Batmobile sold for $4.6 million

The original Batmobile driven on the 1960s TV series sold for auction on Saturday for $4.6 million. The seller was legendary kustom car king George Barris who had transformed the 1955 Lincoln Futura for television. The buyer was Rick Champagne, owner of an Arizona logistics company. Champagne says he's going to put the car in his living room. Batmobile sells for $4.6 million (CNN)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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The Snowden Principle

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=725646245 Changasyncadango Robotnik Terh

The Joker still got away.

Hello?
Hello?

Anyone?
- http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
  
  Sorry, I was busy checking to see if Robin really did lay an egg.
DamnitDani

Yeah! Drive around fighting furniture crime!
- http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
  
  He’s putting it in an IKEA store?
  - DamnitDani
    
    His living room probably is the size of an IKEA store, so yes.
    - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
      
      Sorry, I guess I should have phrased the joke differently. I was trying to imply that IKEA’s products are a “furniture crime”.
nixiebunny

I was hoping to buy it, so that I could drive it around town with my friends and have a lot of fun, while it got slowly more and more trashed.

It’s really too bad that I don’t have an extra $5 million on me.
- Gilbert Wham
  
  Better still, restore it to its Lincoln Futura glory, and lose all the bat-crap.
euansmith

I wonder how much an exact replica would have cost him?
- Donald Petersen
  
  A company called Fiberglass Freaks makes ‘em, complete with brand-new 350 V8 engines, working flamethrower, rear-view camera, DVD player w/ 7″ screen, bluetooth batphone, and more bat-bells and bat-whistles than you can shake a batstick at. Officially licensed by DC, built on a Lincoln Town Car chassis.
  
  I think they go for around $100 grand. ”Call for pricing,” they say, but I can’t be bothered. I know it’s out of my wallet’s reach.
  
  But good for Barris. He deserves every nickel he can get for that thing.
  - euansmith
    
    “To the Bat-Replica, Robin!”
- http://www.facebook.com/chuck.budreau Chuck Budreau
  
  Fiberglass Freaks Batmobile replicas are Officially Licensed by DC Comics. They start at $150k. http://www.fiberglassfreaks.com
Henry Pootel

I can’t remember quite where, but I saw this some time in the late 60′s. The family was driving across country and it was at a gas station being filled up. It was trucked around for promos I think.
- Donald Petersen
  
  Heck they drove it down the Hollywood Freeway with the bat-chutes deployed once.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Jenkins/1323553711 Paul Jenkins

There were actually several Batmobiles, According to legend Adam West was an awful driver and thus the car required quite a bit of body work. Also a version of the Batmobile that would grudge race the Green Hornets cars at drag strips around the country.
- euansmith
  
  The TV series Green Hornet’s “Black Beauty” was the most wonderfully brutal and ugly car I think I’ve ever seen.
Brainspore

Champagne says he’s going to put the car in his living room.

IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM.
- euansmith
  
  Maybe he just thinks he’ll drive the Batmobile home for the bar one night and fail to brake soon enough when entering his carport?
pjcamp

Doodleydoodleydoodleydoodleydooooo!

Nananananananana
Nananananananana
Batmain!
sockdoll

The Batmobile I saw at a car show in 1983 where George Barris was signing autographs had been flocked so it looked like black velvet.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Katrina-van-Malksvig/100000571611598 Katrina van Malksvig
  
  that was one of the early replicas; for some reason several of those had a flocked finish
Thorzdad

I’m fairly sure this was Barris’ original Batmobile show car. The TV show also had a couple of stunt vehicles for actual driving and stuff. I’m not sure the one that was auctioned off even runs. I watched the auction (ugh!) and could swear that the car was pushed onto/off the auction stage. Most cars are driven to the stage under their own power.
- euansmith
  
  They probably couldn’t drive the Batmobile on to the stage because of silly health and safety rules governing the use of Atomic Turbines.
Nash Rambler

What else could Rick Champagne do but park it in his living room? Thanks to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (ever the spoilsports), there’s no way he’d be able to get his hands on the sparkling nuclear pile you’d need to recharge that baby.