The stories of how George Barris purchased the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car (for a $1) from a dust-bin and created a pop culture monster in three weeks are widely-known and oft-repeated. Suffice to say there exists a generation of Batmaniacs who identify more with the TV car than any other edition of the Batmobile.
It's a unique car in it's garage, the first to add Cerise (fluroescent, no less) to the Batman palette (a brilliant innovation that would only work on film, in our opinion) and flooded Batculture with the influence of gadgetry mania.
Part of the lore of this car is that designer Dean Jeffries was first offered the job, but turned it down due to the time constraints. Dean reportedly started with a 1959 Cadillac, although I've seen nary a concept sketch for proof.
The '66 Batmobile started my childhood obsession with this beautiful monster and in celebration, I grabbed a POLAR LIGHTS snap 1/25 model. As you can see, they got it spot on.
Happy Birthday, old man. I think your parents are very proud. Without you, Batman would have spent a lot of time doing this:
Happy Birthday you sleek, moody, sexy machine!!!(The batmobile, not you Doc!! );)
ReplyDeleteHonestly, it's applicable to both.
ReplyDeleteWhere in the UK do you think the 2nd pic is from?
Highly likely to be London, looking at the kids and what they're wearing I'd say they are stage school kids ( Quant style mac, polo neck, ''Lennon'' hat!).
ReplyDeleteRegular kids of that age over here still wore short trousers!!!
I'm sure this pic is part of the saftey adverts he had to do to tell kids he couldn't fly, even though he was a bat man... See, all clever stuff!! :)
Look both ways, little chums!
ReplyDeleteI'm in detective mode...
ReplyDeleteIt might not have been the 60s this pic was taken.
That middle car looks K reg, which is 1972, that's the earliest it can be saying if it's a new car.
His answer to the question below isn't quite right as she was the minister of education, not transport which according to the wonder of google; the Iron Lady was the edu minister between 70-74.
SO if we look at the evidence I'm putting this pic between 1972 and 1974. It's elementry my dear Batusi! (You Doc, not the batmobile) ;)
Quoted from BIZARRE magazine:
Q: Didn't one of our ex-prime ministers, Maggie Thatcher, invite you over to London once?
AW: Yeah, she was the Minister Of Transport at that time, and she asked if I'd do a little road safety film for the children. I put on the costume and played Batman as kinda the Pied Piper. Of course, it being the opposite from the States where you say: "Look left, look right, look left again..." here you say: "Look right, look left, look right again... "So I got terribly confused.
I believe it-- I bet Adam was off contract and doing his thing. I love that picture. "Who knows where danger will come from, children!"
DeleteAh, God. What a beauty. What a beauty.
DeleteHa! yeah, I agree it is a spectacular photo!! there is part of me that kinda gets excited that BATMAN was HERE teaching in theory a kid which could have been ME!!! :)
ReplyDeleteYou guys normally get all the fun!!