The Batmobile debuted–as a sleek black “high-powered auto” sans Bat-embellishments–in Detective Comics #30 in 1939, just three months after cartoonist Bob Kane’s mysterious creation The Batman made his first appearance.
The film The Mask of Zorro was major inspiration on the character, and the car was Kane’s modern take on Zorro’s horse, Tornado. The auto was soon reconfigured into the familiar Bat-faced, Bat-finned powerhouse that, with frequent updating through the ages, would charge forth throughout Batman’s 66-year comic book history.
But if Kane’s creation thrilled on the page as the chief weapon Batman’s arsenal of crime-fighting tools, Hollywood truly made it an icon when the Batmobile was brought to life on TV in 1966, and the legend was expanded with the feature films of the 1980s and 1990s. Hollywood.com roars back in time to look at the Batmobiles of the big and small screen.
1966 Batmobile
Appeared in: Batman TV series, 1966-1968; Batman feature film, 1966; Rock Star, 2001
Created by: Customizer George Barris and production artist Eddie Graves
Options Included: Completely hand-formed steel body; 29 Ford Full Race engine; turbine exhaust finned air cooling rear tube; grille cavity with internal mounted rockets; hydraulically operated steel chain and cable cutter blade; dual 450 watt laser beams installed in amber reflective lenses; dual 84 inch rear bat fins with bullet proof steel for added protection; 10-inch wide Rader wheels made of steel and power thrust alloy with traction grip Oval Firestone tires; twin aircraft streamlined plexiglass bubble windshields; twin body contoured air foam bucket seats; 360 degree turning made possible by bat impression twin parachutes on a 25 foot nylon cord; 40 coats of super gloss black and then is trimmed in an outline of fluorescent cerise; dash equipped with Batphone, Batscope, Bateye switch for anti-theft control, antenna for information radio wave pickup of messages and computing from the Batcave with electronic unit installed in trunk, Detect-a-scope, Batray reactors and laser beam button controls, warning lights and directional electronic systems.
Inspiration: “The art director brought in an idea of what they needed: flashing lights, turbine fire blower on the back, chain slicer, etc.,” recalled Barris. Who modified a 1955 Ford Futura concept car. “We gave them a 20th century Batmobile that was different from Bob Kane’s.”
Behind the Wheel: “Although the Batmobile would photograph wonderfully, and would certainly become a character unto itself, it was very difficult to drive,” Adam West has said. “It was heavy and unbalanced and the brakes were not good. The steering and suspension were unwieldy and awkward, and it took a lot of getting used to…They had to under crank the camera because it wasn’t safe to drive the car over 25 miles per hour!” West continued, “I remember when we were in New York promoting our Batman movie,”. “The car was there to be driven for promotional purposes, and got a tremendous reaction. I remember a guy in a Cadillac convertible near the Plaza Hotel. He was coasting along smoking his cigar, and had the top down. He suddenly looked over as I started to pass him, and he got so excited he hit the brake and crushed his cigar right into the windshield in front of him.” Mark Wahlberg‘s character in the film Rock Star would blow some of his early fortune on this vintage Batmobile.
1989 Batmobile
Appeared in: Batman, 1989; Batman Returns, 1992
Created by: Production designer Anton Furst, art director Terry Ackland-Snow and mechanical effects supervisor John Evans.
Options included: 19-foot-long, eight-foor-wide body; 24-inch wheel radius; jet turbine engine and afterburners; accelerates to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds; voice-activated remote control operation; voice-activated anti-theft cocooning impenetrable shields; deploy device for explosive two Browning machine guns concealed under the wheel housings; front-mounted grappling hook with crab claw for high-speed turn assist; 24-volt system to power gadgetry; breakaway side and tail exteriors to free streamlined Batmissle main body; dual side firing mechanism capable of launching up to 15 metallic Batdiscs, one every quarter-second.
Inspiration: “General Motors wanted to spend $6 million developing a Batmobile for advertising potential [but] none of us wanted something geared to the consumer–just a pure piece of brutal expressionism which fitted the timelessness of the movie,” said the late production designer Anton Furst., who envisioned a Batmobile that was a mixture of a ’30s Blue Ribbon Utah Flats Speed Machine, a Formula One Grand Prix racer, a sleek ’50s Corvette Stingray, a Blackbird jet and a Centurion tank. “It was to be an extension of Batman’s overall total look, meant to intimidate…the sort of car a knight would have had if they had this technology in medieval times…My Batmobile probably looks more old fashioned than the one on television.”
1994 Batmobile
Appeared in: Batman Forever, 1994; The Drew Carey Show
Created by: Production designer Barbara Ling, art department illustrator Tim Flattery, special effects supervisor Tommy Fisher and vehicle construction house TFX (Transportation Effects).
Options included: Rear turbine exhaust; Z23 Chevrolet racing engine capable of exceeding 100 miles per hour; powerful interior machinery radiating with blue-white light within 25-foot-long ribbed, superlightweight, bulletproof carbon fiber/high temperature epoxy resin body; meshed hood; majestic 10-foot-tall rear wing and fins.
Inspiration: “The bat is an amazing animal,” said Ling. “The structure of its wings, its veins and ribs. We started going for a stylized, automotive version of a bat. I wanted the Batmobile to look like a living, breathing thing, and you cannot believe how hard it is to design it.”
Behind the Wheel: The film did not mark the first time actor Val Kilmer slipped into the cockpit of the Batmobile: as a first-grader he visited the set of the ABC series (one of his mother’s friends worked in the special effects department) and got to pretend to drive the original George Barris model. Drew Carey got to drive the 1994 model in a 1997 episode of ABC’s The Drew Carey Show, in which he wins the a replica of the Batmobile in a contest but loses it when he gets a ticket for “public lewdness” when the car inspired his aroused girlfriend take off Drew’s utility belt–and more–in the cockpit.
1997 Batmobile
Appeared in: Batman & Robin, 1997
Created by: Production designer Barbara Ling, automotive illustrator Harald Belker and TFX
Options included: 33-foot-long body with 153″ wheelbase; Chevrolet 350 ZZ3 capable of 140 miles per hour; jet turbine afterburner thrusts for speed up to 350 miles per hour; side-grated ribs with pulsating red, yellow and blue interior lighting; rear exhaust with six columns producing a V-shaped exhaust pattern six feet long; 22″ prototype Goodyear tires; single rear cockpit; independent rear suspension; illuminated blue hubcaps with bat-emblem; on-board voice activated computer and arsenal; catapault ejection seat; subcarriage rocket launchers; front and rear grappling hooks; smaller emergency road vehicle hidden with the central carriage that detaches and operates independently.
Inspiration: “I was particularly glad to have one more crack at the Batmobile,” said Ling. “I think it should always feel like half a block is coming at you when you see it approach, and the size of the vehicle has to take on unnatural proportions for that to happen…I also wanted the Batmobile this time to be a convertible, which had always excited me about the early comic book Batmobile.” Ling drew on the designs of roadster sports cars like the Jaguar D and Delahane 165, as well as the Moon Spinner and X Streamliner. “The central idea in my mind was for the Batmobile’s shape to reflect the Bat Cape, and to utilize a tremendous amount of light from within.”
