Batman Returns: You can buy the Batmobile

The Batmobile is real. Every single time you see the Batmobile in the movie, you are seeing a real, physical object, not a computer-generated graphic. Whether it is driving on city streets at 100 mph, landing in the Batcave or pulling up to the scene of a crime, what you’re looking at is a real car. When the Batmobile flies 30 feet through the waterfall to land in the Batcave, what’s landing is a real, 5,000-pound vehicle. The Batmobile is so real that it actually served as the pace car for a major NASCAR race held in June 2005.

By COED Staff

HowStuffWorks spoke with Nathan Crowley — the man who designed the Batmobile and brought it to life in “Batman Begins” — to find out what’s going on. Unlike Superman, who has superhuman powers, Batman is a normal human being who gains all of his advanced capabilities through ingenuity and technology. In short, Batman needs wheels to get around.

Nathan Crowley is the man who had to take that cinematic vision of the car and bring it to life on film. Now, the thing that you have to understand about Nathan is that he is a very physical guy. With the current trend of CGI, Nathan Crowley lays it down to actual reality. So Nathan started the process of creating the Batmobile by model bashing. To read more on the process, read here.

When they had the test frame performing the way they wanted, the basic configuration of the car and its drive train were set:

• The car uses a 5.7-liter Chevy V-8 engine. This engine has been tuned so that it can provide the power necessary to take a 5,000-pound vehicle from zero to 60 mph (100 kph) in 5 seconds.
• The rear axle is a truck axle, with a truck transmission carrying power from the engine to the axle. The truck axle added a lot of weight to the vehicle. They wanted the car to be as light as possible so it would jump better, and this axle was the opposite of “lightweight.” That extra weight is one of the things that contributed to the strain on the front end in the first jump tests.
• The rear tires are 37-inch-diameter, off-the-shelf, 4×4 mud tires called Super Swampers made by Interco.
• The front tires are racing tires made by Hoosier.
• The front wheels have independent suspension elements inspired by the long-travel suspensions of Baja racing trucks. When airborne, the front wheels pop out about 30 inches on their suspensions to absorb the shock of a 30-foot fall.

By this time, the design and development process had taken about nine months and consumed several million dollars. However, the payoff was high, because now the team could begin manufacturing Batmobiles on an assembly line. The cost after assembly line? Each costs about $250,000.

Save up gentlemen…save up.