Batcad photo from the CC Cohort by F Abbot
Wordless Find: Caddy Batmobile
– Posted on March 17, 2026
Batcad photo from the CC Cohort by F Abbot
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Speechless
Must be like hitting a nitrous button when he lights up those rear-facing Gatling guns!
“Holy hole in a donut Batman!”
It needs the paint can out back for the rocket engine exhaust.
I think the bodyman got his genres mixed up, or else the owner got sick of explaining what the “Black Beauty” was to a blank faced public.
+1 – that’s what I came here to say, that this car is giving me more of a Green Hornet vibe than Batman.
Of course “Black Beauty” was made from an Imperial of a much older vintage than this Caddy, and besides, aren’t Batmobiles supposed to be Ford products? The original was anyway.
It is not to my taste but it is eye catching and the quality looks good.
Well ;
Why not ? .
I like this, it appears well done unlike most tribute vehicles I see .
-Nate
Are those CyberTruck wheels?
Regardless, I wonder what it looks like with the top down.
Like this apparently:
OMG…too much money…too much time.
Looks like it started as an Eldorado. If so, it’s interesting how they handled the wheels. Considering the Eldorado wheels have such a huge offset and center protrusion.
Wow, someone went to a lot of work…. Strikes me as more of a Green Hornet vibe than Batmobile despite it’s name.
Would look better under a car cover.
(Motor)cyclists and pedestrians, beware of the Flesh Ripper.
“Goopin gee gillers Batman!!! Are we really going to ride in that hideous thing???”
“Hey kid, dont blame me that the Joker blew up the cool Batmobile with a giant cartoon bomb. This was the rejected prototype, its still a good car. Its either this or we borrow Ace and Gary’s car again”
I hope that the ashtrays and lighters were removed. Batman doesn’t condone the use of tobacco in any form.
Rich,
Thanks for posting! I took this in New Zealand on the South Island last week. Apparently a local car club was having lunch at the same restaurant as we were. Also in the parking lot was couple of other cars that I included on CC Cohort…
Enjoy!
Yay for New Zealand! Although sadly I’ve not seen this one on the roads here yet. Registration records say it’s a 1975 Eldorado Convertible that was imported here in July 2005 from the USA. Engine is recorded as 7544cc / 460ci, not sure that’s correct. BATCAD is a personalised plate, but not legally affixed to that car. The actual registration for the car is AMG3DN, which suits the Armageddon styling I guess!
I took the picture in a parking lot of a seaside restaurant in Waihi Beach March 12th…there were about half a dozen vintage cars parked in the lot and on the street. Looked like a car club was having lunch there?
Actually on the North Island at Flatwhite… was on the South Island earlier…
Somebody report this guy to the “Cruelty to Cadillacs ” society fast!
He must be stopped!
What follows is the story of the REAL Batmobile. And every word is true! Mostly.
The Real History of the Real Batmobile
In January of 1966, an entirely new show debuted on ABC. Batman was an instant hit. Starring Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin, and all sorts of celebrity guest villains, it wasn’t long before everybody in America was singing “Batman.” The third star of the show was the Batmobile, a 1955 Lincoln Futura show car converted by George Barris, who to this day, still owns the original. At the time, I was a student at the Pinellas Vo-Tech Institute majoring in Party and avoiding the draft.
I had become friends with another student named Bill who drove a 1954 Buick 2 door hardtop that had been purchased new by his father, a military officer, then shipped all around the world as he moved from base to base. When Bill got the car, it had over 260,000 miles on it and was horribly rusted. The first thing he did was to cut the top off, making it a “converted.” Then, he painted an 8” black and white checkerboard pattern down both sides of the “Checked Wreck.”
While sitting in class one day, listening to a radio playing the theme from the new hit show, Batman, we suddenly looked at each other with the same thought at the same instant – Batmobile! We snuck out of class and drove to a local sheet metal shop and spent what little money we had between us and bought some sheet metal and screws. We then went to my parents house in St. Petersburg and began the conversion requiring us to blow off school for two days.
First we cut two pieces into a big fin with a scalloped edge and fastened it to the trunk with L brackets and screws. Then, using a 5 or 6 foot wide piece, cut out a big bat that we screwed over the Buick’s grille. We drilled a bunch of holes in it to let the air through, but I doubt it helped much. The front bumper had been removed, so the bat looked pretty good. We then took all the old cans of oil paint my dad had in the utility room and mixed them all together resulting in a yucky purple. Out came the brushes and we painted over the checks. With yellow paint we painted a racing stripe over the body and large ovals on the doors with the Batman emblem inside them. We painted cool yellow flames behind the front wheel wells and on the rear passenger quarter where the car had once been hit, we painted “OOF, POW, and BANG” just as were used in the TV show when mayhem occurred. We were ready for prime time!
The first day back at school was amazing. Entire classes emptied out to see the Buick and instructors just shook their heads. When we cruised Clearwater Beach or through the Steak-and-Shake on Gulf to Bay, the car was an instant hit. Everywhere we went, we were celebrities. Even the Clearwater cops laughed and waved instead of citing us with dozens of safety violations.
The last week in February was the annual Daytona 500 race and we knew it was our duty to be there with the Batmobile, so Bill, myself, and a friend named Jim loaded up and off we went. We made a wrong turn in Tampa and got lost in downtown. While driving around, we came across two guys hitchhiking. We told them we were going to Daytona and they jumped in. Halfway there, we ran across three other friends along the side of I-4, having scattered the engine in their 1960 Chevy, as 348’s were known to do. Abandoning the car on the roadside, they jumped in too. Along the way we picked up a few more Bat-passengers.
After spending the day driving up and down Daytona beach on the sand, we lined up at the back entrance to the speedway infield. To pass the time, several of us climbed over the fences and climbed to the top of the track, then went down the angled track to the bottom. We then climbed back out to get back to our car. At midnight, the gates opened and in we went. Totally exhausted, we laid down in the dirt and went to sleep until being woke up in the morning by some serious partiers. We spent the day enjoying all the excitement the infield and the race had to offer, but just as the race ended, it began to storm heavily and the infield turned to mud. Our passengers had all deserted us, having found dry rides home, so it was just us three to drive back.
A kind soul let us wait in his car until the crowds thinned, and then we left the track, only to find that one headlight had burned out. Did I mention the wipers didn’t work either and that Bill, who was driving, wore coke bottle thick glasses? So here we were, driving over I-4 with Jim holding a Styrofoam ice chest lid over Bill’s head to try to keep the rain out of his face while I was hanging over the door watching the white line, screaming “Right, Left, and OK” as we swerved all over the road. About Orlando, the rain let up and we discovered we had had the high beams on and the burned out lamp worked fine on low beam.
The attention the car drew on the beach, cruising through town, and at the track was unbelievable. Everyone wanted to be our friends, hang with us, buy stuff for us, and take a zillion photos. When I arrived home, my mother had been watching the Huntley-Brinkley report which apparently had been broadcasting from Daytona. She told me she happened to look up and there on the screen, in black and white, at the close of the show, was this group of idiots driving the Batmobile along the sands of Daytona, waving at the Bat-camera. My 15 seconds of Bat-fame!
Batman Returns, Innocence Lost
After having been the hit of the ’66 Daytona 500, we knew we owed it to our fans and admirers to put in an appearance at the ’66 Firecracker 400 on July 4th. By now, we were experienced Bat-folk, and we left with a fully loaded car. There was Bill, myself, Jim, and three new additions. One was Dan, a friend of Bill’s who was home with his college roommate, “Don,” from Yale. We needed a sixth, so I invited Earl, a kid I worked with who had a pretty bad home life and had never had a chance for any fun.
To prepare the car, out came the white shoe polish and we added “Official Pace Car, Firecracker 400” on the sides, and “We Want Girls” on the fin. This was very subtle. The trip over was uneventful, other than baking our brains out in the July sun. Upon arriving in Daytona, we set up on the beach and began to party with some school friends in their ’55 Chevy. We were joined by three rough looking guys in a ’63 silver 409 Chevy who decided we would be fun to party with. We realized pretty quick that these dirtbags, who were high as kites, were trouble when Earl, who was probably drinking the first beer of his life, suddenly went bonkers after taking a beer from them. He had obviously been slipped something unexpected, so it was time to leave, and quick.
As we drove off the beach, the ’63 Chevy kept ramming us in the rear, although not hard. To get away, we pulled into a McDonalds along Atlantic Ave and they followed us in. I took Earl around to the side of the building and sat him down on a curb. Within a few minutes, a cop walked up and asked me if he was high. I replied yes, and told the cop that Earl had been slipped something by the guys in the silver Chevy. The cop told me to take Earl, get the rest of our crowd, and get back in our car. As we loaded up, we could see they were arresting the guys in the Chevy, but the cruiser still escorted us to the Daytona city limits and told us not to return.
We pulled into the parking lot of the GE plant across from the speedway with our buddies in the ’55 Chevy and loaded Earl, who by then was passed out, into the trunk of the ’55. Since we now had no alcohol or snockered Earl’s with us, we drove back into Daytona Beach and cruised the avenue until midnight, when we entered the infield for a night of pretty intense partying. That is, except for Earl, who probably to this day has never touched another beer.
After that, I lost touch with all these guys. Bill became a top guy in the Ponderosa chain and instituted their salad bar concept. Jim went on to become a well known local artist and community activist, but died not long ago. I never saw Earl again after I changed jobs. Dan went on to take over his parents auto dealership. I didn’t know who “Don” was until after the trip was over, and I’m still not entirely sure it’s the truth, but just think of the scandal that would been if the Daytona cops, instead of throwing us out of town, had arrested the six of us, including Don Scholander, who had won gold in swimming at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
The Care, Feeding, and Demise of the Batmobile
By now, you’re no doubt curious about how this magnificent machine was maintained. First, due to a slight rust problem, the headlights had detached themselves from the front fenders, so strategically placed Maxwell House coffee cans were flattened and sheet metal screwed to the headlight rims and fender. That stopped the problem of tripping the electronic street light sensors because one of the lights shown into the air at about a 60° angle.
Even though the old Buick had over 260,000 miles on her, she ran like a top. She also leaked like a sieve, so Bill would get drain oil from service stations and top off both the engine and the Dynaflow transmission. Once, on a trip to my aunt’s place on Lido Key in Sarasota, in order to cross the Sunshine Skyway, we had to lay back, then floor the car, getting it to about 70 at the bottom of the hump. By the time we crested, we were going no more than 5 mph. Thank goodness for the long coast down.
Somebody gave me a really nice ’53 Buick hardtop with front end damage. The interior was perfect, so we removed the dog-bed seats from the Batmobile and swapped them with the ’53. Light green seats really looked sharp with a purple and yellow exterior. About that time, somebody gave Bill a tonneau cover actually made for an’54 Buick convertible. We drilled in snaps and now were able to keep the worst of the weather from the seats, which held rain water like sponges.
Weight reduction was done when the “saber-tooth” grill fell out one night and we ran over it, destroying a tire. Tires were replaced with free take-off may-pops from sympathetic gas stations. The only requirement was that they held air and had whitewalls. Tread was nice, but not necessary. Another night the rusted muffler fell off and we ran over it too. Since the car was shedding weight, we left it off and drove very easy near the cops so as not to get a ticket for the noise.
One night on St. Pete Beach, a jerk in a Falcon Sprint challenged me to drag. I had several other guys in the car (Bill was using mine on a date), and said no. When the light changed, he burned rubber for half a block. A SPB cop saw him fly by and heard me trying to move from the light, muffler-less. He pulled us both over to write tickets for drag racing. The bozo in the Falcon gave the cop a really hard time and ended up getting arrested and hauled off to jail. By the time he got around to me, he was in a really foul mood, so I just shut up and took the citation. Amazingly, when I appeared in court, he stopped me outside the courtroom, apologized to me, and then told the judge he had been mistaken in giving me the ticket!!
All good things must end though, and after about a year and half, both the Batman TV show and the Batmobile began to fade. Bill had come into some money and bought a ’67 911T Porsche. He didn’t want the Batmobile to go to anyone else as he knew that whatever happened would be blamed on him, so we drove it to the little junkyard on Betty Lane in Clearwater and said goodbye. It was barely running by then, but still had enough dignity to drive to it’s final resting place. I sure hope you all enjoyed reading about the Batmobile as I did remembering and writing about it.
It may say Bat Car but the machine guns, green stripes and jutting grill give it more of a Green Hornet flavor.