Hi Rande:
This topic caught my eye, and the process of destroying these one-off
prototypes always curled my toes for some reason.
But the practice continues today, at least here in Canada with early issue
homologation and show special motorcycles. I have a friend who owned an
excavation company, so had access to many large pieces of heavy equipment.
He had the contract a while back for destroying these otherwise brand new
bikes, and as he was an avid biker, it pained him to do the job of trucking
them to a landfill and driving over them with a D9 Cat.
Regarding the number and fate of the Lincoln Futuras, here is what Wikipedia
says about it:
"In 1966 Barris was requested to design a theme car for the Batman
television series. Originally the auto stylist Dean Jeffries was contracted
to build the car for the show in late 1965, but when the studio wanted the
car faster than he could deliver, the project was handed to Barris. With the
short notice, Barris thought the Futura might work well, and using Jeffries
initial car, decided that its unusual winged shape would be an ideal
starting point for the Batmobile. Barris hired Bill Cushenberry to do the
metal modifications to the car. Barris went on to build three fiberglass
replicas using the frames and running gear from 1966 Ford Galaxie cars for
the show circuit, three of which were covered with a felt-like flocking
finish in the 1970s. Barris later acquired a fourth replica, a metal car
built on a 1958 Thunderbird.
After its conversion to the Batmobile, Barris continued to retain ownership
of the car, leasing it to the TV studio for filming. After production of the
TV series ended, Barris continued to own the car, which was displayed in
Barris' own museum in California. It has been displayed in the Cayman Motor
Museum on Grand Cayman Island.
Barris is offering the Batmobile for sale to the highest bidder, during the
Barrett-Jackson collector car auction, Saturday, January 19, 2013 in
Scottsdale AZ."
From: "rande" <rande@thecia.net>
To: <tigers@autox.team.net>
Sent: Friday, January 18, 2013 10:26 AM
Subject: [Tigers] off Topic - Batmobile/Futura
>I think it was TTAC (The Truth About Cars) site that did a recent
>discussion
> of the Batmobile, part of it being someone was offering to make copies of
> it
> for sale, and part of the response back from posters was a slam on George
> Barris
> for his conversion of a FoMoCo prototype Lincoln Futura into
> Batman&Robin's
> ride.
>
> I should ask John how many versions Ford built of the Futura, as the most
> popular
> photo is of the white car from around 1955-6, but in the Glenn Ford /
> Debbie
> Reynolds 1959 film 'It Started with a Kiss', one of the stars of that film
> was
> a red version of the Futura. Was there at least two cars, or just another
> paint
> job for the only one?
>
> At the time, and a little later, American manufacturers were prone to
> destroying
> show cars when they were done with them, because even driveable cars
> weren't
> deemed safe enough to sell to the public, so I was fine with Ford turning
> a
> Futura over to Barris. Nowadays, folks like Chicago's Joe Bortz go out of
> their
> way to find and restore old prototypes, while reassuring car makers that
> they
> won't drive their prototypes to the supermarket.
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