A WORK IN PROGRESS
| A special
note
As with all of the modeling projects I've taken on over the years, the Batmobile conversion chronicled in this tutorial was started with the best of intentions. With the recent announcement of the release of an accurate 1/25 scale Batmobile kit by Round2/Polar Lights, however, this conversion project has been put on hold and will most likely never proceed beyond the work documented below. I can't say, at this point, what will become of the Revell Lincoln Futura kit that was to be used for the conversion. Perhaps it may one day be built out of the box to be displayed alongside the finished Batmobile. Regardless, this tutorial will remain available as is on this website as a warning to all scale modelers: Be careful what you wish for, it might become available as a full kit! |
HOLY HISTORY LESSON, BATMAN! I grew up in the 1960s and was fed, from early on, a steady diet of television. As a result, I'm convinced that the Batmobile from the 1966 TV show BATMAN is probably . . . no, definitely the coolest car ever to be designed and built. This work of Car Customization Art is still impressive 40-plus years after it was created and is considered by many Bat-fans to be a better looking Batmobile than any later form of Bat-Transport. As a scale modeler and former 11-year-old who loved the show, I always wanted to build a good replica of the car George Barris customized from a 1955 Lincoln Futura show car.
I got Aurora's 1/32 scale Batmobile kit when it came out in the
late 60s as part of a promotional tie-in. I don't remember how many Chips
Ahoy proof-of-purchase seals I mailed in, but I put my heart and soul into
building and painting that model. The paint was heavily slopped on by hand
and the color scheme was nowhere near accurate (my sole knowledge of the
look of the car was from watching the show on a 17 inch black & white
TV) but I was busting with pride over it. That is, of course, until the
Fourth of July fireworks season the following year when I discovered how
far Batman could fly if you placed an M-80 in just the right place. (If
I knew then . . . Un-built Aurora Batmobile kits are now worth hundreds
of dollars.)
An extreme example of this creativity can be found in the December 1988 issue of FINE SCALE MODELER magazine in the article "To the Batmobile." Steven Silvia builds an 18-inch long Batmobile by converting a 1/16 scale kit of a Pontiac Firebird. The results is stunning but Silvia's building process and the skills needed are out of reach of all but the most skilled modeler. For the less ambitious model builder (this can be described as "the rest of us") this was just not happening. In the late 1990s, Revell re-issued its 1956-vintage kit of the Lincoln Futura, the concept car that George Barris customized to become the Batmobile of the TV series. Many modelers, including myself, bought the model with the intention of doing their own conversion to the Batmobile. It was a task much easier than trying to convert a Camaro. The Futura required much less modification - the basic shape was already there. Still, this was a job for an advanced modeler with the time and the drive to do some work that may be more of a challenge than the typical modeler is willing to take on. I wanted to take on that challenge. At least my intentions were good. All I needed was the motivation. That motivation was, to be kind, elusive. Having been an avid modeler suffering from AMS (Advanced Modeler's Syndrome) I already had several large, labor-intensive, long-term modeling projects in the works and I just wasn't up to taking on another one. The Futura kit sat on the shelf. In 1999, Skyhook Models, A manufacturer of polyurethane resin garage kits released a conversion kit designed to turn the Futura into the Batmobile. The kit is a collection of replacement parts designed to fit perfectly with the Revell parts. While not complete, it provides an excellent start to an accurate conversion. I was familiar with the quality of Skyhook's kits, having purchased from them before. I ordered the conversion kit direct from Skyhook without hesitation.
HOLY SCAVENGER HUNT, BATMAN!
HAND ME MY BAT-XACTO KNIFE, ROBIN!
HOLY CHOP-SHOP, BATMAN! Assembling the model was much different from "normal" car kits. Usually the body is separate from the chassis, making painting easy. The two components and the interior are assembled and painted separately as sub-assemblies and then assembled together. For the Futura kit, however, The body is separated by a rib running along both sides from front to back. The bottom half of the body is one piece with the chassis, or more precisely, the bottom "pan." The top half is in 4 pieces. The front half, the two rear quarter-panels and the trunk. The entire "shell" of the model would have to be painted together after assembly. This may be due to the fact that the Futura kit was developed in the very early days of model kit molding. Molding a car body in one piece, if possible at all, would be very costly. Only years later, would car kit makers be able to mold single-piece car bodies by using more sophisticated injection molds capable of producing more complex shapes. Complicating things is the fact that the top and bottom halves must be assembled after the interior is assembled into the bottom half. It will be necessary to assemble and paint the interior first and mask it off before painting the body.
HOLY ECDYSIAST, BATMAN!
BAT-REFERENCE LINKS: The Futura / Batmobile Home Page |
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