| This
is a 1966 Batmobile resin kit, from a company that I think
is long out of business, Scale Replicas of of California.
Of course, this is a replica of the George Barris custom
car that he built for the TV version of Batman, and based
on the Ford Lincoln Futura.
I
bought the kit around 1987. At that time, it was the one
of the few companies making a kit of this famous car. In
fact, I had to wait a year before it arrived after ordering.
But eventually it showed up at my door, and wow ! For years
I wanted a model kit of this car. The gentleman who
owned the company was always nice and honest up front with
me, even with the delays. It's a shame if he is out of business .
The kit included the body, the interior tub, and vacuum-formed
glass bubble windshields. It also included a steering wheel,
and parachutes. The kit came with no chassis and without
a lot of other parts. I used a chassis off of a Monogram
1958 Thunderbird kit. Simply because it had the correct
wheelbase and width, without me having to do any cutting
length wise. The wheels and tires were out of my parts box.
The show cars at the time had Cragar wheels, which is what
I used. But of course, the first two original Barris metal
Batmobiles use a "Radir" type wheel, something
to that effect. I cut the small bats used on the center-caps
from thin clear acetate. The roll bar I completely made
from scratch. I would say that was the most difficult part.
The start of it is a thin piece of plastic.
I notched two small holes in the body and slipped the ends
of the roll bar into those. I think I actually made small
tabs in the ends of the plastic and slipped them in. This
worked great, because it helped keep the roll bar perfectly
in place, and best of all, it never sagged or lost it's
shape. It was quite sturdy.
From there I used putty to shape around it and get it to
where it needed to be. I also included interior items,
such as the bat-phone, the handle for the "bat-chutes',
the police lights, and other items. I also made the 3 pipes
on the rear deck. I added my own rear chutes, and a flame
made from a painted cotton ball.
The
Batman figure is a candle. The paint I used is black automotive
primer, and then topped off with a coat of Testors Gloss
Black. The red trim is hand painted with Testors Italian
Red.
Off
and on, it took me about a year to build.
There
was a lot of scratchbuilding to get it where I wanted it,
but I was quite pleased at the end.
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