"Original Batmobile for sale for the first time"

From The History Blog(!):

The first and some would say greatest of all Batmobiles, the one that started it all, is going on sale for the first time at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, on January 19th, 2013. This is the iconic Batmobile made by legendary car customizer George Barris for the 1966 Batman television series starring Adam West in the title role. It still has all the Batgadgets even the most covetous and demanding of comic nerds could wish for and a pre-Bat history that the most covetous and demanding of car nerds could only dream of.

It started its life in 1955, a one-off Lincoln Futura concept car. Designed by Ford’s lead stylist Bill Schmidt who was inspired by manta rays and a mako sharks he had seen while scuba diving, the Futura’s body was built entirely at the Ghia Body Works in Turin, Italy, in 1954 and affixed to an experimental Lincoln Mark II chassis made three years before the first Mark IIs were sold. The car was 19 feet long, seven feet wide, and just 4.4 feet high with a double, clear-plastic bubble top, huge outward-angled tailfins on the back and front sides, a wide oval grill to give it that shark-mouth aggressive look and all kinds of newfangled technology like push-button transmission, warning lights and speedometer (among other indicators) housed in the steering wheel, and a circular rear antenna that also served as a microphone to pick up and amplify traffic or horn sounds from any car behind them to the driver and passenger inside the bubble canopy....MORE