This is a fiberglass replica of the 1989 Batmobile body, arguably the most famous version of the Batmobile, and this one is designed to fit over a C4 Corvette chassis.
This body is being sold along with a C4 Corvette to use as a donor car for the chassis, drivetrain, and suspension, brakes, steering, etc. There is a lot of work required here to turn this into a running and driving Batmobile, but it’ll be a fun project for the right person or team.
Above Video: This is an original behind-the-scenes segment that shows the team behind the creation of the Burton Batmobile, and it shows images of the early models, and the first full-scale mock up.
The original 1989 Batmobile, often called the Burton Batmobile after the film’s director Tim Burton, was actually developed by a British team in England. This team included Anton Furst as production designer and Julian Caldow as concept illustrator for the Batmobile.
The car was designed initially in a series of sketches, with Tim Burton providing guidance. Once the final sketches were settled a small scale model was made, and after this concept was finalized they moved on to a full-scale polystyrene model.
It would be this polystyrene model that then formed the fiberglass mold, and the Batmobile truly took shape for the first time. It was decided to base the car on a Chevrolet Impala chassis, which needed to be cut and extended to fit the relatively long 141 inch wheelbase – that’s over 3.5 meters.
Power was provided by the Impala V8 which sent power to the rear wheels via an automatic transmission. This was how the car actually drove, but of course in the film it was said to be powered by a jet engine with an afterburner.
Some jet engine parts were actually used in the construction of the car, including from a Rolls-Royce jet engine and a Harrier Jump Jet. The vehicle was fitted with a gas burner in the rear, to simulate the function of the afterburner.
The Batmobile was also fitted with a number of prop weapons and Bat devices including Browning machine guns, a gas-powered grappling hook, side-mounted disc launchers, and chassis-mounted shin-breakers.
The 1989 Tim Burton film Batman was a major box office success, and it marked the return of Batman to the big screen for the first time since 1966. Burton’s darker take on the film would become the de facto through all the Batman films that would follow. Image courtesy of Warner Brothers.
Two Batmobiles were built for the film, and they were used in both Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1991). There were an additional three cars built from the mold, these were used for promotional purposes around the time of each film’s release, and one of them now lives in the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.
A number of replica Burton Batmobiles have been built over the years, some more accurate than others, and all used fiberglass bodies just like the originals.
The 1989 Batmobile Body Shown Here
The body you see in this article is listed simply as a 1989 Batmobile body with relatively little additional information. It does appear to be true to scale and many of the details are on the mark, it also comes with an additional turbine fan kit for the front and additional fiberglass parts for the sides.
The seller is offering it along with a C4 Corvette convertible to use as the donor car. The original Batmobile was based on Chevrolet underpinnings as well, though it used an Impala rather than a Corvette as noted above.
There are few movie cars more famous than this one, snd I’d argue none have quite as menacing a presence when stationary.
There can be no doubt that this is a big project and it would likely take a team of experienced builders a few months at the very least. That said, it could be a lot of fun, and once it’s completed it would be the highlight of any car show or cars and coffee event it arrived at.
If you’d like to read more about it or enquire about buying it you can visit the listing on eBay here. It’s being offered for sale out of Raleigh, North Carolina and the bidding starts at $10,000 USD. At the time of writing, no bids have yet been placed.
Images courtesy of Jazzy Pirate
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Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
