Pimp My Batmobile!

So the official announcement of the 1:50 Batgirl Cycle as the SDCC promo vehicle is now okay to talk about. There may be photos on Friday. Check on the 1966 Batmobile board for more info. Looks like it’s part of a three pack at least at the show, which leads me to believe they might do a mass release of it on a single card. Here’s hoping, anyway.

See, people were moaning amount my hints, but really all you needed was the very first one:

We have a winner! Of the 167 registered users we had as of 6/1 our random number generator selected mnbatman as the recipient of the 1:50 Batmobile and Batcycle set! If you’re out there, mnbatman - give us a shout.

So let’s see what else…The seated figure samples just got here and they look better than we had hoped for. Production starts rolling and we should be shipping those out very soon. Thanks for all your patience.

And we are almost set to start production of the Parts Upgrade set #1 which will include a modified version of the Elite’s newly resized batphone. So some of you wanting to stick to customizing the standard edition can get the only useful part from the Elite version for your mod job. And it will be better. How? Wait and see.

New video slide show of the dealer’s sample sent to us courtesy of Replicarz.com (Replicarz still has Elites for ordering) Actual video footage coming up in the next day or so. Comments below. 

Overall - lots of nice upgrades. Sadly - most of them just make the model look more accurate to the #1 car IN ITS CURRENT STATE, in Barris’ garage. Not how the car looked on screen or in 1966. Here are some interesting hard to see new differences from the standard model to watch for:

• Flocked carpeting
• New detectoscope with inner decal (not accurate at all)
• Aluminum painted rocker panels and door-wells (no texture detail)
• Chrome, UN-segmented dash with open Futura radio(?) and other odd guage
• Parachute pull ring (black plastic)
• Resized batphone with cord
• Chromed inner door trim
• Light lenses under front and rear gills
• Compass decal
• Steering wheel chrome inner struts and center decal
• Photo-etched door handles
• Photo-etched bat radar
• Full fire extinguisher
• Clear red antler lenses
• Routed and painted chassis
• Seatbelts and bat buckles

 More photos courtesy of Pennyworth (Mike D.)

Just received this morning from Brian at Replicarz. More details later. Pics for now.  Check out the bent Bat-Radar. (Just like the resin models!) It’s NOT photo etched exactly, but it is detailed finer than the standard model. The phone has been shrunk down! Still big but MUCH better. More later tonight.

Alexander Rivera is a toy designer, moldmaker, caster, jewelry designer living in Alameda, CA. He has been a creative coordinator at Streamline Pictures, worked for Horizon Models, Testors, and has worked in the hobby business since he was 17.

His work has been seen over on the Batmobile site and I wanted to get him to talk about some of his techniques. Moldmaking and casting are a little daunting to some of our more casual hobbyists but achieving a super-accurate Batmobile is still within your reach! Alexander’s goal is to “to make the best standard Batmobile I can, as economically as possible.”

Here’s his work on removing the paint from the canopies:

One of the first things I wanted to do was to remove the black center paint on the canopies. They were not on the car when filming, so I remove the chassis and carefully sliced off the pins that hold the canopies to the body. Then gently pop the canopy off the arch,being careful because it is glued. The glue leaves a residue on both the canopy and the bar. This must be sanded down,using 600 to 1500 grit sandpaper in increasing progression. Use dishwashing liquid as a lubricant with each grade of sandpaper. What you’re left with after sanding is a fine foggy area which will have to be polished out. A product called Flitz and a cotton cloth should do it.

To remove the black paint, I used Easy Lift Off made by Polly-S.

Quick update on the steering wheel and some other parts news:

1. Futura wheel. I was pretty happy with the wheel I had devised. Until…  Three days ago I dropped in a test decal and then conformed it to the concave bezel using Micro Sol. Once dry, I dropped in a smaller central metal ring to function as the actual speedo rim. Then I augmented the gauge lights with some epoxy colored paint for a raised effect. The final piece of the puzzle was after I added a few drops of  ‘crystal clear’ watch cement. The effect was amazing - the clear liquid glue magnified the depth and detail of everything in the center of the wheel and it truly looked stunning. I added some clear epoxy later and left for the day. When I go home I was dismayed to see the epoxy had clouded! (it was old) so I had to pry out the epoxy, which of course brought up the decal with it. SOoooo - I printed out a slightly different center hub decal and started over. This one is not as good because it isn’t using our real decal, but it gives you an idea of how it looks. This time I used clear resin for the center. The hanging turn signal pods are next.

2. New Upgrade Parts Set Clarification. Several people have emailed me to ask about the parts and decals being sold on ebay and wondering if they are ours as they look very similar. First - they are NOT ours. Ours are not out and won’t be for a little while yet. And when we sell on ebay it will always be under the PimpMyBatmobile user ID. The parts on eBay are being sold by Jason Napper. Jason created a resin 1:18 batmobile kit 2 years ago and is selling the parts he made for that batmobile on ebay.  As you know - the Hot Wheels Batmobile is really 1:19.5 scale. Which is smaller than true 1:18.  Jason made a very nice resin kit and his was based off of a 1:16 kit originally. Which is that much bigger than 1:19.5  So much in fact, that many of the parts made for his kit are out of scale for the HW car. They are good parts and we started our set with a few similar base parts, but the reason ours are not out yet and why we are not just using the same parts is because ours are being specifically tailored to the specs of the new Hot Wheels Batmobile. Jason’s are not. If you can’t stand the wait and don’t care about the size discrepancy that much - Jason’s part set is a pretty good, quick upgrade set. If you can wait a bit longer - ours will have some pretty nice features. Like clear red parts and black urethane parts for example. Here’s a peak at the beacon we’re working on, cast in clear red. Easily lit, easily painted silver around the parts you want to leave red. 

Also a note on the decal sets: The wetslide decals Jason Napper is selling are very nice. They were designed by the same person who designed our decals - our partner - Andy Garringer. However - Andy has resized our set to actually fit the Hot Wheels Batmobile. Jason’s were sized for his larger model kit. Again - a great set if you can’t wait. Some will work better than others. But our set will be correctly resized by the original designer for the Hot Wheels Batmobile.

We wish Jason well with all his endeavors. We hear he is working on a 1:18 Futura kit at the moment. That should be a nice compliment to the Hot Wheels Batmobile when he finishes it.

Just wanted to drop some update news for those of you waiting patiently for orders and hungry for news:

First off the Elites are now supposedly shipping in July. We’re still all holding our breath on the 1:50 (I use that term loosely) sets as well as the other major retailer flow on the standard big cars that seem to have a May 5th magic date number looming. We’ll see.

In Pimp My Batmobile! site news - what do you guys think about adding a small message board here? I’m putting up a gallery soon but I think we’d get more participation with a message board. Your thoughts?

Figure Sets - These were revised a bit more than when shown in their prototype phase. Lots more sculpting and refining so hopefully - you’ll like them and it will have been worth the extra time. They are at the caster’s as we speak and our limited run will be shipping fairly soon. We don;t know how many we’ll get over and above what have been pre-ordered but if we have any left over - we’ll post that announcement. There will NOT be another run of these though. We’ve decided to focus on less…um…potentially dangerous upgrade parts. LOL

Photo Etch Sets - The proof sets have come back from overseas and Andy says they are amazing! Whether you’re pimping your standard version Hot Wheels Batmobile or holding out for an Elite version or Super Elite - there will be parts you want in this set! Watch this space for more info on them. There will be a set of our first proofs up on ebay very soon.

Parts Upgrade Set #1 - I know everyone’s dying for new antlers etc. And we are working on them. But because we are not Mattel or a big company - one item’s release has to pay for and facilitate the next. We’re working on some great looking pieces. The big news here is that we will be releasing black urethane parts as well as some clear red parts! The Futura wheel, fire extinguisher, detectoscope, antlers, beacon are all coming along nicely.  One of the reasons we’re not rushing these is that we want to see what, if any, parts changes there might be in the Elite and Super Elite.

Parts Upgrades Set #2 - This is the diehard set of parts for people going the extra mile to change some major issues in the interior. It will entail cutting ou the existing seats and center console. This parts list is not completely determined but it will feature the accurized center console, seats and I will hint that we have made a resin cast of the mattel rollbar which makes it much easier to drill out and light.

Lots going on! Stay with us.

I was reminded by another poster that I hadn’t shown any of my  own custom work yet. There’s a good reason for that. I had decided not to do ANYTHING but collect parts until I saw what the Elite and Super Elite had to offer.  I’m going to get one of each anyway, so why search for perfect seatbelts etc. if one of the other models is going to come with them? I reeeeally doubt that they will - but you never know.

But since we are issuing a parts upgrade set I am getting to play with and tweak and modify a bunch of small parts. So I thought I’d show some of that work. This is the Futura wheel I am currently working on.

I am constantly checking products for usable components and I found this beveled eyelet at Michael’s and thought it would fit the new wheel barrel I had made from a pen.

I wanted the center speedo and instrument cluster to be able to be ‘gently’ back-lit so (Continue reading…)

Andy Garringer has my nomination for “Most Detail Oriented” Hot Wheels Batmobile Modeler of the year award. Not content to just live with the raised placard rectangles molded into the metal top of the car - he decided to remove them. And that means grinding. And that means repainting. And that means leaving the car in a bucket of castrol for a few weeks to remove the factory paint job. This will be a Batmobile to write home about. However  - if I know Andy, it’s gonna be a while. :)