Features

"We wanted a mid-engined sports tank," announces Nathan Crowley of the new Batmobile, "a cross between a Lamborghini and a Hummer, capable of tackling the streets of out-of-control Gotham." Looking at Batman's new ride, you can see where he's coming from. Crowley, Production Designer for Director Chris Nolan on the new blockbuster Batman Begins is rightly proud of his visual bar-brawl of a creation - which you could argue is the original Batmobile since the film is, as the title suggests, a prequel. Flying against modern trends, the car is not just a computer-generated confection, nor is this pitbull of personal transport a balsa wood prop either. What makes it interesting is that the 9-feet by 15-feet behemoth is a real, driving, crashing, and even hopping, car.

Powered by a 5.7-litre, 340bhp Chevy V8, the car has already filmed the two major chase sequences at up to 85mph. It tops out at 105mph. "Everything in the movie is real," says Andy Smith, the Batcar's chief engineer. "There is a radio-controlled version, but no more than that. It's as real as we could make it."

They've designed the cars (there are actually four versions with different gearing and special effects attached) to jump up to 60ft, bounce, crash through obstacles and still drive away. In the film, the car is a mothballed military project called 'The Tumbler' that gets called up in the service of the Dark Knight; and the reality is that the cars are built to near-military standard.

Unusually, this Batmobile was built from scratch - previous versions had always run on a modified standard saloon chassis with a trick body plonked on top - but Nolan wanted something more outrageous. Crowley comments: "I think Anton Furst's Batmobiles were great [the cars from the earlier films], but they were of their time. This one's not about decoration, it's about function and muscle."