Pimp My Batmobile! » custom batmobile

Finally, Final Figures.

admin — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 00:38:53 +0000

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Nicest set of 1:18 TV Crimefighter figures I’ve ever seen for the Hot Wheels car. Posable arms, hands. Brass bat-buckle, decal emblems… The works. Truly deluxe.

I can’t mention who made them right now. And we don’t sell them here. But we can tell you where/how to get them. Just subscribe to our list. (HERE) Our September email-blast that only goes out to registered subscribers will offer details on these figures (and other stuff) in about a week. Don’t blink or you’ll miss them.

Meanwhile, look what’s being done for 1:25 figures for the R2 model kit. Here’s a WIP photo below. This model is the best Batmobile kit ever produced and it’s a crime to not have great looking figures in it. Looks like Robin will get to be holding the Batphone and canopy. Cool! Again, we’re not selling these here. Just showing off some custom work.

PL Batmobile Snap Kit Packaging Guest Review

PMB Contributor — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:45:38 +0000

Ed. Note: We’re trying something new. I mentioned that PMB! is getting a major overhaul soon. (Don’t worry, you didn’t miss it. You’ll KNOW.) One of the planned changes is that we’ll be hosting features and articles by guest contributors. Our first article on lowering the 1:18 Hot Wheels Batmobile, by Insane Detailing’s Doug Switz was such a hit, that we want to share more info from our esteemed colleagues in the Batmobile community. Here then, is Kevin White of Bats Inc. with a review of the Polar Lights [Round 2] 1966 Batmobile Snap-Kit packaging.

I received my snap kit today, a gift from a friend back home. Not much has been said yet about the packaging of the kit. I will leave the building review to Scooter as he is already well on his way with that, but I thought it might be interesting to let you all know what to expect upon receiving your model.

1. The window box itself is quite nice, featuring the Alex Ross artwork on four sides and photos of the painted and assembled kit on the back along with small advertisement of the other related Bat kits. On the base of the box is a picture of the slot racing set and of course the UPC. A very attractive box, pretty much suitable for display itself.

2. The paper materials inside include the instruction sheet which, while well done and concise seems a little crowded in some spots. The decal sheet is quite decent. Packaged in it’s own baggie it includes duplicates of some of the more important decals like two sets of speedometer decal for the steering wheel. Kudos to Polar Lights for that! Finally there is the requisite survey/newsletter sign up card and a miniature version of their catalog.

3. The body in my example has some fingerprints and oily residue that both wipe off easily. Even with a few specks of dust in the paint it’s still hard not to marvel (sorry D.C.) at the shine of the paint. My body has a slight flaw in the driver’s side wing top in that it isn’t seated all the way down. A few seconds with some liquid cement, applied from the underside and a little pressure should easily resolve this.

4. The chrome tree is a truncated version of what we’ll see in the glue kit. Again, packaged in it’s own baggie there is a tree for the wheels separated from the beacon and rocket tubes by tissue paper to protect them from rubbing each other and wearing through the chrome during shipping and handling. Also in this baggie are the wheel spinners, pre-painted with red and the white outline my example had two perfect spinners and two that for some reason were slightly bent.

5. The next package contains the body skirts, tires and axles with chassis mounting screws. Although one baggie, the metal parts are heat sealed and separated from the tires as are the tires from the skirts. This is to keep the tires or axles from getting against the body skirts and leaving marks. Again, kudos to PL.

6. The bulk of the interior parts and the afterburner (season one) are contained in the next baggie along with those curious J shaped floor boards which are necessary for mounting the dash section.

7. The rest of the interior parts as well as the grilles and parachutes are packaged together in the next baggie and another baggie contains the chassis pan with it’s turbine engine molded in.

8. Last but by no means least comes the clear tree. This contains the canopies, beacon lens, headlight covers and front and rear lights. More tissue is employed here to separate the forward and rear canopies so they don’t rub each other and scratch. Double kudos for that!

While I feel Polar lights could have a better job on the pre-paint – what they did do is nice and goes a long way towards helping the novice builder in assembling a really good looking model. The kit does have some issues like parts that fit too tightly or too loosely. The spinners, rocket tubes, steering wheel, bat-phone and bat-beam all fit too tight and care should be taken to prevent breakage. Most of these items attach with a half-moon style pin and the pin should be sanded down slightly with an emery board rather than try to rout out a half moon mounting hole. As for the rocket tubes, if you don’t want the chrome scraped off, rout the holes in the deck before test fitting. The bat-phone cord does not stay in place and needs a touch of glue.

All in all it’s a very fine kit and should be an enjoyable diversion for the experienced and the uninitiated alike.

“To the Batmobile…let’s go!”

- Kevin White, Bats Inc.

Building The Round 2 Snap Batmobile Pt 1.

admin — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:55:15 +0000

So by now the new 1:25 Batmobile model from Polar Lights/Round II has been all over eBay and many places are selling them for between $20 and $30. You can also order them at the manufacturer’s website HERE. As I mentioned earlier in the video first look, this is is an exceptionally well-done kit, especially for a snap version. You can conceivably put this kit together, with or without your kid (I recommend WITH), in an evening. If you want to apply a massive amount of detailing, you can stretch it into a weekend.

I’m not going to go crazy on this one, as I’ll hold that back for the promised, upcoming glue-kit because of the opening trunk and hood aspects of that version. But I will do a middle of the road build/paint with my son and report about the assembly.

As far as the parts and accuracy of the details go – everything here is excellent. With two, fairly important (but not insurmountable) exceptions:

1. The Beacon*

1:25 Bat-Mo-Beacons L-R: Original PL, Aluminum upgrade, Resin upgrade (unassembled)

As far as the beacon goes, it’s fairly crudely detailed and even stripping the chrome won’t make it that much less toy-like. Not as bad as we had anticipated, but not as nice as the rest of the parts for sure. I’ve got access to some amazingly nice and highly detailed beacons in the correct scale designed by our good friend Mit in Australia. I’ve got it in machined aluminum and in resin versions. It’s a 3-piece part that includes the inner red beacon and the top. As you can see, it can totally change the realism level of the model.

2. The Figures*

In an ironic, probably unintentional nod to the original Aurora 1966 Batmobile model kit, The figures are very comic-booky and unrealistic. I think the guys at PL were bummed about how they turned out. But including them will make loads of kid builders ecstatic. They aren’t acceptable for our use and so we’re working on a set of much more realistic figures modified from 2 separate original sculpts by Scott Kapellusch. Here they are in their current state, awaiting some custom arm-poses and fitting to the PL model specs.

1:25 custom figures for the 1966 Batmobile

So we’re going to be putting the snap kit together this weekend and will take shots and hopefully video as we go. Stay tuned for the report here.

(*As we’ve mentioned before, we won’t be selling parts through PMB! anymore. For more information about anything we show or feature here: 1) Subscribe to our mailing list (above in the nav bar) and/or 2) Contact us and we’ll let you know if and when they’ll be available and from who.)

More Exclusive 1:25 Batmobile Model Shots

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 18:33:39 +0000

We were just sent these shots. Better quality and lighting than the last batch. Because inquiring minds wanted to see some other angles.

NOTE: Please do NOT remote link or copy these photos to other websites.

Exclusive Photos of 1:25 Batmobile Model

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:23:05 +0000

I got these a few hours ago. Looks like season three being represented here. That’s a 1:18 Hot Wheels in the background of a couple of the shots, presumably for size comparison. Make of this what you will. In case you’re speculating – no, this is not something I made. And yes, these shots are less than a day old. (I should have asked for today’s newspaper to be included in the pics) Other than that – my lips are sealed for the time being. Other than to say that AS FAR AS WE ARE AWARE these photos did NOT come to us from ANY professional toy or model company. Capisci?

NOTE: Please do NOT remote link or copy these photos to other websites.

Just A Taste.

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:04:52 +0000

Exclusive look at a sample from a very small run of private stock standing figures for the 1/18 Hot Wheels Batmobile. For those of you who didn’t want to mess with seated figures. UPDATED 2/10/10 THESE FIGURES ARE NOW AVAILABLE ON THE PRODUCTS PAGE! CLICK HERE TO ORDER.

More info: These are much more affordably priced than our previous painted figures for a few reasons. First, they are made of a heavy vinyl as opposed to urethane. Second they are stationery – no articulation. Third – Our seated figures came with a very premium paint job (including emblem decals) by one of the top toy design shops in Asia. These standing figures are great, and look sensational next to the car or in a diorama – but their paint job is a bit simpler than the seated figures sported. So – they cost a lot less.

"Holy no more squeezng inside Mattel's heinous interior, Batman!"

Merry Christmas 2009!

radioscooter — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 18:48:38 +0000

D-Scopes Are In!

radioscooter — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:56:23 +0000

PMB! and Insane Detailing have waded through a lot of setbacks on this one. Our Asian manufacturer that made the bases for us held up our masters and created delays for months, for which we apologize. The good news is that they’re finally done and shipping next week, in time for uh…the holiday season, if not actual Christmas day.

The bad news is that we have reevaluated what it has taken to make these units and the price is going up. Everybody that already ordered one – good going. Anyone else – sorry but they are just too time intensive to warrant our earlier $49 pricing. I have to crow about these a little, which is okay since I didn’t make them. I may have helped with the design stage but the real work is done by Insane Detailing’s Doug Switz. But if you’re serious about your Batmobile detailing – these are just must have pieces of amazing craftsmanship. I know they’re pricey but they’re absolutely worth it.

ORDER THEM HERE

Announcements, Cancellations, etc.

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:46:21 +0000

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

My Batcopter Ride

admin — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:30:18 +0000