Header: Courtesy of LEGO Group
The LEGO Group, in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products, has just unveiled the LEGO Batman Returns Batmobile, a model of the car from Tim Burton’s 1992 film. Built from 2269 pieces, it arrives in the market, both online and in store, on the 4th of September, just three days after LEGO Insiders members get their chance to buy it. LEGO says this is the first time the Batman Returns version of the car has been made as a set, the 1989 film’s Batmobile having already appeared in 2019.
The car in the film
The model first appeared in 1989’s Batman, where production designer Anton Furst gave Batman a car roughly 6 metres long, with a jet turbine intake set into the nose and fins running down the tail. The full-size vehicles used for filming were built on a Chevrolet Impala chassis and powered by a Chevrolet V8.
For the sequel, production designer Bo Welch added a function that let the car shed most of its outer body and carry on as a much narrower machine, the Batmissile. In the film, the Red Triangle Gang fits a remote control device to the Batmobile, and the Penguin then drives it around Gotham from his lair while Batman sits inside it. Batman finds the device and removes it, then narrows the car down to get away through an alley that the full body would never have fitted through.
The car in bricks
The finished model is 45 cm long, 17 cm across and only 10 cm high, so it looks low and stretched out when displayed on a shelf. The curved sides are built as two long panels, each one starting at a front wheel arch and running back to the tail. The top is closed by a canopy that can be lifted up and has a cockpit under it, which boasts a steering wheel and control panels. At the back of the car, the designers added a jet turbine engine.
The Batmissile
The model’s main feature is a button in the body that, when pressed, releases the side panels. These are pushed outwards by a lift-arm mechanism hidden inside the car, which separates the wide bodywork from the core of the car. What is left is the Batmissile, the narrow single-track machine Batman uses in the film to escape down an alley too tight for the full car. LEGO says none of its previous Batmobile models has included a function like this, and the set can be displayed either way, as the complete car or as the Batmissile.
Six things to find in the build
Six references to the film are hidden around the model, and builders come across them as they work through the bags. One of them is the Penguin’s tracking device, the piece of equipment his gang uses to take control of the car and drive it around Gotham while Batman is sitting inside it. To keep the magic alive, LEGO has not said where or what the other five are.
Three new moulds and one minifigure
Three parts were made specifically for this set, one of them a new Batman cowl that drapes down over the whole minifigure and changes the usual minifigure outline. The Batman figure also comes with a newly moulded cape and stands on a base printed with the Batman Returns logo. It is the only figure in the box, so the Penguin and Catwoman are absent, which is a shame given how few sets have ever been based on this film.
