Both introduce the world to youngsters, but with different modes.
Lightning McQueen is more recent than Thomas The tank, so the correct phrase would be “Lightning McQueen is today’s Thomas The Tank…” or “Thomas The Tank is yesterday’s Lightning McQueen…”
This is a difficult statement to assess.
Thomas is multi-generational, the main series started in 1984 and ran as recently as 2021.
That’s like saying “yesterdays kids grew up with Raffi”. That dude is still touring (at least in Canada, but he’s been to the US recently) and still putting out new stuff. In fact, he refers to his “older fans”, who now have their own kids that are getting introduced to Raffi, as “beluga grads”.
Meanwhile the original Cars movie came out in 2004 but had movie sequels in 2011 and 2017, but there are also spin-offs in the universe including movies, shows and shorts.
