At the end of several long rows of rare collector cars, including some famous NASCAR race cars, in a 30,000-square-foot garage in Livonia, sits arguably one of the most famous cars in the world.
The 1966 Batmobile.
Or — in this case, a rare replica of the one driven by Adam West playing Batman in the 1966-68 television series. This car is owned by Dale McClenaghan, a Livonia man who is retired from the Roush Automobile Collection, the garage where he keeps the car. His wife, Susan Roush McClenaghan, is program manager and a part owner of the garage and its collection of over 100 rare cars. Her famous father, Jack Roush, started this place, along with starting auto supplier Roush Industries and Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing NASCAR team.
The company that makes the Batmobile replica — Fiberglass Freaks in Logansport, Indiana — has made only 32 of them since 2003, Fiberglass Freaks owner Mark Racop told the Detroit Free Press.
Racop said he has a waiting list of 200 people willing to pay the starting price of $324,999 to $389,380 for a fully decked out, hand-built car that so accurately represents the famous vehicle used in the TV show that DC Comics licensed it as a replica.
McClenaghan may be 60 years old, but he becomes a kid again when he starts talking about the car.
"'Batman' came out in the late 1960s, and I’d come and watch the TV program every day," McClenaghan said. "I couldn’t say Batman so I’d say ‘Matman,’ and I had my towel on my back and I'd run around the house saying ‘Matman.'"
He climbs inside the car's co*ckpit, which is full of gadgets and levers that Batman used to fight crime, such as the Detect-A-Scope, which pinpoints the exact locations of villains or allies. There is the red Batphone, which had a direct line to Gotham City Police headquarters. The Batphone in this car works, and is Bluetooth-enabled. The car has a working backup camera because it has no side or rear mirrors. But most of the other buttons, such as the Batscanner, simply function as the horn or are for show.
McClenaghan starts the engine, which makes a sound similar to the "Batman" theme song before a booming, yet gutteral, roar erupts from the General Motors 383 V8 engine. Once the power is on, the actual theme song from the TV series starts blasting forth from four speakers on the car's exterior. McClenaghan turns the handle on the Batbeacon and a red light on top of the car starts flashing round and round. McClenaghan smiles wide.
"I've always dreamed of having something cool," McClenaghan said of the car, which he bought from the original owner. "It’s just the style of this car, the notoriety you get as you're driving it. The looks you get from people and people going crazy. If a car is next to you, some people get so excited they almost crash into you.”
McClenaghan considered driving the car in the Woodward Dream Cruise this weekend, but was not sure on Wednesday whether he would. If not, people can get a look at it from 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday at the Roush Automobile Collection at 11851 Market St. in Livonia. Roush Fenway Keselowski NASCAR drivers Brad Keselowski and Chris Buescher will be there signing autographs. The museum is regularly open to the public, free of charge, Monday through Friday those same hours.
3,000 hours to make McClenaghan's car
McClenaghan is not the only person in Michigan to own a Batmobile replica — this is the Motor City, after all.
In 2019 Hometown Life reported that Barry Barber, of West Bloomfield, owned a Fiberglass Freaks Batmobile replica, the sixth one made. He bought it from an Arizona museum for $250,000, the report said. Also, as the Detroit Free Press reported in February, five Batmobiles, each from a different era, were featured at the Detroit Autorama in March.
McClenaghan's car is the eighth one built by Fiberglass Freaks. Racop said his team started hand-building the car in September 2014 and finished it in July 2016. The donor car it is on is a1977 Lincoln Town Car.The car is nearly 19 feet long and 83 inches wide, weighing 4,700 pounds, Racop said.The car body is quarter-inch thick fiberglass.
It has a 12-gallon gas tank and runs on regular unleaded gasoline, McClenaghan said. A flamethrower on the back works — though it's more of a "Bic lighter" than a big flame, said McClenaghan, adding, "I’ve got a balloon burner that I’m going to retrofit for it to make it shoot a bigger flame.”
The car has real (but non-deployable) parachutes in the packs near the rear exhaust, and the gold Batbeamgrid raises on a power antenna between the front windshields, Racop said.
"There's about 3,000 hours of labor going into each one, and since we have so many cars in the queue that are preordered, the wait time is about three years," Racop said. "We have completed 32, and we have eight more sold. Famous clients include a Goldman Sachs heir, one of the producers from 'Big Bang Theory,' and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham."
The making of the real Batmobile
Four Batmobiles were built for the TV show, McClenaghan said.
The design of the car was the brainchild of the late George Barris, known as the "King of Kustomizers," according to www.barris.com. He designed the famous TV and movie cars such as the original series Batmobile, the Munster Koach in "The Munsters" TV show, the pickup truck in "The Beverly Hillbillies" and K.I.T.T. from the 1980s TV show "Knight Rider."
Barris made the Batmobile by transforming a 1955 Lincoln Futura show car. According to a 2013 article in Autoweek, Barris re-formed the fins, changed the grille and gave the headlights a gothic look. He opened up the wheel wells and added the Bat gadgets such as rocket boosters, machine guns, Bat Radar and the Bat Phone. Autoweek said the total build cost was about $15,000 in 1966.
“From what I understand, because they built them in a rush, they weren’t built very well," McClenaghan said. "The original Batmobiles I know of, one of them that sold, the guy can’t even open the doors. The doors aren’t very mechanically sound."
Still, ABC News reported in 2013, one of the original cars, which Barris had owned, was purchased at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Scotsdale, Arizona, for $4.62 million by Rick Champagne, who owned an Arizona-based logistics company. According to Regit, a car enthusiast website, that 2013 Batmobile sale ranked fifth in the top 10 most expensive movie cars sold at auction.
A Michigan Monkeemobile
Barris also owned one of the two original Monkeemobiles used in the TV show "The Monkees," which aired from 1966 to 1968.
The Monkeemobile was designed by the late Dean Jeffries, another TV car customizer. He designed it off a modified 1966 Pontiac GTO. Barris restored his Monkeemobile and sold at Barrett-Jackson for $360,000. It is owned by a private, unnamed collector from Michigan, according to a 2021 article in the Owego Pennysaver Press.
“I know the Monkeemobile is here because George Barris contacted us before he passed away (in 2015) and we a put Roush crate motor in the Monkeemobile," McClenaghan said. "The owner is in Dearborn or somewhere, I am not quite sure, but I know he’s in Michigan.”
A famous autograph inside
McClenaghan bought his Batmobile at the end of August last year from the original owner, Karl Wawarosky, out of Texas, Racop confirmed.
"I contacted Fiberglass Freaks just before I bought this and he’s got a three-year waiting list and he wants $300,000 a copy and you have to pay him 50% up front to get on the three-year waiting list," McClenaghan said. "So I was really nervous and didn’t know if I wanted to do it that way."
Then, on Facebook Marketplace, McClenaghan saw an ad for a Batmobile for sale by Wawarosky. McClenaghan contacted Wawarosky and the two made the deal. McClenaghan declined to say what he paid for the car. He hired a driver to haul it to Michigan in a trailer.
Open either door and there are autographs up and down the panels from DC Comic illustrators or writers. The signatures happened at various Comic Con events that Wawarosky took the car to, McClenaghan said. One of the most prestigious signatures is a Batman logo with a line under it and the name Jim Lee under it. Jim Lee is the publisher and chief creative office for DC Comics, according to DC Comics website.
No 'mentally disturbed' Batman rides
McClenaghan has seen the more modern, tank-like, Batmobiles out there, but he wanted this retro style.
“My preference is not to have the mentally disturbed Batman," McClenaghan said. "They turned Batman into somebody who ... was dark. I liked the Adam West version of it because it’s more cheeky. It had more comedy to it."
For example, Batman would walk up walls and somebody would open a window and out would pop a famous actor doing a cameo for the series.
"He had Santa Claus one time, the Beatles were there one time, anything that was relevant," McClenaghan said. "And it’s my childhood. This is the style of car they had in that series."
Still, this car needs his personal touch, McClenaghan said. An auto diesel mechanic by training, McClenaghan has been making little improvements to it: new spark plugs, a new fuel injection system and he plans to put in a new cooling system to keep it from overheating in stop-and-go traffic. Also, because Roush is a Ford engine supplier that builds custom engines, called crate motors, for Ford performance cars, he will put a Ford engine in it. The original Batmobiles were Ford-powered cars, he said.
"The current engine is a little underpowered for my taste. It’s got 400 horsepower, somewhere around there, but it’s got such a long drive line and the gearing in the car is not really set up for doing anything other than parade stuff," McClenaghan said. "It’s got a cool sound, it is real throaty and rumbly as it idles down the road. You can almost hear the Batman theme coming out of the exhaust ... it goes ‘da-da-dum-da-da-da-dum.”
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This story has been updated to reflect correct spellings of Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing and Chris Buescher.
Contact Jamie L. LaReau:jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter@jlareauan. Read more onGeneral Motorsand sign up for ourautos newsletter.
