You’re probably thinking, “hey, didn’t she already show us a Batmobile? What gives?” Well, yes, I did showcase a Batmobile that had been made from a Mitsubishi Lancer, which I dubbed “The Batmobitsi”. Today’s car…. Today’s car is so much more hard core that the cutesy little yellow crime fighting mobile I saw in the Haaf ramp weeks ago. Today’s car is the real deal -well almost.
Ta-dah! It’s a replica of the 1966 Batmobile from the Batman TV show!
This one is actually built on a 1977 Lincoln continental chassis using body panels cast from molds taken from the original TV series car. Wanna guess where it is? Ellingson Classic Cars in Rogers, of course (I LOVE that place!). This one can be yours for a mere $125,000 (gasp!). It comes complete with auxiliary bat controls, and even a bat phone mounted on the transmission hump. It might as well be the original TV series Batmobile, because it sure as heck looks like it. Sing it with me now, “nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah, Batman!” Oh, and the personalized plate that reads “KAPOW”
This is a cool looking car, but don’t let its looks trick you into thinking it’s some type of road-raging super car. At its core, this one is a ‘77 Lincoln. That means it’s a rear wheel drive (fine -good, in fact) car with what is probably a 402 cubic inch V8 under its hood, paired up with a 3 speed automatic transmission for 182 HP and 331 lb-ft of torque, a top speed of 110 MPH, and a 0-60 time of about 13 seconds (and that’s before you pile on the weight of all that Bat-gear). Good thing its corny heritage and good looks make up for all that underwhelming technical detail.
You might be wondering what the original Batmobile was based on. The answer to that is the Lincoln Futura. Never heard of it? That’s because the Lincoln Futura was a concept car that was hand built by Ghia Body Works in Turin, Italy in 1955. There was only just the one; it cost Lincoln $250,000 to turn the idea into a reality that sat upon a Lincoln Mk II chassis. It was an actual, functional car; not just an empty shell of pretty sheet metal like so many other concept cars that make their way to auto shows. Under its hood was a 389 cu in V8 with a 4 barrel carburetor that supposedly whipped up 330 HP according to the specs I can find online.
You might find it interesting to know that the car that would become the original Batmobile started out its life painted white. Not just white, actually, but pearlescent white. In fact, the Futura featured paint that was mixed with ground pearls -a novel concept at the time, and was one of the first cars to wear such a concoction.
After its time on the auto show circuit was finished, the Futura’s pearlescent paint was covered over with cherry red and it was featured in a movie called It Started With A Kiss in 1959. In 1960, the now red Futura was sold to a car customizer named George Barris for the price of $1. What a steal, eh? Well, kind of. The car couldn’t be insured because it never had a title, so for the most part, Barris had bought a vehicle he couldn’t really drive. Lucky for us and the Futura that it was sold to him, though, because a lot of concept cars back then got sent to the scrap heap to be recycled. At least the Futura survived.
1966 rolled around, and the studio producing the Batman TV show needed a Batmobile ASAP. Barris took over the role of custom car builder from the guy originally hired to handle the matter in order to meet the time constraint. It just so happened that Barris still had the old Futura sitting in the lot at his shop, and it also just so happened that the Futura had just the look that Barris needed to create the Batmobile.
Lincoln had done most of the heavy lifting design-wise, so Barris really didn’t have to change all that much about the car. Most noticeable aside from the paint is probably the fascia, which went from a grille that consisted of a broad, open baring of grille teeth to being bisected with sheet metal elements that echoed the newly elongated hood scoop that streaked down the length of the hood. Lines were sharpened a bit, bright work was stripped off in favor of a more sinister look, and this was further accented with the contrasting red trim lines along certain parts of the body panel edges, and planar breaks and shifts. The fins were tweaked, and the wheel wells were extended to accommodate larger wheels and tires. Some aggressive looking vertical exhaust pipes were added, protruding from the top rear plane of the car like splines along the spine of a lionfish.
The interior was outfitted with all manner of bat accouterments, and this is the condition in which the Futura sits today. Barris no longer owns the car -he leased it to the studio for the filming of the TV show, and then had it in his collection for many years before he sold it at a Barrett-Jackson auction for $4.6 million early this year. Of course, he made some replicas (6 were used for the show) from the molds he pulled from the first. But, in this whole wide world, there is only one Batmobile that is really a Lincoln Futura wearing a Batmobile costume, and it’s now owned by a businessman from Arizona who apparently, just had to have it. Well, he did get a car that was in a bunch of car shows, a movie, a TV show, and whose original paint job was somewhat of a breakthrough for automotive finishes of its day -how many other cars can the same be said of?
Good for the guy who owns THE Batmobile, I say. Though, if I had 4.6 million dollars to spend on a Batmobile, I’d probably just buy the replica Batmobile from Ellingson for $125,000 and keep the change, but that’s just me.
George Barris may be credited with creating the Batmobile, but at least some credit should go to the Lincoln designers who came up with the Futura. We have Barris to thank for the Munster Koach from the Musters, though, and he is often credited with creating other movie and TV cars, even when he didn’t, which has some people, including other custom car builders, pretty irked.
It’s not that Barris is actively claiming credit for work he didn’t do, it’s just that he doesn’t go out of his way to disabuse others of the notion that he did design those cars…. And which cars are we talking about? Well, there’s K.I.T.T. (Knight Industries Two Thousand) from Knight Rider (a car that I loved so much as a child that when I got a black Trans Am matchbox car for my 5th birthday, I painted a red stripe on the front to simulate red scanner laser light bar that KITT had (my first custom car, I guess). The General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard is another (Barris may have been peripherally involved in its build, but certainly not the head honcho). The Monkey Mobile -a Pontiac GTO at its core, which was actually done by Dean Jeffries, who also designed the Green Hornet’s Black Beauty, and who, sadly, died earlier this year. There’s also the Ghostbuster’s Ecto-1 hearse, and, of course, the Back to the Future Delorean. To be fair, Barris probably did at least build replicas of many, if not all of these cars, so to say that he built a K.I.T.T, a General Lee, or a Monkee Mobile is not entirely untrue -it’s just that he didn’t build THE K.I.T.T, THE General Lee, or THE Monkee Mobile.
Whatever anybody might think of Barris, this getting credit for stuff, intentional or mere oversight on his part, has worked. He’s often credited with designs that aren’t really his by people who assume they are based on how synonymous Barris’ name is with Hollywood custom cars. I’d bet that a lot more people who don’t necessarily care so much about cars would sooner recognize Barris’ name than Jeffries, or any other car customizer for that matter. And even though Lincoln and its designers did a great big chunk of the work that would eventually become THE Batmobile, Barris still deserves credit for what he did and I still admire him -because he saved the Futura from becoming a cube of crushed steel…. And because, Batmobile!
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