Batman Begins (2005)

“I finally understood men’s fascinations with cars after I saw the Batmobile in action,” Katie Holmes recalls with a laugh. “I thought, Okay, I get it. This is awesome! I have the privilege of riding in it in the movie and it’s even better on the inside.”

While most film vehicles are comprised of a pre-existing car frame with a plastic shell placed over it, Smith’s team custom-made every aspect of the Batmobile, from the wheels to the chassis to the bodywork.

The Batmobile is equipped with a 5.7 liter, 350 cubic inch, 340-horsepower engine with approximately 400 pounds of torque. 9 feet, 4 inches at its widest point, the vehicle is 15 feet long and weighs 2.5 tons. It accelerates from 0-60 in under 5 seconds and can jump 4-6 feet in height, up to a distance of 60 feet, and then peel off as soon as it hits the ground.

One of the most distinctive design features of the Batmobile is that it has no front axel, which enables the vehicle to make extremely tight turns. Nolan wanted the wheels to be held from the side, which at first was considered impossible. But Smith and special effects supervisor Chris Corbould devised a way to make it work. 

“There’s nothing holding the wheels in the conventional way that wheels are held on a normal car,” Smith explains. “We built one prototype and modified it and came up with a very good system – due to an increase in rear wheel diameter we turned the engine and gearbox around and went with a live axel. The design gives the vehicle an almost insect-like waist because it twists in the middle when being driven hard.”

The Batmobile was outfitted with six monster truck tires. Depending on the driving performance that the filmmakers were trying to capture, the tire treads were shaved off mechanically and their pressure was adjusted to give the driver varied levels of grip for performing sliding stunts. There were three basic sets of tires, with treads ranging from fully-skinned to semi-skinned to bald.

A total of eight Batmobiles were created for the production. In addition to the five fully operational, gas-powered models, there was an electric version that featured a sliding top to enable Batman and his passengers to easily enter and exit the car. The stunt driver was hidden behind the main seat and drove the vehicle from a sideways position. There were also two “cannon” vehicles, which were lightweight and contained no engines, and could be catapulted from a cannon for specific action sequences. 

Building a vehicle as massive and powerful as the Batmobile necessitated that Smith and his team rigorously test every aspect of the car before handing it over to the stunt drivers and actors who would be piloting it onscreen. “We try and test absolutely everything,” says Smith. “We knew we were going to jump the car, so we went out and spent days and days jumping. That’s where our prototype car went – we got 35 jumps out of it. We just keep going until things break. And we do break a lot of stuff during testing, but that means that we don’t break a lot of stuff after shooting actually begins.” 

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