Pimp My Batmobile!

Archive for August, 2009

I just heard from my friend Joe Kelly Jr. of The Car Room magazine and Playing With Cars web-show, who has a ton of new stuff going on right now. In addition to redoing his website and starting the magazine – he is working with George  Barris‘ producer – Ralph Riccardi on a new, as of yet unnamed show pilot for PBS.  Here’s some footage of a segment with Limodoctor Anthony Taffuri where they stroll through his secret lair full of amazing limousines, a Black Beauty, a W.I.P. STEEL Monkeymobile and of course, a Batmobile. They also tour Anthony’s toy room where we glimpse a custom stretch Futura model, as well as many other goodies.

Now we just have to get Anthony some of our PMB! parts or a fully upgraded HW Batmobile so he doesn’t have to keep looking at that horrible blow-molded 1/6 Joemobile with the ugly rims. (just teasing)  My favorite part of this clip is the end, with Joe donnng a replicowl to go fight crime.

Thanks Joe, great luck with the new endeavors!

TCR TV Secret Location from Ralph Riccardi on Vimeo.

A new installment here at PMB! will feature posts about classic Batmobile toys and collectibles.

First up is the Clifford Batmobile from 1966-8.

I’ve been collecting Batmobiles for 43 years. Ever since my parents brought me home my first Corgi Batmobile  gift set, it’s been an obsession with me. Sometimes I look for super-accuracy. Sometimes I enjoy the strange results of  those familiar lines being put through a cultural translator, sometimes the packaging or a unique take on the subject matter draws me in.

With this toy, it’s a smattering of many elements. This is a 7 inch long plastic friction powered car. At first glance, it’s not much different than the more common Ahi cars, but there are some significant differences. The chromed rocket tubes, the stencil-sprayed door bats, the addition of the red pinstriping (few toys did this), the silver grilles – all made this Batmobile toy a little cooler.

My favorite aspect of this toy is the wonderfully designed box art. Utilizing the correct show typeface, the correct ‘bat signal’ and a great color illustration of the car (from TWO angles no less) with an Adam West styled Batman (taken from a popular publicity still) all  make this one of the best-rendered boxes from the era.

It’s  a great addition to any Batmobile collection. Not hyper-rare, but uncommon, these have gone for as much as $300 MIB  but I often see them for FAR less loose.

If you find one without the box – buy it. You’re in luck. You can either download and make your own box from Dave Van Der Heeden’s excellent site: http://www.thebatmobile.nl/ . Or buy a pre-assembled, pre-shrinkwrapped replica box from Toy Tent.

Clifford, 7″ Friction-Powered Batmobile, 1966/8,  Hong Kong (pictured missing siren/antler assembly)

It’s Summer and many of us have too many things going on to check in here regularly or build Batmobiles etc. We here at PMB! have been pretty busy making some needed changes to the site, our ordering system, our planned inventory and several other things. Some of you have heard some of this news elsewhere and have been wondering what’s going on. So we thought we’d try to cover it all here in one shot:

First the bad news or at least the not as great news:
1. The parts set that we were calling “Upgrade Parts Set #01″ has been canceled. There were several reasons for this decision, though it didn’t come easily:

• When we first developed the upgrade parts set, we were not yet working with the “Insane Detailing” parts. Since there are now amazing I.D. versions of some of the same parts that were listed in the Upgrade set, it seemed incongruous to offer both.
• The suppliers for some of the parts that were in the Upgrade Set stopped carrying some of the materials we needed to create some of those parts to our satisfaction.
• Many of you mentioned to me (note how I didn’t say “complained”) that you’d rather not have to buy the whole set just to get the one or two parts you really wanted. We can’t do anything about that with things like the photoetch set, but we are able to change it for this set so – we did. Some of the parts in the set are already up on the ordering page. And more will be added soon.

Many of you pre-ordered this set some time ago and we apologize for this cancellation and assure you that we will be refunding your PayPal accounts in the next few days. We have accurate records of everyone’s orders and there is no cause for concern. You’re also welcome to re-apply the funds toward other parts if you like.

2. As we mentioned in a previous post, we are no longer taking pre-orders for parts or holding parts for future payments etc. When there’s a button next to something on our ordering page, that means it’s either in-stock or available to order (some of the I.D. parts are ‘made to order’, but they’re fast) If there’s no button, that means it’s coming soon but not available yet. We hope this will cut down on some of the correspondence issues. If you go check out our NEW ordering page, split into three distinct sections, you’ll hopefully agree it is an easier system than before. No extra password needed!

3. Figures are back! Yes, we got a very limited run of the painted figures from our friends in Asia. They are IN STOCK now and like the Mackinaw Peaches, when they’re gone, they’re gone.

4. New shirts are due very soon and there are some new designs coming up as well.

5. Due to our partnerships with some great designers, we will be teasing out some images of new and upcoming parts over the next weeks. We have some AMAZING things coming up soon for the interior of this car. That’s all I want to say right now. But  – we are pretty excited.

Great things in the works. Stay tuned.

-S  8/9/09