The best batmobile

I couldn't resist and at least Stephanie wanted to know more so, ok, here we go.

In my mind the perfect batmobile will combine the following elements:

• Strong and powerful
• Look like it can go fast and is at least slightly elongated
• Should come across as being solid and sturdy
• Have a certain elegance
• Needs to still be recognizable as a car, but somehow unique and unlike anything else on the road
• Gadgets
• Some bat-like features
• MUST BE COOL

With all that in mind lets look at all of them. To be honest this is a difficult analysis and at the end it is only clear which is the best and the worst batmobiles.

The Best

The Tim Burton batmobile really has nothing wrong with it at all (also featured in my favorite Batman movies, coincidence?). It is everything you want in a batmobile, scoring top points in nearly every criteria listed above.  For some reason this one puts the "bat" in batmobile better than any other though I am not sure I could articulate what I mean by that, but I'm sure you know what I'm saying.

The Worst

The one from Batman Forever is easily the worst. It looks plastic in person, especially its exposed "engine" parts. This adds to its fragility (in fact its tail fin breaks if you go too fast in it, true story). Of all of them, this one looks the cheapest and most "fake". It seems to have an exoskeleton that makes it look more insect-like than anything. I guess it scores well in the fact that it is a very otherworldly looking car, but unfortunately it went in a direction that violated the last criteria point. It's just no good.

The Middle

The 3 in the middle are much harder. I currently have the one from Batman and Robin ranked near the bottom of these even though it was the one that surprised me the very most. It was much more solid, real, and elegant than I expected. It is probably the most elegant of all of them, though bordering on looking a little like a cartoon. It has only 1 seat for some reason (its most glaring problem) and it is an open air cockpit like seat. It loses big points there, but could have easily been made into an ideal batmobile with some obvious changes. Of all the batmobiles I think this one scores a zero in the gadgets category as I can't recall this one having any, but I could be wrong there. Also it is in the crappiest of the Batman movies so I couldn't help but consider that and so it comes in at the bottom of the middle pile.

I debated a lot between the tumbler and the Adam West batmobile. Adam West's is the most like an actual car (probably because it is) and its a classic looking car too. It is open air (a convertible) which I counted against the previous one, but it has 2 seats so it saves itself a little with that. The almost dome-like windshield is a minus I think. Maybe the orange trim too. This is the one you can most easily imagine driving. Scores huge in the gadget department. However, much like the series it is in, it is rather campy and difficult to actually imagine Batman cruising around town in it, fighting crime. The tumbler is about as drastically different from the West batmobile as can be. It is without a doubt the most tank like. It is the strongest and most powerful looking one. You really believe it could go anywhere. Of course it has no elegance to it. Unfortunately it also looks incomplete and unfinished. From the back it is may be the best looking batmobile out there, but from the front and most angles it looks like they ran out of parts. First time I saw it in Batman Begins I thought it was down right ugly, but it has grown on me a little. If they could complete it and smooth it out in some places, you'd really have something special. In fact I thought thats what they would do. As if in Batman Begins it was still sort of a prototype, but in the subsequent movies it would have progressed and been made more perfect and complete. Too bad they left it the same...and blew it up. If you were to ask me 10 times if the tumbler is better than Adam West's batmobile I would probably tell you yes maybe 6 of those times so I guess thats why it got the edge.

All in all, I was impressed with just how real most of these looked (with the exception of the worst one). It is great that the batmobiles have such variety. In fact if you want to gander at every batmobile ever, head on over to this place. In all honestly my favorite of all time may be the one from the cartoon. I can't find a good picture of it, but you can watch the show opener here and catch it. Whether you care what it looks like or not, you should check out the link, it'll make you smile. If it doesn't, know that it makes me smile...maybe that will make you smile. By the way, that show is perhaps the best envisioning of Batman ever.

Now if I were Bruce Wayne and I needed to make a batmobile of my own I know exactly where I would start: the Cadillac Sixteen, a concept car that for some reason was never put on the general assembly line.

Strong and powerful. Fast. Elegant? You betcha! And it is all ready painted black. It would be the perfect base for my batmobile. I guess you gotta add the gadgets and some sort of jet engine on the back somewhere, but this puppy is nearly perfect all ready and that may be why it is perhaps my all time favorite car; because it would make me feel like I was driving the batmobile. Thats a good rule to follow when selecting a car to buy: How much does this make me feel like I am driving the batmobile? Stick to that and I think you'll be pretty pleased.