Bat Car!

The new Batmobile might look rough and ready, but it is the handiwork of a team of expert builders.

- By Zack Klapman

ALTHOUGH WE LIVE in uncertain times, life has never been easier. Tap your phone a few times and a hamburger or a car can arrive at your door. Open your favorite streaming service and a buffet of fresh movies appears as if conjured by Harry Potter himself.

But computers don’t make those burgers, cars, or movies. People do. They still write scripts, aim cameras, build sets, rewrite scenes, pull out hairs, and create props. In the case of The Batman, the latest film in a media franchise that began as a comic in 1939, that prop is a car. The car. The Batmobile.

Tuohy called this the most complicated build his team has ever put together.

The Batmobile is an iconic character with a shape that changes with each director. Adam West drove an open-air Barris creation; Michael Keaton, a turbine-powered slipstream that could double as a spokesman for Magnum; Christian Bale, a flat-paneled machine called the Tumbler that looked like a DARPA dune buggy.

In the case of The Batman, the starring transportation looks very much like a car. As production designer James Chinlund explained, that was not only on purpose, it was a critical part of Bruce Wayne’s ethos: “Every Batman we’ve seen, he’s had the backing of Wayne Industries. We really wanted Bruce to build [this one] himself. We wanted it to be a car, not a tank.”

Motorsport-level quality and precision, in service of making movie magic.