Lincoln Futura: the show car that became the Batmobile

The Lincoln Futura was a concept car promoted by Ford’s Lincoln brand in 1955. Designed by Ford stylists Bill Schmidt and John Najjar and hand-built by Ghia in Turin, it was a fully working show car that a decade later became the Batmobile of the 1966 Batman television series.

Lincoln Futura at a glance

Based on one source, the English Wikipedia article on the Futura. Free photographs of the surviving car are scarce, so the article shows a Batmobile replica built on the Futura shape.

History of the Lincoln Futura

The idea for the Futura came from designer Bill Schmidt, who had it while diving after an encounter with a shark. The car made its public debut on 8 January 1955 at the Chicago Auto Show, having been shown to the press at the city’s Congress Hotel on 5 January, and it appeared on the Today show on 3 March 1955. Its styling was unlike anything on the road in the 1950s: a double clear-plastic canopy roof, exaggerated hooded headlight pods and very large tailfins canted outwards. It was finished in a pearlescent white produced by one of the first pearlescent treatments, made by grinding and mixing the scales of thousands of fish into the paint.

Unlike many show cars, the Futura had a complete powertrain and could be driven. It used a 368 cu in Lincoln engine on an early prototype Y-shaped backbone perimeter frame, the layout that reached production in the 1956–1957 Continental Mark II. The car was a success on the show circuit and was released as a model kit and a toy. In much subtler form its headlight and tailfin motifs reached production Lincolns for 1956 and 1957, including the Lincoln Premiere and Lincoln Capri, and its concave grille inspired the 1960 Mercury Monterey and Ford Galaxie. Its styling continued the direction set by the Mercury XM-800 of 1954.

The Futura appeared in the 1959 film It Started with a Kiss with Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford, repainted red because the pearlescent white did not photograph well, and the red car also featured in Ford’s 1961 promotional film The Secret Door. Ford then sold the concept car to the customiser George Barris for $1 and “other valuable consideration”. Because it had never been titled it could not be insured, so it stood behind Barris’s shop for several years, slowly deteriorating.

In 1966 Barris was asked to build a theme car for the Batman television series after the original contract with Dean Jeffries could not meet the studio’s deadline. Barris decided the Futura’s winged shape would make an ideal Batmobile and hired Bill Cushenbery to modify the metalwork; three fibreglass replicas followed. Barris kept the car and leased it to the studio, later displaying it in his own museum and at the Cayman Motor Museum. On 19 January 2013 he sold it at Barrett-Jackson in Scottsdale, Arizona for US$4.62 million. A red Futura replica called “The Baxley” appeared in the 1994 series Viper, and further replicas were built by Bob Butts in the 1990s and rebuilt for the television series Car Masters: Rust to Riches.

Design and features

• Twin bubble canopies: a clear double roof in place of an ordinary windscreen and hardtop.
• Fish-scale paint: pearlescent white made with ground fish scales.
• Working show car: a complete 368 cu in Lincoln drivetrain, not a mock-up.
• Production influence: its fins and lamps shaped the 1956–1957 Lincolns and its grille the 1960 Fords and Mercurys.
• Second life: the same car became the Batmobile of the 1966 television series.

Lincoln Futura versions

• Futura (1955): the single pearlescent white show car built by Ghia.
• It Started with a Kiss (1959): the same car repainted red for the film.
• Batmobile (1966): the Futura rebuilt by George Barris for television.
• Replicas: three Barris fibreglass cars, Bob Butts’s 1990s copies and the Viper television replica.

The Futura’s fins reappeared on the production Lincoln Premiere and Lincoln Capri, and its frame led to the Continental Mark II. More Lincolns are in the Lincoln collection.

Sources

• Lincoln Futura, English Wikipedia: design, debut, Barris, Batmobile, auction