet his execution fails due to PC Pete finding out about his idea and stopping him.
• Friend to All Living Things: He is able to be nice to all species.
• Fun Personified: Is happy and enthusiastic almost all the time.
• The Hero: The hero of the series and the one who almost always saves the day.
• Heroic BSoD: In "Roary Loses a Friend", he loses his lucky teddy and refuses to do anything but sit around and mope.
• Just a Kid: He is commonly underestimated due to his age.
• Kid Has a Point: He often has good points for the other characters.
• The Leader: Despite his young age, he's this for the cars on the track.
• Love at First Sight: Was this when he met Cici.
• Love Makes You Dumb: He is very loving towards everyone, yet he can often find himself in dangerous situations because of it.
• Made of Good: Roary is almost always well behaved.
• Meaningful Name: Roary's name literally means "red king". He is both red and the King of Silver Hatch!
• Mouthy Kid: He can be this sometimes.
• Nice Guy: Though he has his moments where he acts otherwise, he's generally one of the nicest cars on the track along with Drifter.
• Only Sane Man: Given that he's a kid, he can most certainly have his less sensible moments, but he's generally this to the other cars despite being the youngest of them.
• Red Is Heroic: He is most certainly this.
• Red Ones Go Faster: He manages to win the races, multiple times.
• Rookie Red Ranger: A rather literal but nonetheless rather straight example.
• Young and in Charge: Roary is the youngest car on the racetrack, yet the most sensible of them all.

Maxi

Mamma Mia!

One of the secondary characters in the series. He is a divo (male diva) and has a tendency to bully the other cars. Maxi is Italian and is the favorite of Mr. Carburettor, and speaks with a thick Italian accent. Maxi's catchphrase is "Mamma Mia!" He is based on a Formula One racing car.

• Accent Adaptation: The US dub gives him a Brooklyn accent.
• Aesop Amnesia: He often ends up in vulnerable positions as a result of being defiant and/or bullying someone, yet he still continues to act the way he does.
• Ambiguous Disorder: He shows signs of NPD.
• Attention Whore: He always wants to be the center of attention.
• Determinator: He strives to win EVERYTHING, no matter what his circumstances are!
• Berserk Button: Do NOT mention anything to do with tractors.
• Bratty Half-Pint: He deliberately goes out o his way to be mean to the other cars.
• Butt-Monkey: Downplayed. He is often the subject of awful things happening to him, yet his friends are always there to help him.
• Competition Freak: He is OBSESSED with winning.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: He does this to Roary many times, knowing that Roary could easily beat him in a race.
• Drama Queen: Commonly creates drama on the racetrack.
• Fatal Flaw: His spoiled personality comes back to bite him - multiple times.
• Gratuitous Italian: “Mamma Mia! I was beaten by Roary the bambino!”
• Hidden Depths: Maxi, despite his unpleasant demeanor, is actually very smart, despite often not using his intelligence for good.
• It's All About Me: Maxi's personality is this.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: No matter how mean he is, he still is a nice fella (Depending on the Writer).
• Kiddie Kid: He's presumably the second-youngest car, yet he acts like a typical schoolyard bully.
• Lancer: His spoiled, egotistical personality contrasts Roary's easygoing, mature personality.
• Literal Metaphor: Zig-Zagged. Maxi calls himself a "mean, lean, racing machine". Literal being that he is a slim-built racecar with an unpleasant personality, and figuratively that he's always prepared to work hard to win races.
• Narcissist: He is extremely arrogant, self-centered and only cares about himself.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Roary had a nasty crash in one episode, he became a lot nicer.
• Precision F-Strike: Downplayed, but in "Easy on the Fuel", Maxi calls himself "stupid", when the show is known for using more creative insults.
• The Prima Donna: A rare male variant.
• Prone to Tears: See his reaction to any unpleasant situation.
• Rambunctious Italian: He makes a big scene out of everything, and has a comically thick Italian accent to boot!
• Thin-Skinned Bully: He calls the other cars tractors, but he can't handle being called a tractor himself.
• Team Prima Donna: Has his name written all over this trope.
• Toilet Humor: In one episode, he gets his sugar beet fuel replaced with Flash's "Race Winners Special Mixture", and has an er, bad gas attack.
• The Unapologetic: "Maxi is sometimes a little rude, I'd like to say a proper thank you".

Cici

Catch me if you can!

A secondary character in the series. She is French and has a pronounced accent. She is a bright pink and purple stunt car with the number 3 painted in a purple circle on her front and doors. She is an electric Rally Car, carrying solar panels on her roof. She is loosely based on a Citroën C1 rally car.

• Dub Name Change: Renamed to Zizzy in the US dub.
• First Love: Cici is Roary's 1st love interest.
• Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: She is pink and purple and has a high pitched voice, but she doesn't fuss like the others.
• Heroic BSoD: Poor Cici! She has gone through four frightening moments:
  • "Cici Takes the Blame" has her crying and feeling depressed after being barred from the practice lap races for "ruining" Marsha's picnic blanket.
  • In "Cici Gets Fired Up", Cici worries herself about being sent to the scrapheap after being stuck in the heavy rain, broken down and out of power.
  • "Roary Sees Red" sees Cici going through a lot of sadness when she gets trapped in the mud. A possible reason for her sadness could be because Roary was enraged towards Cici after ruining his paintwork.
  • And finally, in "Cici Wins the Day", Maxi makes fun of Cici by telling her that she never wins a race and she never will, causing Cici to give up racing in the big competition that day over Maxi's snarky comment before breaking down in depression.
• Hypocrite: In "Green Eyed Roary", she complained about Roary being childish when she's just as childish as him!
• Love at First Sight: When she met Roary.
• The Smurfette Principle: The only racer who is a girl.

Drifter

Go, Go, Nitro Boost!

He is a secondary character and is a Drift racing car. In line with his name, he can be observed to exhibit extreme oversteer handling characteristics, with his tail end swinging out wide on every corner. He has an on-board computer with a head-up display in his windscreen. He sports a dragon design on his sides with neon undertray lighting. He wears the number 6 on the top of his front windshield and back windshield. Drifter is Japanese and he speaks in a mock accent. His character loosely takes design cues from the Nissan Silvia S15 and Nissan R-34 Skyline. He has a very calm, serene personality, and rarely gets angry or upset.

• All Asians Know Martial Arts: Drifter demonstrated this in "Rusty Takes a Trip".
• Asian and Nerdy: He is Japanese and The Smart Guy.
• Asian Drivers: Inverted. He does not crash as much as the other characters - cough cough Tin Top cough.
• Asian Speekee Engrish: Subverted. He has an obvious accent, yet he speaks English perfectly.
• Dub Name Change: Renamed to Dragga in the US dub.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Drifter once made mechanical sounds when he moved his arms.
• Extreme Doormat: He is known for his extreme submissiveness to anything that happens to him.
• Informed Species: He claims he’s a “Hot hatch production streetcar”, yet he looks nothing like a hatchback, and instead looks like a sportscar.
• In-Series Nickname: Is sometimes referred to as "Drif".
• Insufferable Genius: Downplayed. Drifter likes to show off his technological features and how intelligent he is, but he's not cruel or mean.
• Japanese Politeness: Drifter is the most polite of the cars.
• Nature Lover / Nature-Loving Robot: Drifter actually loves nature, and sings about its beauty in one episode.
  I may be hi-tech, I may be bright But there's nothing quite like the real things in life, where the birds all sing, and the fishes they swim, all these simple things in life.
• Nice Guy: Drifter is the Nice Guy to Maxi's Jerkass.
• Nitro Boost: He uses his catchphrase to activate his nitro booster.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: His accent slipped here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AosdzKkAUe8 at 7:07.
• The Quiet One: Drifter doesn't say much.
• Religious Robot: Implied. Despite being a machine, he says "before a race, I like to calm down by practicing my Tai-Chi", hinting that he practices Taoism.
• Signature Laugh: Woohoohoohoohoohoooooo!
• The Smart Guy: Drifter, being the most high-tech, is the smartest of the bunch.
• Sucks at Dancing: Implied in "Dancing Queen", as he was the only one to not dance, despite him singing like an angel.
• Vocal Dissonance: His voice is significantly deeper in foreign dubs.

Tin Top

Hammer me in, tape me up and send me out!

He is a secondary character and is a stock car. He sports the number 88 and, in the UK dub, he speaks in a mock-American accent, voiced by Peter Kay. In the US version, Tin Top speaks in a stereotypical "urban" accent. He is based on a NASCAR stock car. He has musophobia (fear of mice).

• Agent Peacock: While he is very sensitive and has a tendency to be scared of things that seem silly, he is also rather chill in regards to crashes.
• The Big Guy: He is the biggest and strongest of the cars.
• Blatant Lies: He claims he isn’t scared of anything. However, throughout the show, he seems scared of a lot of things,, like loud noises and mice.
• Butt-Monkey: Tends to be on the receiving end of a lot of slapstick. And crashes.
• Chronically Crashed Car: He IS one, given that he's the most crash-prone of all the cars.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He can be quite silly and clumsy, but when Roary had a problem, he was quick to step in.
• The Ditz: Once fell for Cici's request for him to fetch "elbow grease".
• Eek, a Mouse!!: Tin Top is scared of mice.
• The Klutz: He's always crashing into things.
• Odd Name Out: The only character with a double-barreled name.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He may be a big and powerful stock car, yet he is scared of many things, namely loud noises and mice.

Humans

Big Chris

The mechanic at Silver Hatch.

• Bumbling Dad: He is generally messy and disorganized.
• Doting Parent: He favors Roary over all the other cars.
• Family Man: He lives at Silver Hatch to be with his family.

Marsha

The race marshal at Silver Hatch.

• Parental Obliviousness: While Cici tries to explain to Marsha about the picnic incident that she didn't do, she didn't buy Cici's truth and thought she was lying.
• Punny Name: Marshal.
• You Are Grounded!: Zig-Zagged. She punishes Cici for allegedly ruining her picnic blanket, yet it wasn't her fault. When Roary reveals himself as the real culprit, he is not punished.

Mr. Carbuerettor

• Doting Parent: He favors Maxi over all the other cars.

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