It not entirely clear exactly how Doc Hudson will be used in Cars 3.
It would seem that the movie will contain flashbacks but what we don’t know is if those flashbacks will be of events that we never saw during or after the original Cars movie, or from even earlier.
Cars 3 will contain four racing legend characters who knew and worked with the Hudson Hornet back in the day, so it’s possible that we might even hear the voice of a young Paul Newman in some scenes.
Writer Mike Rich told me that they also went to the Newman Foundation to get additional recordings of the late actor, so there’s even more for that the film was able to work with.