The caped crusader’s work car is so deeply entrenched in our consciousness that escape is futile. This second version of Lincoln’s Futura concept car was a bit more animated than its earlier days on the show circuit. Barris bought Futura from Ford Motor Company for $1 and had Dick Dean and company convert it into Batmobile in an astounding three weeks. It was so popular on the show circuit that a wooden buck was built to make 20 fiberglass copies. At one point, even the wooden buck itself was painted with black flocking and sent out on the road.
New York–based Aurora was privy to Detroit and Hollywood developments and had kits in stores when the Batman show premiered in January 1966. Sales spiked when Batmobile was featured in the Batman motion picture with Batcycle, Batboat, and Batcopter. Recent 1/25-scale re-issues feature double the quality of the 1/32-scale original. Alas, the bigger and newer kits are not originals. The original Batmobile sold to Rick Champaign in 2013 for $4.6 million.
Left: Surviving original-issue 1/32-scale Batmobiles are incredibly rare today. This is the 1/25-scale Polar Lights Snap It re-issue, as built by Kevin White (see more details at 1966batmobile.com). Remarkable quality for a snap-together kit! (Photo Courtesy Kevin White) Right: Well stocked with crime-fighting equipment and electronic communication gear, the caped crusaders were snug but smug in the Batmobile interior. No wonder Robin preferred the Batcycle’s sidecar. (Photo Courtesy Kevin White)
Monogram # PC134-200, 1966, 1/24 scale, Designed by Steve Scott
Prior to Uncertain-T’s 1966 release as model PC-134, Monogram’s previous celebrity “consultant” had been Darryl Starbird. Steve Scott ushered in a fresh style. In 1967, Monogram switched to a more compact box as kit # 6733. This allowed more kits to be displayed on store shelves. Scott proclaims, “Making the boxes more compact was a shrewd marketing idea.” He shot the box art photos himself and confides, “The little dark spot below the front tire is either an oil spot, a leaf, or a really big snail.” The kits included car show diorama pieces such as a female model and a scale 6-foot trophy. There’s great detail on all parts, but the two-piece body leaves a noticeable separation line just behind the slicks. Because Monogram inexplicably scrapped the kit molds, complete kits currently sell in the $400 to $500 range. (Photo Courtesy Steve Scott)
Author Note: This one’s personal. After building an addition onto his parents’ small California garage and spending four and a half years building the Uncertain-T in it, Steve Scott drove it to unprecedented success on the show circuit: “The first show was Harry Costa’s 10th Annual San Mateo Car Show in January of 1965. It won Sweepstakes at every show I entered it in.”
And there were many shows, leading to a dream job as associate editor of Car Craft magazine. Then Steve and the T disappeared. Decades passed while Steve was presumed dead and the car to be lost. While researching Steve for my America’s Wildest Show Rods book, I miraculously found him in Hawaii. The whole Uncertain-T experience had opened Steve’s eyes to media exploitation and soured him to the point of abandoning the automotive world entirely. But Steve is very much alive and itching to get back at the T, which has been safely stored in a friend’s California workshop. To help finance his return to the mainland, Steve hopes to release a “new and improved” Uncertain-T kit (employing more manufacturer-friendly universal components), “Sometime in 2014.”
Only a few years after Monogram released its Uncertain-T kit, it vanished as suddenly as the car. Steve shares his thoughts on how the deal went down: “I contacted Monogram and Revell while building Uncertain-T, when it was far enough along to show them what it was like unpainted, with no upholstery. They were both very interested. I made a deal with Monogram because they promised that the T would also be produced as a larger-scale kit later, that they would return all my materials, and that I could buy the molds later. I had blueprints made and also sent color photos to use on the boxes.
“Meanwhile, Detroit was throwing money at hot rodding magazines promoting their muscle cars, and consumers went for it lock, stock, and four-barrel! Model sales for show hot rods plummeted, and the kit was soon discontinued long before it should have been. I received one good royalty check, then royalties quickly plummeted. Monogram never returned my blueprints or photos, and told me that the molds they promised I could buy were ‘destroyed.’ This was around 1972-ish. I think the same thing happened to some of Daniels’ and Roth’s kits, maybe to avoid paying royalties.”
Chuck Darnell’s Uncertain-T, stuffed with goodies (note kits in the passenger seat) for the promoters who requested its presence at the 2013 Kustom Kemps in Miniature show in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “It was in the final stages of being finished,” Darnell points out, but the TDR Innovations 3-D printed nailhead was in place. (Photo Courtesy Chuck Darnell)
From Warren Willis’ coverage of the 1966 Oakland Roadster Show. Steve Scott’s homebuilt creation bagged the 6-foot trophy. (Photo Courtesy OldBlueWebDesigns.com)
Monogram # PC131-150, 1966, 1/24 scale, Designed by Darryl Starbird, Reissued 1990 as #2931
Originally christened Ultra Truck by Starbird, the name mysteriously changed to Orange Hauler upon Monogram’s 1966 kit release. Cast in orange plastic with moderate detail, the Buick engine is infamously vague but is mostly covered by the large custom air cleaner. Like all of Starbird’s 1966 kits, box art (this is the original-issue art) features compelling reactions from stunned bystanders. (Photo Courtesy Dave Shuten)
Starbird was busy in 1966, but his quality matched his quantity. Commissioned by Monogram as a rolling prototype for the model kit, he started this project with a 1962 Chevy 1-ton cab, a shortened 1955 Chevy passenger car chassis, and a Buick drivetrain. Once scaled by Monogram’s engineers, the company cleaned house by promoting a 1965 give-away contest, won by “some kid from Oklahoma,” according to Monogram’s Roger Harney, adding, “Darryl delivered it in person. It was a big deal.” After that, the whereabouts of Starbird’s full-scale bubbletop truck was a show rod mystery—until Louis Lionetti (of Las Vegas) spoke up in 2007. Thanks to Lionetti’s long-term care, Ultra Truck/Orange Hauler has now been fully restored by Starbird Kustom.
Orange Hauler proudly stakes a claim as one of the few full-on show rods to be built from wrecking-yard sheet metal, and its fans have been celebrating that grassroots ethos by snapping up each re-issue of the kit. Howard Cohen is the world’s second-biggest Orange Hauler fan, and has even built one for the number-one fan, Darryl Starbird himself. This is the version Howard keeps locked in his house. (Photos Courtesy Howard Cohen)
AMT # 2030-200, 1966, 1/25 scale, Designed by Harry Bradley, Re-issued