Batmobile: Likely to Set New Auction Record For Movie Cars
If you’ve always wanted to have a Batmobile waiting for you in your own Bat Cave, be prepared to spend big.
Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies are teaming up to auction off the Batmobile from Batman Returns on 23 November. The car was used extensively during the shooting of the 1992 film and is expected to set a new auction record for movie cars.
In the years since it made its snarling, raucous appearance in Batman Returns, the motorised beast, which still maintains its original glossy black finish, has either been in storage or on display at the Marconi Automotive Museum in California.
The 'Tim Burton Batmobile' was designed by Julian Cadlow and brought to life by Hollywood legend Carl Casper. It measures 19 feet, eight inches long bumper-to-bumper and has a frame crafted from two spliced-together Chevrolet Impala chassis. The frame is topped with an Art Deco-inspired body made from fiberglass that features a jet-turbine-style intake up front and two giant bat wings rising off the rear. It’s powered by a Chevy V-8 mated to a three-speed automatic transmission. Wouldn't it be fabulous if it was street legal? Sadly, it's not.
The auction house says it expects the vehicle to sell for between $5 million and $7 million. If the hammer comes down within this range, it would make the Batman Returns Batmobile the most expensive movie car in history. The vehicle it would replace? The Batmobile from the Adam West Batman TV series, which sold for $4.2 million at auction last decade.
