THE RETURN OF THE BATMOBILE?

This weekend a dilapidated former defence installation at the mouth of the River Mersey hosted an event that sounded perfect for a Bat-fan like me.

The Fort Perch Rock situated on the New Brighton beach front was to have Adam West's Batmobile returning to the area 40 years after it was apparently originally displayed there.

We attended on the Saturday expecting a mild interest from the general public, bearing in mind this car featured in a TV series made nearly fifty years ago. Remarkably there was a fair size queue of people of all ages looking forward to seeing this iconic vehicle.

The doors were supposed to open at mid-day, but this didn't happen until fifteen minutes later. This led to a few disgruntled parents in the queue whose children were becoming a little bored of the wait.

When we finally got in what did we see? Well, personally, chaos sprung to my mind. People were herded into a large marquee which was set up as cinema showing episodes of the sixties Batman TV series. Next to that were large screens with a small opening at the end to allow the public to walk past the actual Batmobile - the thing they'd come to see!

I have to admit the organisation wasn't too good. From my point of view, trying to take a decent photo of the car was near impossible as the place was soon full of people naturally wanting to take snap shots of their kids against the Batmobile, plus  the area it was parked in was so small the people packed in could hardly move - Holy Cock-up!

The Batmobile itself is a great looking fibreglass replica of the George Barris original based on the one-off Lincoln Futura concept car. This replica might be one of the D.C. authorised copies made by the  Fiberglass Freaks company of Indiana who from 2010 sold them all over the world.

The cockpit looks really good with all the associated Bat gadgets, although leaving a cardboard box in the passenger floorspace was a bit splash dash of the owner, considering people had come to see the car displayed at its best. In fact, despite the fact that the owner and his partner kept telling people not to  touch the car, both were happy to leave their own takeaway food cartons on the bonnet, which never helps in photos.

Batman's view while driving.

Robin's view as a passenger.

Naturally, I had to try it for size.

Remarkably, considering its a big car getting in is a bit of squeeze as everything is so low, but once you're in its feels great. 

'Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed!'

To sum up, personally I enjoyed it and it was nice to remind myself of the size and look of a full size Batmobile.  But in the interests of balance, quite a few people were disappointed though, feeling they were misled by how the event was initially publicised, thinking that more than one Batmobile would be there, plus the general organisation of things. People were unsure which queue to join for things. 

The display of the car could have been a lot better, and the people in costume associated with the event, with few exceptions looked like they were the losers at some fancy dress party contest. In fact, I have to say, the whole thing came across as very amateurish.