Okay, so maybe not the LAST, but since the release of the splendid Polar Lights/Round 2 kits of the late George Barris’s iconic ‘66 Batmobile, one has to assume there won’t be too many modelers with a masochism streak big enough to bother.
Frankly, I‘m not one of them, either. I started this project back in 2004, long before Polar Lights was an option. I managed to get the bodywork and paint finished, then had to pack everything away for a change of address, and somehow never managed to get back to it until now. I broke it out and started work again about a month ago.
(Purely coincidentally, Mr. Barris passed away less than a week ago, at the age of 89. As one of the countless fans and enthusiast who have been inspired by his innovative body of work over the years, I can’t help but dedicate this build to his memory. Thanks for the flights of imagination.)
I did the fairly extensive body work before I even owned a camera, so alas I have no “in progress” pics. Modifications included opening up and boxing in the wheel wells, building the fender flares from scratch, and extending the hood “bump” fairing all the way down to the nose. The tail fin fairings had to be “filled in” where they come forward to the cockpit, and of course the scallops had to be added to the trailing edges. Lots of styrene sheet and Testors white putty. And sanding…so much sanding.
Paint was several coats of MM Gloss Black Enamel, sanded and buffed between. Trim stripes were mainly Micro Scale decal stock, with enamel paint touch-ups. Top gloss coat was multiple applications of Future, heavily buffed.
Here’s the body freshly removed from storage.
It survived in pretty good shape; the only real touch-up needed was to my home-made “door bat” decals, which had faded to a lovely rose pink. I carefully overpainted them with red enamel, then reapplied a couple coats of Future (the original gloss finish I had used), and all was good-to-go once more.
For those unfamiliar with the venerable Revell kit (copyright 1956, on the instructions in mine), it has no separate chassis and body pieces as most modern kits do. Instead there’s a lower body pan, to which everything else, including the multi-part upper body, is attached. With all the body work to be done, there was no way I was going to detail the interior and then build the body around it as the instructions called for. So I measured carefully, then cut a panel out of the bottom that would allow me to insert the finished interior (and fish it into place) after the messy stuff was finished.
INTERIOR
Before I originally started the project, I’d picked up a few aftermarket goodies from an apparently now-defunct website called SID-KIT.com. These included the iconic fire-extinguisher, Bat-phone, rear-deck triple pipes and bat-shaped wheel spinners (all in white metal); the central cockpit pylon and police-style beacon (both in resin); and the little hood-mounted radar antenna (in photoetch). Here’s the “before and after” of the fire extinguisher:
Almost everything else in the interior was scratchbuilt: homing and “Bat-scope” domes, shift and “Emergency Bat-Turn” levers, and assorted buttons and knobs. Steering wheel is the kit part with the top arc trimmed off to make the yoke style. Home-made “bat-label” decals and some good old-fashioned detail painting add the final touches.
I had some tiny-diameter wire with a neat metallic red color insulation, so I used it as contrast piping in the kit seats.
Here’s the completed cockpit tub, with fabric belts (and Model Car Garage etched buckles), fire extinguisher and Bat-phone in place, and scratchbuilt armrest/door-latch panels added to the cut-out tub sides.
Cockpit tub installed, pylon and canopy sections installed. I did the canopy frames with Bare Metal Foil.
The SID-KIT white metal mortar pipes for the rear deck had profile problems and pretty deep casting seams running down the sides, so I just went ahead and made the pipes from styrene tube stock. Painted with old-school Testors square-bottle silver enamel.
FINAL DETAILS
Wheels and tires were salvaged from Monogram’s old K-Mart “Lake Speed” Nascar kit. I reversed the tires so the molded “Goodyear Eagle” emblems disappeared to the inside. I never got around to picking up the AMT “Fireball 500” kit for the proper Radir wheels, so I cheated and mocked up a set of “close enough” inserts to fit the wheel hubs I had. With the SID-KIT spinners (which are actually a little on the small side) they look okay.
Should have lowered the suspension a bit…but didn’t.
Rear grills cut from the foil cover of a discarded electric razor. Turbine exhaust shroud was made up from strips of styrene stock, super-glued to a band of flexible mylar, then (after painting, of course) wrapped around the exhaust. Drag chutes from the spares box, with added wiring and latches. Rear deck “whip” aerial from stretched sprue. License plate is a home-made decal on pie-plate aluminum.
Here’s the gallery:
Thanks again to Mr. Barris for the neat mods to the original Futura design. For fans of my generation, it will always be the one--and only--BATMOBILE.