Pimp My Batmobile!

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Just a funny headline opportunity – nothing ignorant about it. Looks like we might be getting slot car Batmobiles. Autoworld  is an imprint of Round 2/Polar Lights etc. so – fingers crossed. Whatever the final slot cars look like – they had me from the retro catalog design. Here’s a description of their “4 Gear” slot car:

Auto World’s new 4Gear chassis is based on a classic extended “pancake” design. It features an extra gear on its lengthened power transfer plate. The extended wheelbase and narrowed rear end fitted with gigantic dragster-inspired wheels make it perfect for custom applications and totally wild specialty vehicles! And that’s not all… Flip the chassis over and you’ll find two neodymium traction magnets to make these dynamite racers grip the track for super high speed racing excitement!

In my day job, I am a marketing consultant for a music retailer and a new guitar process service, so I am currently in Anaheim at the Winter NAMM show which unveils all new guitars, amps, equipment etc. for the year. And what do I stumble upon? The Batmobile! It was here promoting the Barris licensed Wing Bat, Krest and Drag-U-La guitars, (of which – as guitars go -  the less said the better) George is supposed to be here today sometime.

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.

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