An original Batmobile from Tim Burton’s 1992 “Batman Returns” is crossing the block in Los Angeles on November 23, and the estimate reads like a hypercar price list with an extra digit bolted on. Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies expect it to fetch between $5 million and $7 million, according to the Robb Report.
If it lands at the top of that range, Julien’s figures it would be the priciest car ever built for the screen.
The Burton-era Batmobiles started life as Chevy Impalas, then got stretched well past the point of reason. The finished cars rode a 141-inch wheelbase and ran 260.7 inches nose to tail. Julian Caldow penned the look, complete with the turbine-style nose intake and the wings arching over each rear fender. At England’s Pinewood Studios, John Evans’ special effects team turned the drawings into two running, Chevy V8-powered cars for the 1989 film.
For the sequel, producers handed the work to Carl Caspar, who had built his reputation making hot rods and replicas of screen cars, including General Lee clones from “The Dukes of Hazzard,” for promotional tours. Caspar reportedly produced three Batmobiles for “Batman Returns.”
The car on offer is claimed to be a hero car, the one that logged serious close-up screen time, which is a large part of why Julien’s is quoting the numbers it is.
For context, the original 1966 TV Batmobile sold for $4.62 million in 2013, and Steve McQueen’s Bullitt Mustang went for $3.71 million in 2020. A $7 million hammer would nose past the Aston Martin DB5 from 1964’s “Goldfinger,” which sold for $6.4 million in 2019.
That record, though, comes with an asterisk. The priciest cars to ever appear on screen were already blue-chip metal before the cameras rolled: a 1961 Ferrari California GT Spider from 1963’s “Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” brought $17.1 million in 2016, while a Porsche 917K and Ford GT40 from 1970’s “Le Mans” fetched $14 million and $11 million. The Batmobile has no such safety net. Strip away the movie, and it’s a stretched Impala in a cape.
[Images: Julien’s]
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