Video: Barn-find Batmobile is the first one ever built, three years before Barris
Filed under: TV/Movies, Design/Style, Videos
When we think of the original Batmobile, George Barris is the name that comes up almost as soon as Adam West, nevermind that there was a Batman television show nearly a decade before that famous pairing. It’s time to rewrite the file, though, so that we think of Forrest Robinson and All-Star Dairy anytime the phrase “original Batmobile” comes up.
In 1963, Robinson was a 23-year-old who wanted to make a vehicle for the caped crusader using the new-at-the-time material fiberglass. So he took the chassis from a 1958 Oldsmobile 88 with a 324-cubic-inch Rocket V8 in front, covered it with a swoopy, pointed body inspired by the one the superhero drove in comic books, and voila: the first ever Batmobile, three years before Barris’ Ford Futura-based version hit the screen, sanctioned by DC Comics in 1966 after it tirelessly worked to promote All-Star Dairy Products. It was the only car Robinson ever built, and by 1968 it was sitting derelict in a field, where it would stay for almost 40 years.
Sounds outrageous, we know. But The Aficionauto drove it recently, and you can get the whole wacky story in the beautiful video here.
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Barn-find Batmobile is the first one ever built, three years before Barris originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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