It happened, folks. The original Batmobile from the 1966 Batman film was auctioned off yesterday at the Barrett-Jackson house in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Adam West-driven, George Barris-built movie car sold for a whopping $4.2 million, which almost meets the record for the most-expensive movie car sold at auction, which was the Aston Martin DB5 driven by Sean Connery in Goldfinger, that sold for $4.6 million in 2010.
The winning bidder, Rick Champagne, ended up paying $4.6 million for the classic car, with a $4.2 million bid, while the remaining $400,000 was in fees. Champagne is a businessman and car collector from the Phoenix area who has been attending Barrett-Jackson auctions for the last 15 years.
George Barris constructed the Batmobile in just 15 days in 1966, and was built for $15,000 using a 1955 Ford Futura concept car as the base model, which was purchased for just $1. The car has been in Barris’ personal car collection ever since, and unlike the Tumbler from the Dark Knight series, the original Batmobile is road legal.
The video above is fairly long, and the auction takes a good 15 minutes to get through, but it’s great to see the enthusiasm from all the folks in the auction room, and Barris himself was there to see the car be auctioned off. The auctioneers were even having a blast (as they always do), but it was great to see one of them hum the movie’s theme song as the price grew higher and higher.
[via Jalopnik]
Original 1966 Batmobile auctions for $4.2 million is written by SlashGear.
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