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In recognition of the upcoming release of "The Dark Night" from Warner Bros Entertainment, I thought it was a nice time to reflect upon some Batman history. Here we have the original Batmobile, as seen in the 1966-1968 Batman television show.

More info from wikipedia:

Although vehicles for the Batman films have been custom built for the purpose, perhaps the most famous Batmobile, the one from the 1966-1968 live action television show, began life as a Ford concept car called the Lincoln Futura, built over a decade earlier in 1954. The body of the Futura was fabricated by Ghia of Italy, whose artisans hammered the car's panels over logs and tree stumps[citation needed] carved as forms to create the sleek manta ray-like car. In 1959, the Futura was featured sporting a fresh red paint job in the film, "It Started With A Kiss", starring Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford. In 1965, ABC-TV chose famed Hollywood customizer George Barris to design a "Batmobile" for their soon-to-go-into production Batman show. Dean Jeffries worked on the design and initial fabrication for the Batmobile, using a 1959 Cadillac, but when the studio wanted the car faster than he could deliver, he turned it back to George Barris.[1] With only three weeks to finish, Barris decided that rather than build a car from scratch, it would be best to transform the Lincoln Futura (bought from Ford for $1.00[citation needed]) into the famous crimefighting vehicle of TV's caped crusader. Barris hired Bill Cushenberry to do the metal modifications to the car. When filming for the series began, several problems arose due to the age of the car: It overheated, the battery went dead, and the expensive Mickey Thompson tires kept blowing. By mid season, the engine and transmission were replaced with a Ford Galaxie.

Barris built three fiberglass copies of the original Batmobile for exhibition on the car show circuit (one of which was used for exhibition drag racing). Eventually, the three copies were covered with a black velvet "fuzz" paint, presumably to hide stress cracks in the fiberglass bodies. Later, all three were restored to their gloss black paint job. The 3 replicas are all based on a 1965-1966 Ford Galaxie. Barris has retained ownership of the original TV car, which is currently on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California. The three Barris copies all reside in private collections.

One of these three Batmobiles was sold at the Coys Spring Classic Cars Auction on February 27, 2007 at the Royal Horticultural Hall in London. Coys Auctions had said it expected the car to fetch more than £75,000[2] - the final and closing bid was £119,000, equivalent to $233,000 USD at the time.[3]