I always LOVED the 1966 TV Batcave set. Primarily because it was real. You could see it live, two times a week when I was a kid. The comic book Batcave, on the other hand, while cool – was never the same thing twice. It wasn’t real and depended entirely on whatever artist was rendering it that week to be interesting. Consistency was not a watchword.

That said, the comic book Batcave had some pretty cool stuff that they didn’t capture in the TV version: The Giant penny, The Robot Dinosaur, the Villain Trophies, Bat Gyros…the list goes on.

After much consternation about which version we should do, my 4-year old son, Alex gave me the simplest and most obvious (and yes, most challenging) answer: Why not combine them? Take the best elements of the TV Batcave and the best features of the classic comic book Batcave and do a mash-up.  Why not? So we decided to try to blend the best elements of the Batcave over the years. I have no idea how well it’s going to work, if at all. The 1966 TV guys will grumble about the Dinosaur, the comics guys will scoff at the ‘66 labels on all the gear – but hey, it’s our project and this is what we’re gonna do.

My friend Mike Stutelberg, who has designed many bat-models for Horizon, Polar Lights among others, did a large scale Batcave diorama some years ago that featured a lot of the comics version, with not as much of the TV elements as we’re going to go for. But his work inspired me to think BIG. And so we’re going to steal emulate some of his work where we see it fitting into our project. When I say “we”, I am referring to my son and I. I have less and less time these days for selfish, time consuming hobby projects. This is something that we both can work on in whatever passes for spare time, and we both get to exercise design and building ideas. If you get a chance to build something, anything, even something as geeky as this with your kids – I say go for it before they turn into teenagers and have no time for you.

Mike Stutelberg's Custom 1:25 Batcave Model

Mike Stutelberg and his Batcave Model, circa 1998 (thanks to CultTVMan)

Editor’s Note: Recently I was talking on another forum about my ongoing 1:25 Batcave diorama project and the person had not seen or heard of it before. I realized that the original blog articles had crashed when I took down the Scooter’s Custom Works website. (That website will be back up soon, by the way.) Even though that website content is gone, I found access in to the original Batcave blog articles and so I’m reposting them here, chronologically at PMB! Hopefully this will kick me into gear and my son Alex and I will get back on finishing the diorama up soon. The following post is from August, 2005.

For years, I had mused about creating a full-on, Batcave diorama in my favorite scale – 1:25. It seemed like  a great idea to house some of the many models I had created and also for a fun, large-scale project all  its own. I had been inspired by my friend Mike Stutelberg, whose own Batcave diorama is nothing short of breathtaking. It always seemed like a huge project and so years later, I still had not started it. Then, in 2004 a few things happened to kick-start my gumption. 1. My (then) 4 year old son had acquired a model railroading video that he watched over and over again, as 4 year olds do. And I watched it with him and soaked up some great fabrication tips. 2. Over the Christmas break, I noticed an eBay auction offering a custom 1:25 Atomic Pile model.

I thought it looked great and was amazed to see the Atomic Pile modeled in 1:25 scale and actually ON eBay for sale! I won the auction and when the model arrived I was amazed by the build-quality: Welded metal struts, cast resin panels, multi-media textures – it was very well done. I then realized that here was my answer. This was how the diorama model could get built – by supplementing our own work with pieces by other craftsmen. It would still be a huge, time-consuming folly, but it just might work!

I decided that I wanted to get an Atomic Pile model that was NOT anchored to a smaller cave setting like this one was, so I contacted the builder, Jim Graham and asked him to make me another one.

The new Atomic Pile would be freestanding and able to be utilized in my larger planned cave diorama. Now, how to house it, and what it would actually entail were the next questions I had to tackle.

Luckily, having a 4-year old telling you that anything, no matter how ambitious, is just what has to happen – is all you need to shame you into taking any project on.

And so, a Batcave – That’s it. It’s an omen. We shall model – a Batcave!

Through an arrangement with Replicarz, PMB! is happy to offer a sale on brand new, case fresh Elite Batcycles MIB. The Batcycles will ship direct to you from the distributor, so if you’re ordering any other stuff from us, the shipping costs and  time will be separate. This is a limited time offer that will only be around until their stock runs out!

$39.00*

Okay, I know I drove speculation and intrigue a bit past the level of “fun” with this. Oh well. It’s my nature. :) The model in these photos (and the ones that showed up in earlier photos) is a 1:25 garage kit that was completely modded with unique details like a machined aluminum dash, a 16-part beacon, rear-mounted camera, custom decals and many other screen-accurate (season 3) details. It was built and finished almost a decade ago and I purchased it after many months of begging,  and at great personal expense, from master-modeler Jim Apitz. (I couldn’t pry his season 01 version away from him) So, NO these are not shots of a new built-up RII Batmobile model kit. To be fair – I DID make the statement that the photos weren’t from any toy company and I did not lie, these photos WERE just taken a  few weeks ago. Yes, I teased. No, I didn’t make any untrue statements or claims.

To answer some other questions, NO it would never have been a Blackstar and NEVER the Lunar models as a base car as both of those were about as inaccurate as you could find. I owned every single 1:25 Batmobile kit that was released back in the day, no matter how briefly, and was a distributor for several of them. There are not many things I consider myself an expert on, but the garage 1:25 Batmobile kits (and conversion kits) of the 80’s and 90’s and 00’s are one of them. I can tell you what each of them was based on (a couple of them, including the Blackstar, were just recast from earlier garage kits, while some were cast from modified Revell Futuras and still others were scratch-built) So no, no true modeler worth his salt chose a Blackstar or a Lunar kit to make a Batmobile back then, and if you did, you eventually upgraded to a better kit. I owned and built all of them, usually for customers. I had the Lunar because it was the first and there were no other options in 1988!

This model however, was started on a version 2.0 Caped Custom (designed by David Creigh under the Phantom name) and then heavily modified to become the thing of beauty you see here. I was lucky enough to purchase it from Jim Apitz in 2004 and I always compare it to other high end Batmobiles and it STILL smokes them all.  In person, it is even better.  There are a couple small areas that I’d have changed. Probably a couple others you might change too. But overall – this is the nicest Batmobile model I’ve ever seen. The dozens of hand-made custom details are all icing on a tasty, tasty cake. I have had the pleasure of working with some great modelers. Jim is the at the top of that list for Batmobiles, simply because this entire model is just all-around breathtaking.  If you ever get to see this in person, you will be flat-out amazed.  I was also lucky enough to buy his Batboat from him, which I’ll feature in a future post. In the past 7  years, Jim has retreated from the Bat-modeling-world. With the new Round II coming out with a much more accurate body, it would be a dream of mine to see what he could do with that kit.

I set these posts up to stir interest and elicit speculation because I believe that if a 90’s era resin garage kit can be made to look this good, then a new, mass-produced 1:25 Batmobile model with the resources we have in 2010 should have the potential to surpass it. And I hope that RII comes close. Clearly, what we builders do with it afterward is up to us. but lets hope for an accuracy level to allow us to do our best without having to fabricate so many parts from scratch as this one has. This is also the first in a series where I will try to spotlight legendary Batmobile customs by master-modelers. Up next is Scott Kappellusch and his “Milwaukee Winner”.

Our secret week-long private, members-only sale is now open to the public! Click on the SALE tab above to view whatever is left. Everything not sold this week goes up on eBay.