Electro Wagon and Batmobile!

I still remember that day in 2013 very fondly -- walking across Midtown Manhattan to get to work and seeing the Batmobile parked on the street. 

 

I was thinking about TV's Batmobile this week, because the subject came up online about George Barris, history's greatest car customizer. You don't think so? Ha ha ha! I laugh. He's the man who also gave us the Hirohata Merc, the Munster Koach and the Drug-U-La, the Beverly Hillbillies' truck, versions of KITT from Knight Rider, a gold Rolls for Zsa Zsa Gabor, and many customized celebrity golf carts. George passed away in 2015, but his company, Barris Kustom, still makes replicas of these and other famous vehicles for deep-pocketed fans. 

But I have to think that none of those fans have yet asked for this:

George still has a lot of followers, but even they were not sure that the great man had designed this vehicle. Electra Woman and Dyna Girl was a wacko Krofft brothers' Saturday morning adventure show starring the lovely Deidre Hall (later a staple on Days of Our Lives) as Electra Woman, and as Dyna Girl Judy Strangis, for whom grown men still harbor a secret crush. This very campy, very Kroffty adventure show had special effects that made Doctor Who is its era look like modern Marvel movies, and mostly non-violent action that was very unsatisfying to the kids who loved the Batman show. Still, it was made with love, as only Sid and Marty could. 

But no one was sure who made the car, until a fan on Reddit noticed that Barris was mentioned in the closing credits as the creator of the Electracar. The titular heroes might have done better chasing crooks in one of Barris's golf carts. 

Barris's Batmobile, constructed on a Lincoln Futura, is my favorite of all the various Batcars we have seen on the screen. It's sleek, it has very cool styling, it has room for all kinds of gizmos, and it looks like a blast to drive. The ones from the Batman movies look more realistic in some ways -- they are vicious vehicles that a man who is a vigilante might drive, as the police would not look kindly on a weaponized race car or tank roaming through Gotham City. But on the campy TV show, Batman was a duly authorized agent of the law, so he could prowl the streets in his hot rod Lincoln. When I saw the Batmobile that day in 2013, I almost wanted to steal it. If only they'd left the Bat-key in the Bat-ignition!

But the Electracar? Ugh. Barris probably had a budget of $100 to make the Electracar. It has a three-wheel design with the odd wheel in front, the very design that caused horrendous accidents on ATVs. With the big disc it might not flip over, but its handling had to be awful. Worst, our electrifying heroines were zooming toward villains' lairs with no windshield. They wore no eye protection in the clips I saw, let alone masks to keep the bugs out of their 10,000-watt smiles. The car could convert into an airplane, too, thanks to the miracle of bad visual effects—I sure hope it had a windshield for that option.

Still, it was eye-catching, and however silly it may have been as a law-enforcement vehicle, it was much less silly than some of the vehicles we saw on Saturday morning hero shows. 

So there's that. 

Boy, I would still love to drive that 1966 Batmobile, just once. C'mon, Bat-owner, please? I promise not to use the Bat Beam or the Ejector Seats!