1/43 Upgrades: Coming for Preorder
The new 1/43 Hot Wheels Batmobile is not slated to be available for the mass market until February. But PMB! has received our samples in from China and shown you it here FIRST ON THE WEB. And because we are tireless (like a golem or Larry King) in our pledge to improve wherever Mattel drops the ball, we already have our first set of upgrades ready for preorder!
Tim at TPM Customs, (the master of teensy figures) has developed a set exclusively for PMB! that includes:
- A nice replacement siren in clear red
- 2 replacement antlers
- A set of figures that sit right in the car very nicely (see the prototypes below)
We are making these available for pre-order only, and only a limited run of them for a very short time. They will be available as a painted set or unpainted if you want to save a few dollars. But don’t look for them to be around or available for very long. Note: the photo here just shows the figures, not the new siren or antlers. We will have these sets ready for pre-order as soon as the beacons and antlers are ready for photographing. This is a great scale model that Mattel did a nice job with. It really appeals to those of us who love our old 1966 Corgi Batmobiles. Everything else on this 1/43 scale car is either easily fixable by a modeler or livable with. But the beacon, antlers and lack of figures are must-fixes, in our opinion.
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OK Scot,
Did the Bat-rays really come painted on this one?
I will be anxious to see these improvements. can’t wait for the photos.
Scot,
Can Tim make just a piece to plug into the dash to cover that annoying Kenwood radio (I’m assuming it’s still there)?
Doug, no Tim painted the bat-rays on this one. We are going to make this paint available on the site as well. It’s Tim’s custom-mixed bat-cerise. I think he did a great job of matching it!
I’ll let him reply to this. LOL I’m sure everyone will want to fix something else that bugs them on this car. I’m still trying to work out a feasible solution for the wheel bats. But for now – I think this is a great little upgrade set that is simple, fixes the GLARING mistakes and doesn’t take any modeling skill to swap out.
sf
Yes please put me on the list for preorder for the figures and the other improvements.
Thanks so much!!!
They look great
There’s no list for these. They will be announced here (and on our email blast) as soon as we finish the prototypes and set the price. Best thing to do is watch here for the announcement and subscribe to our list (click on Subscribe in the main navigation above) We’ll probably be offering less than a dozen painted sets, and when they’re ordered – that’s it.
Not to be picky, But is the batman going to be without legs for this model, or do the pics show a pre-production piece that will be improved upon?
I am sure that you are not intending to be picky. Batman will have no legs, due to the fact that there is no clearance between the top of the seat and the bottom of the steering wheel. If one would like to seat a full legged Batman in this vehicle, it would require a major repositioning of the steering column. These figures are meant to be made to be able to be simply “dropped-in” to the car. Due to the physical limitations of this car’s cockpit, this was a compromise which had to be made. With no opening doors, when looking into the car, one can not even see the bottom half of Batman’s legs.
As Tim says, this is how the Batman will be produced. While some modelers would be willing to either spend a great deal of effort repositioning and reworking the incorrect Mattel steering column and dash in the 1:18 scale model, I really doubt that most people will be willing to attempt it in a car this small. It’s this versus making the Batman figure have gimpy, undersized legs that don’t fit right anyway. Additionally, the Batman is made much like our original gen 1 larger size Batman – which as it turns out, was as popular and requested as our fully legged gen 2 figures, going by emails and order stats.
To whom it may concern,
Pleas keep me onyour waiting list for painted versions of the 1/43 figures; whenever they become available.
Thanks,
-Rudy
Hi Rudy. As mentioned in a reply above – there is no list. We will announce their order-ability here and take pre-orders for a limited number of sets. Keep checking back and watch for the announcement.
Thanks.
My 1:43 batmobile arrive finally. How’s it coming with the upgrades?
Are the 1:43 figures ready? I am ready to purchase a couple sets of them please.