The Batmobile

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1

NOLAN:
There's something incredibly primal

about the relationship...

...between man and machine.

It's extraordinarily powerful.

It's almost like the myth becoming reality.

Well, you look at the comics themselves

and how much they've changed over the years.

When you see it, you go,

"That's so cool! I wish I had one of those."

We wanted to raise the bar and build

the best Batmobile there ever was.

USLAN:
The origin of Batman is so primal

and emotion filled.

[GUNSHOTS]

When Bruce Wayne was a young boy...

...he saw his parents murdered

before his eyes.

And at that moment, in the belief

that one person can make a difference...

...he made a vow to get the bad guy

who did this...

...and to get all the bad guys...

...even if he had to spend the rest of his life

walking through hell...

...to honor that commitment.

As a man, I'm flesh and blood,

I can be ignored, I can be destroyed...

...but as a symbol...

As a symbol, I can be incorruptible.

I can be everlasting.

One of the attractions of Batman as a

superhero is that he doesn't have superpowers.

RA'S AL GHUL:

You are just an ordinary man in a cape.

- I never said thank you.

- And you'll never have to.

WHITE:

He dedicated his life to fighting crime...

...so no one else in Gotham City

would have to suffer the way he did.

SCHUMACHER:
He is an ordinary person

doing extraordinary things...

...to stop injustice.

The Batmobile is the way he gets there.

I've got to get me one of those.

The very first Batman story was in

Detective Comics, number 27, May 1939.

And right from the get-go, Batman needed

to get from place to place in the city...

...so he drove Bruce Wayne's red sedan.

And in 1941, Bill Finger, the writer...

...decided to take what Bob Kane

had been drawing...

...and dub it the Batmobile,

and then working with Jerry Robinson...

...craft it as something that began

to look a little darker...

...a little bit more serious,

and a little bit more bat-like.

The Batman! Come on.

When the movie serial started,

you had real cars.

Let's go.

USLAN:
The 1943 Batman movie serial

was a 1939 Cadillac...

...which was the car

Bruce Wayne was driving.

But it seemed like if the top was up,

it was the Batmobile.

If the top was down,

it was Bruce Wayne's car.

Come along, fella,

you're going with us to the Bat's cave.

It didn't have any bat symbology...

...they didn't have any budget

to build fins for it. It was very simple.

DIDIO:
When you hire a new artist for DC

to work on Batman...

...one of the first things they want to do

is they want to invent the Batmobile.

USLAN:

What was happening around 1950...

...was an editorial decision

to modernize Batman.

The existing Batmobile has a crash...

...Batman breaks his leg,

and as he's recuperating...

...he's sitting there drawing up plans

for a brand new Batmobile.

The Batmobile elongated,

the Batface on it grew in size...

...and was far more prominent...

...and the various artists through the years

of the 1950s continued to modify that.

It had different kinds of weapons...

...different kinds of devices

from story to story...

...depending on what the writer needed

to get him out of some kind of a fix.

I actually have seen a Batmobile

in real life.

I've actually seen the '60s

Adam West Batmobile.

Still one of my favorites

just because it's the first one.

The first iteration of the Batmobile

I ever saw was the TV show.

I remember as a kid

that was a massively important part...

...of what the appeal of Batman was.

The TV Batmobile was created

by George Barris...

...whose daytime job was customizing cars.

BARRIS:
The producer, William Dozier,

called me from 20th Century Fox...

...says, "We're doing a Batman TV show...

...and we'd like to create a Batmobile.

Now, you've got 15 days and $15,000."

I said, "Wait a minute, 15 days?"

But the challenge was worth it,

so I said, "Let's go for it."

And of course the big part is

that Ford Motor Company...

...had the basic car that we used.

I bought the concept car, the Futura,

from Ford Motor Company for $1.

It gave me pieces already

that I could make fit...

...but this car had to be a star.

What I had to create was a fantasy

and basically we started wrong.

We had it in a dull gray primer

with a fading white stripe...

...and we'd come out of the Batcave.

I said, "Stop. It ain't gonna work."

So immediately I run it back to the shop,

I painted it a gloss black...

...and then I went and got

sign painting glow paint.

I went with red-orange because I wanted

to bring out the lines.

Boom, I take that to the Batcave,

and out it comes and Dozier said:

"Ah. That's more like it."

When I first saw the Batmobile...

...I was kind of in awe...

...because it had so many wonderful gadgets

and things that it did.

I feel that we had the first car phone.

That was so my agent could reach me.

This is supposed to be a jet-powered car.

The actual tube is a 5 gallon paint can.

I was a kid and I remember racing home

to see the first episode of that...

...and it was a big deal.

The Batman show breaks bigger than

anybody ever expected.

WEST:

I drove the Batmobile most of the time...

...and that's why Burt Ward, as Robin,

was white-knuckled...

...because I did things with the Batmobile

maybe that shouldn't have been done.

I would come toward camera...

...swing the thing around

in a big splash of gravel...

...trying not to hit anyone.

Because the kids loved it.

Come on, Robin. To the Batcave.

We haven't one moment to lose!

The Batmobile represents freedom

in a way because, as a kid...

...you completely lose yourself in the fantasy

of being that character...

...getting to drive that car.

I was probably 4 or 5

when I got a die-cast toy of it...

...and it had the jet burner on the back

and some orange flames.

I've got a couple of them. I've got the Matchbox

one since I was a kid. I still have it.

I've got a 16th scale and a 32nd scale.

My wife, when we were dating,

she walked into my place...

...and she said,

"You're one of those guys that...

...you know, you get nervous when you walk in

and see all the toys on your shelves."

The number one car

is what we call the hero car.

That is the original Batmobile

that the actual Futura was made from.

That is the car that used a lot of close-ups

on the stars in the car.

WOOD:
The car has been rebuilt

a couple of times...

...because when they wrecked it during

the filming of the TV show...

...they didn't have a stunt car for this

until later on.

We made five cars that were functional cars,

and two exhibition cars.

I pulled molds off of the original car...

...and all the expensive cars

were all made out of fiberglass...

...on Ford Galaxy chassis.

WOOD:
They went on tour,

they went around to supermarkets.

It brought hundreds of people.

To this day, 60 years later,

these cars still draw crowds...

...and they still go out on tour.

One Halloween evening

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