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Looking like a psychotic wheelbarrow, the new Batmobile doesn't fall into the trap of being limp-wristed. It has six wheels - four 44-inch truck tyres on the rear push a pair of stock car racing tyres mounted either side of the front stub axles. There is no traditional front axle, which makes space for a pair of cannons and allows Batman's cockpit to rotate when the jet turbine needs to 'air ramp' the car over short distances. To stop, it literally throws out the anchors - it has a 'stopping hook', like those used by jets when landing on an aircraft carrier.

Chris Corbould, who oversaw the Batmobile's creation, says that mounting the two front wheels on stub axles was quite a challenge, but comments, "We didn't want to make a car that was just pretty - this thing shifts, and the noise from that Chevy V8 through underpasses was awesome."

He also describes how at 4am one morning the crew decided to drive the four Batmobiles home rather than trailer them. Despite having a police escort, at one four-way junction an unfortunate man ran into Batmobile number two. "I think he thought the aliens had landed," says Chris. "Imagine being surrounded by four of these Batmobiles - at four in the morning. And you've just knocked the front wing off one of them..."

But minor traffic accidents aside, what really matters here is that Christian Bale's Batman at last has a set of wheels that spins reality just the right distance from fantasy. In the movie, we first see it on a racetrack in desert camouflage, as part of the set-aside military project from Wayne Industries. You only realise what you are looking at when Bruce Wayne asks the telling question: "Does it come in black?"