[1]In January, the Barrett-Jackson [2] auction welcomed a truly unique and iconic car, the original George Barris-designed Batmobile. Piloted by Adam West during the reign of the original campy and crazy Batman television series, Barris held onto the original Batmobile until selling it for an astounding $4.2 million [3]. But did you know in 1965, ABC also approached GM designer Chuck Jordan to build a Batmobile for the television series?
Neither did we, until coming across this post in sildrome [4], a photograph of Jordan perched atop a Corvette-turned-Batmobile. No offense to Mr. Jordan, may he rest in peace, but we can see why ABC went with the Barris design instead.
Silodrome quotes Randy Leffingwell’s book Corvette Sixty Years [5] as saying that Batman series creator Bob Kane and executive producer William Dozier approached Jordan about a potential Batmobile. GM was all about product placement, and so Jordan took the easily-recognizable C2 Corvette and turned it into a Batmobile, complete with hood-mounted machine guns and a giant… fan?
Nope, that’s just a huge circular spoiler. Jordan also applied a lousy-looking Batman decal for the front of the car with… is that a heart? We think it’s a heart on the chest of the bat with some dudes face. Weird.
Anyways, aside from a lightbar on the roof, Jordan’s attempt at building a Batmobile fell flat to say the least. Instead, Barris got the job, using a then ten-year old Lincoln Futura concept as the base for his Batmobile. Barris also beat out Dean Jefferies, who was building a Batmobile based on a ‘59 Cadillac, but couldn’t finish the project in ABC’s timeframe.
So not only was the Corvette considered for the Batmobile role, but so was a Cadillac. Yet in the end, an old concept car thrown together in three weeks would go on to sell for over $4 million at auction. Guess it just wasn’t meant to be!