2011 Hallmark 1966 Batmobile Ornament

2011 Hot Wheels RC 1966 Batmobile

The ornament looks pretty cool. There seems to be a bumper crop of little scale Batmobiles right now. Certainly the fact that it plays the theme is great. But it loses a bit of accuracy to house those electric components. As does the RC car, if the photos are correct. I guess I’m not over-eager to spend full retail on LESS accurate Batmobiles, even if they “do stuff” right now. But I can appreciate that these are the answers to someone’s prayers.

As has recently been reported by Leonard, the scale has been stretched a bit larger than 1:18 – closer to 1:16, which at the very least, makes it a must-have for some people’s “gotta have every size” bat-garage. An interesting side note – it was showing up as $40 on Amazon until a couple dealers raised their prices to $49 (first wave buyers) Here’s a place that allegedly still has them for $40 (until they don’t)

Yes, we’ll be grabbing a few of those audio chips and inserting it into our full-on, super-DUPER-Elite Batmobiles that we’re working on in multiple scales. But not right away.

No, we will not be making any of our models into RC driven cars. Mit already did that a year ago and it blew flame too. (video below by Mit and RHD) So – been there, seen that. Will show better pics of these when they find their lackluster way into our hands.

Pictured are (L-R)  the Hot Wheels 1:43 1966 Batmobile, the Eaglemoss 1966 Batmobile, and the Hot Wheels 1:50 scale 1966 Batmobile. (photos thanks to UK Correspondent Ken Partridge)

Now, can anyone actually get us one to keep? :)

Summary: Like all the releases so far – a head shaking, “cool-but too bad they didn’t…” experience that still somehow ends up being a must-have in any 1966 Batman Collection. Yes, it’s very nice and looks great. Loaded with mistakes when compared to the original on-screen version(s) but probably is an exact duplicate of someone’s replica out there. If it’s too much to ask for screen accuracy, it would have been nicer if they had at least changed the crappy wheels on the Go-Kart on the Elite version. If it had been the only one out they could have charged $85 and it would have been fine. The fact that a $29 version came out first with maybe $6 less detail parts on it just makes this version all the ruder. Still – had you told me 6 years ago that we’d be holding such a model and that it would be (for the most part) a mass market release – I wouldn’t have believed you.It’s a great model and if taken on its own merits – certainly worthy of your display shelf. Buy it from our retail sponsor, REPLICARZ and tell Brian that Scot from PMB! sent you.

Yep, hats off to Mattel again for skipping the extended Batray striping on another otherwise pretty nice model. Thanks to PMB! friend John Lemay for sending us these shots of his freshly-delivered-from-China 1/43 Batmobile. According to John, the bat-radar and antenna were shipped separately bagged from the car. Chances are that won’t be the case with the final packaged production model. Hey maybe check that baggie for the missing bat-ray stripes too! Ah well. Still a very nice looking 1/43 model. Looks just like a shrunk down 1:18 standard which is uh, good I guess. Though I am getting a bit sick of that juvenile-looking undercarriage. Now if we can just shrink Doug from Insane Detailing down, we can offer replacement parts for this scale too.

1. Solid resin economy version
2. 3-piece hollowed resin cage and clear red lens insert version that you assemble and paint silver (shown below, right)
3. Completed ALUMINUM and clear red lens unit (shown below, left)

These are the best, most accurate 1st season 1966 Batmobile sirens I’ve ever seen and having them in metal is a bonus. Easily lit if desired.

L-R: New Aluminum Beacon, Resin Version

Original Mattel/Hot Wheels siren (can you say "Lego"?)

New Beacon on Mattel Hot Wheels Rollbar with Alex's Antlers

Front view sitting on Alex's replacement rollbar.

Side view on replacement rollbar (with I.D. lights)

Brian Jones from Sycamore, Illinois!

Congratulations Brian!

Brian has been contacted and says he never wins anything and is very excited.

As an added surprise bonus – You’re ALL Winners!  That’s right, we have decided to award a $5 coupon to anyone who entered the giveaway good toward any purchase over $60.00 at PMB! (good toward any new $60.00 or more purchase from this date forward, not an older purchase or preorder that hasn’t been shipped yet) If you are in this category (and yes, we have the list) and are buying something in the future – just let us know so we can apply your coupon. Or just wait until we send a real coupon code out later.

Thanks again for participating. We are working on preorder items and should be updating this page with parts info soon.

_____________________________________________________________________________________Our great  friends at REPLICARZ have made it possible for us to give away a FANTASTIC set of Batmobile goodies worth over $400.00 that some lucky person will be thrilled to get. Here’s the rundown:

• 1 Hot Wheels 1/18 Super Elite Batmobile, MIB! Graciously supplied by REPLICARZ!
• 1 Hot Wheels SDCC Edition 1/50 Batgirl Cycle gift set MIB
• 1 Hot Wheels 1/50 Batboat MOC
• 1 PMB! 1/18 Crimefighter Figure Set (unpainted)
• 1 PMB! T-shirt (sizes are limited)

How it works. This NOT a raffle or a sweepstakes. We are giving these items away completely free. However, we will be picking numbers from our new database. We will collect names to draw, (completely at random based on a numbered system and a true random draw) and pick a recipient on April 15th.

• This isn’t a raffle or sweepstakes, technically no purchase is necessary.
• Shipping of the items will be free to all continental US states. If an international  donor is drawn, you will need to pay the actual shipping costs.
• We will close the list on April 15th at which time we will then pick the recipient and announce on April 16th.

These items and more are now open to the public in the Custom Shop. Introductory and Sale prices will last until 4/15.

1.) We migrated our server today (Yay!) so if there are some little glitches with the new site or how it is behaving – let me know. It seems fine but ya never know.

2) The place to subscribe to our email list for sales updates etc. is not the same as the WordPress registration. It is over in the right hand sidebar under “subscribe to our mailing list”  You can just click HERE to get there too.

3) A little trash talk time. A couple people have sent me links to these Bat figures that heroes Club is selling on ebay. And I just have to spout off a bit. Firstly – I would hope that you folks that call yourselves bat-collectors would recognize that they just recast the Polar Lights Batboat figures. Here are the two sets of figures:

1. Polar Lights Batboat:

2. Heroes Club Figures:

Now, it really doesn’t take too much of a detective to realize these are the same figures. That would be fine too.We certainly borrowed some existing figures to make our gen 1 sets. But here’s the deal. Do the math. the Polar Lights Batboat is a 1/25 scale model. So these figures are (as you can see) much too small for the car. And the ones I saw were cast in a static posed hard vinyl and just look very comic booky, not like Adam and Burt at all. Comic Booky, small, poorly painted and crazy bright. And they did a piss-poor job of switching Robin’s bent arm to boot. I think these look ghastly.

So hey – if you want to chalk this up to trash talk – feel free. We’re going to be all out (for good) of our figures by April so it doesn’t really impact us at all. But if you’re buying these because you think $50 is a bargain – just be forewarned: You get what you pay for.  Not only that but our new run of figures is almost as affordable. (shhhh don’t let that out yet – it’s a sale secret!)