MY FEEDLY

380 bhp Ford Mustang-Based Batmobile – $27,800 to $41,800 USD

There are few cinema cars as famous as the Batmobile, and few Batmobiles (if any) that are as beloved as the Batmobile from the Tim Burton Batman films Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992).

The Tim Burton Batmobile was a stark departure to the Batmobiles that had come before it, it was a long, sleek design with a jet turbine engine running through the middle of it and a total length of 25 feet.

The Tim Burton Batmobile

First appearing in 1989 in Batman, this new Batmobile proved wildly popular with fans. It was designed by conceptual illustrator Julian Caldow and it was built by Keith Short in collaboration with Eddie Butler.

The vehicle used a significantly modified Chevrolet Impala chassis, two were built for use on screen – one of which can be seen at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles and the other is in a private collection.

Above Image: The cockpit has a sliding canopy and seating for two. The vehicle is right-hand drive and there are plenty of gauges to keep the driver occupied.

As is the case with essentially all famous cinema cars, people quickly got to work building replicas. As with all replicas the quality varied wildly, but one of the most popular was made by Z Cars in the United States.

Using a Ford Mustang donor car the fiberglass body was moulded in several parts, and it was fitted to the new spaceframe chassis. The wheelbase was extended significantly – the 1965 Ford Mustang has a wheelbase of 108 inches and the new body requires a wheelbase of over 140 inches.

As you would expect the original drivetrain was kept in place for most of these builds, the complications of running an actual turbine engine are significant after all, as Jay Leno can best explain.

These Batmobile replicas have proven popular with the general public and they’re always a huge hit at car shows, owners explain that even stopping for fuel usually turns into a 30 minute event of explaining how they ended up owning a Batmobile and allowing people to take pictures with it.

The Batmobile Shown Here

The Batmobile you see here is believed to be one of those builds from Z Cars, there is a little mystery surrounding it, but we do know that it’s fitted with a 380 bhp Chevrolet 5.7 litre small block V8.

Above Image: As the car is actually powered by a 380 bhp V8 the front “jet intake” is actually more of a cold air intake.

The interior of the car is well-equipped, it has two seats and it appears to have a manual transmission. The car is right-hand drive and there are a plethora of switches, gauges, and lights that’ll take some getting used to.

The reason there isn’t much information on the car is because it’s being offered for sale on the instruction of a high court ruling. The car was first registered in the UK for road use in January 2012 as a 1965 Ford.

It’s currently not registered however the process of getting it back to road-registered status in the UK shouldn’t be particularly complicated – though any buyer would need to research this for themselves.

If you’d like to read more about this unusual car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing. The estimated hammer price is between £20,000 to £30,000 (approximately $27,800 to $41,800 USD) which seems rather reasonable given the obvious desirability of having your own Batmobile – through it may not fit in your garage given its length of 22 feet.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

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Land Rover Defender V8 – The Perfect Defender 90?

The marriage of the Land Rover Defender and the ubiquitous 3.5 litre Rover V8 first occurred in the 1980s when it was first offered as an engine option from the factory. It would be the most powerful engine factory-fitted to the Defender (or earlier Series Land Rovers) up until that point in history.

Although not as economical as the diesel options, and not as cheap to run as the smaller petrol engine, the Rover V8 was as close to perfect for the Defender as any engine could be.

The Rover V8 is an all-alloy engine so it doesn’t add weight over the front axle compared to the original iron block engine, in fact its slightly lighter depending on final configuration at 170 kgs (370 lbs) vs 205 kgs (450 lbs). The improved performance when the V8 is mated to a 5-speed gearbox also gives the Defender the ability to comfortably cruise at modern highway speeds without sounding like the conrods could shoot through the block at any moment.

The Rover V8 was never as popular with buyers as the diesel and smaller petrol engine options and as a result they’re reasonably rare now – and much in demand. It’s become increasingly common for people restoring Defenders (and Series Land Rovers) to fit the Rover V8 and mate it up to a more modern 5-speed gearbox – transforming the vehicle in the process.

Of course the mileage will never be as good but the instant throttle response and huge torque increase help significantly with any serious off-roading.

Above Image: This Defender benefits from a restored interior with new upholstery, door cards, and a tasteful wood rimmed steering wheel.

As the classic car world becomes increasingly aware of vintage 4x4s we’re seeing far more interest paid to them, and as a result an entire industry has grown in recent years to restore, modify, and improve them.

The Defender you see here has been comprehensively restored, all body panels have been replaced with the exception of the front wings and rear tub. Unusually this car has had both a refurbishment, and later a full restoration, the latter taking place at the workshops of Vintage Reborn.

Unusually this vehicle has been fitted with a Land Rover Puma-generation bonnet and “Series” doors – as these come with removable tops that better suit top-down driving.

It’s now finished in the Ferrari hue of Rosso Rubino with black trim items including the stainless-steel front grille, headlight guards and chequer plate panels which are fitted to the sills and the tops of the front wings.

The new black fabric hood was supplied by Land Rover specialist Exmoor Trim, it’s fitted to a heavy-duty frame, and the car also comes with a new bikini hood for the summer months. The Defender is now riding on a set of new 16-inch steel wheels fitted with chunky Goodyear Wrangler tires.

Above Image: The Rover V8 is approximately 34 kgs or 75 lbs lighter than the more common iron block four cylinder engine.

Inside you’ll find that the three seats have been fully re-trimmed in fluted black leather with red stitching, it also has a wood-rimmed steering wheel, and in the rear, folding benches provide additional seating for up to four passengers.

In order to provide modern security the car is fitted with a Category 5 tracker with digital app controls, and the rear heater element has also been converted to function as a discreet engine isolator switch.

The Rover V8 and the 5-speed transmission have been restored, the vehicle also benefits from a full disc-brake conversion – a smart upgrade given the added power. If you’d like to read more about this Defender or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing, it’s currently on Collecting Cars with three days left on the bidding at the time of writing.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

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12A Rotary-Powered Sleeper: A 1969 Mazda 1200 Coupe With A Secret Under The Hood

This 1969 Mazda 1200 Coupe is considerably faster than it was when it originally left Japan, an enterprising Australian owner has bolted in a Mazda 12A rotary engine and paired it with a 5-speed manual transmission from an RX-7 Series 5.

Fresh from the factory the Mazda 1200 Coupe tipped the scales at 865 kgs (1,907 lbs) depending on final specification, and so the original 58 hp / 69 lb ft 1,169cc inline-four was considered powerful enough.

Mazda did offer a 982cc 10A rotary engine in this model from 1968 onwards, so in way, transplanting a 12A into it is really just adding a factory upgrade that the factory never offered.

Australians have a unique relationship with Japanese cars, there’s a sizable market in the country for vintage and collectible Japanese cars and motorcycles. Clubs exist to celebrate even the oft forgotten vehicles from the Land of the Rising Sun – like four-door Corollas from the 1970s and the trusty little Honda CT110.

Mazda released the 1200 Coupe in 1967 as part of the second generation of the Mazda Familia model family. Export models were typically just named for their engine capacity, so there was an 800, a 1000, a 1200, and a 1300 offered as part of these early model lines.

Above Image: The Mazda 12A Wankel rotary engine adds considerable power to the lightweight Mazda 1200, turning it into a sleeper that’ll embarrass far more modern sports cars at the lights.

The Mazda Familia model line was designed to be affordable, both to buy and operate, so cars were kept small and economical. This formula proved wildly popular, and it would be cars like the Familia that would help launch Japan from obscurity into a globally dominant position as a nation of automakers.

Mazda will likely always be remembered for their rotary engines, they took the original creation by Felix Wankel and refined it into a 24 Hours of Le Mans winning masterpiece.

It was believed until recently that the Wankel rotary engine’s days were likely over due to the emissions caused by needing to inject fuel into the combustion chamber for lubrication. Mazda surprised many by bringing the rotary back as a range extender/generator for a new line of electric cars.

The car you see here was built by one of those Australians with a penchant for Japanese iron, but rather than keeping it stock or restoring it back to factory-original condition, he opted to transform it into a discrete sports car.

In order to do this he sourced a Mazda 12A rotary engine, there were no concerns about having enough room in the engine bay as rotary engines are famously small, and the 1200 belonged to a model family designed to accommodate a Wankel engine from the factory.

Above Image: The tastefully understated lines of the 1200 Coupe have been winning it fans for decades.

The original four speed manual transmission was obviously not going to manage dealing with over double the horsepower and torque, so the aforementioned 5-speed gearbox from a Series 5 RX-7 replaced it in the transmission tunnel.

Suspension was tastefully lowered and tightened up a little to offer better handling, but the original 13″ steel wheels and hub caps were kept in place to keep the car looking as original as possible.

Externally the car received a new coat of red paint and the classic Japanese fender mirrors were kept in place. Inside the car the interior is close to factory original condition, it has new upholstery, and no hint of the considerably increased power under the hood.

The car is currently being offered on Collecting Cars out of Australia, bidding is underway and the seller is active in the comments answering questions.

If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

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Documentary: The Racers that Stopped the World – Featuring Sir Stirling Moss

The Racers that Stopped the World is a new documentary from the team at Outrun Films. It includes a slew of interviews with some of the most important motoring and motor racing characters in history including Sir Stirling Moss, Sir Jackie Stewart, Norman Dewis, Derek Bell, Martin Brundle, Murray Walker, and Andrew Frankel.

The film was created to tell the story of the humble disc brake, a relatively simple mechanical braking solution that Jaguar put to good use in the 1950s – helping to popularize it and doubtless saving innumerable lives over the intervening decades as the technology became commonplace in road cars.

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Official Film Description

The extraordinary story of Stirling Moss and Norman Dewis. How many lives do you think the disc brake has saved since its introduction to the car in 1952? Arguably more than the seat belt itself, or even Penicillin.

Join Sir Stirling Moss, Norman Dewis and an extraordinary lineup of motorsport legends including Murray Walker, Sir Jackie Stewart, Martin Brundle, Derek Bell, and Andrew Frankel as they drive us down memory lane telling an incredible story that really stopped the world with unseen footage and interviews.

Stirling – already on his way to becoming one of the greatest racing drivers of all time – took a new brake concept that Norman Dewis, legendary Jaguar test driver and engineer, had been working on alongside Jaguar and Dunlops engineering team to revolutionise the braking ability of cars – which at the time were falling behind dramatically compared to how fast cars of the ’50s were starting to go.

This documentary was filmed 8 years ago but never released. When Sir Stirling sadly passed away at Easter 2020, I took the original footage I’d shot and started again to produce this film, and with the significant aid of friends, this brand new reworking of the project is released so that the story can be told once and for all.

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A Completely Restored 1951 Willys 4×4 Pickup Truck

In the years immediately after WW2 the Willys Jeep had become arguably the most famous vehicle in America. Anyone could recognize one on sight and many young American men had driven them or ridden in them during their military service.

Willys capitalized on this popularity in the same year the war ended by releasing the Willys-Overland CJ-2A (or Universal Jeep) in 1945. The name “CJ” stands for “Civilian Jeep” and in this case it was little more than a lightly civilianized version of the somewhat spartan military Jeep that had performed so well in the conflict.

It was clear that there was a lot more potential for the Jeep, and so a pickup truck version was developed alongside the Willys Wagon, featuring an enclosed cab and it could be ordered as a pickup truck, a platform stake truck, a chassis cab, or a bare chassis.

Both two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive versions were offered in the first few years of production but it soon became clear that the four-wheel drive model is what people really wanted.

Although these trucks were slightly better equipped than the original Jeep they were still designed as working vehicles – they could carry up to 1 ton and they were initially powered by the same 2.2 litre Go-Devil inline-four engine as the military Jeep.

Above Image: This Willys Pickup is fitted with the more powerful Hurricane F-head engine producing 72 hp and 114 lb ft of torque.

Sales of all Jeeps were strong in the 1940s and 1950s, as a result the pace of innovation was fast. Willys were releasing new versions of the CJ series Jeeps every few years and the pickup trucks were getting updated too. By 1950 the Willys F4-134 Hurricane engine had become available as an option and in 1953 it became the standard engine.

The Hurricane was much the same as the outgoing Go Devil engine but it was fitted with a new head, whereas the Go Devil had a side valve head the new Hurricane engine had an F-head design, this allowed the use of larger valves and a smaller combustion chamber – the compression ratio increased from 6.5:1 to 7.5:1 and thanks to this, plus the head’s better flow characteristics, engine power increased from 63 hp to 72 hp.

Willys Overland would keep their first generation pickup truck in production from 1947 until 1965, it would prove to be one of the most influential vehicles of the era establishing pickups as one of America’s favorite vehicles and resulting in an arms race to build bigger and better civilian trucks by the major automakers.

This arms race that carries on today close to a century later with futuristic vehicles like the Tesla Cybertruck, the Rivian R1T, the Hummer EV, and the Bollinger Motors B2.

Today the surviving examples of the early Willys Pickup Trucks are in high demand with collectors, particularly the four-wheel drive variants. Sadly due to much less advanced rust protection many of them simply rusted away or were scrapped, so examples like the truck you see here have been much sought after.

Above Image: The interior is quite luxurious when compared to the CJ series Willys, this Pickup has a sprung bench seat, upholstered door cards, winding windows, and a heater.

This truck is a 1951 model fitted with the desirable 72 hp Hurricane F-head engine producing 114 lb ft of torque. Power is sent to all four wheels via 3-speed Borg-Warner T-90 manual transmission and it has both high and low range available.

Inside the cab you’ll find a sprung bench seat with upholstered door cards and wind down windows, relatively luxurious items for a Willys of this era – it even has a heater.

The reason the truck looks so immaculate is because it’s fresh off a complete mechanical and cosmetic restoration which was completed in early 2018, and it had been given an earlier engine rebuild and balancing completed 2013. The vehicle now has a new wiring harness, upholstery, and window glass, and it features new-old stock front and rear bumpers.

If you’d like to read more about this truck or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on RM Sotheby’s. It’s due to cross the auction block in late February and it’s located in Chatham, Ontario.

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There’s A McLaren Senna Development Engine For Sale – 789 HP Twin Turbo V8

This is one of the original engines used by McLaren during the development of the McLaren Senna, the most recent member of the company’s “Ultimate Series“, alongside the F1 and the P1.

McLaren engineers and designers developed the car using the 720S as a starting point, though the car was significantly redesigned with one goal in mind – all out lap time supremacy. The car was named for Formula 1 legend and former McLaren driver Ayrton Senna, with the full blessing of the Instituto Ayrton Senna of course.

Underneath the wind tunnel developed carbon fibre bodywork of the Senna you’ll find a 3994 cc (4.0 litre, 243.7 cubic inch) all-alloy 90º V8 with twin electrically-actuated twin scroll turbochargers, double overhead cams per bank, and four valves per cylinder (with variable valve timing) producing 789 hp at 7,250 rpm and 590 lb ft of torque at 5,500 rpm.

Above Image: The engine is installed in a two-piece glass display housing, and the right valve cover has been removed to show the cams.

Unlike the earlier McLaren P1, the Senna doesn’t use a hybrid powertrain in order to keep weight down, it’s meant as more of a stripped back track car than a daily driver.

As one of the original development engines, this unit will have no small amount of value to collectors. The current asking price is £25,494.99 which works out to $35,966.93 USD at the time of writing.

It’s displayed suspended between two sheets of glass, and it’s on wheels so it can be moved around easily when needed – although this is an alloy engine it’s still not for one person to move without the aid of wheels.

If you’d like to read more about this engine or buy it you an click here to visit the listing, it’s for sale through F1 Authentics and shipping freight is listed as £315.00 though international shipping will likely be more.

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Images courtesy of F1 Authentics

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For Sale: Packard Twin Six 7.0 Litre V12 – A 104 Year Old Open-Wheeled Racer

When Packard unveiled its all-new V12 engined Twin Six model in 1916 it must have caused significant distress over at the Cadillac offices, as they had just one year earlier released their own range-topping V8 model to much fanfare.

Cadillac had much to be proud of with their still-new V8, it was the first American production car to use a V8, and when it was released in 1915 it must have seemed like some sort of elegant overkill – as most cars on the road had just four cylinders.

Packard’s Chief Engineer Jesse Vincent began developing V12s in 1913, developing both aircraft and automobile V12s – with the aircraft engines being put to use during WW1. When the Twin Six Packard debuted it caused a sensation, the engine was a beautifully designed 60º V12 with two cast-iron blocks of six cylinders – hence the model name.

This new 424 cubic inch L-head V12 produced 88 hp at 3,000 rpm, it could propel a vehicle up to a comfortable 60 mph cruising speed, and it was famous for its incredible torque. Actually finding reliable torque figures for the engine has proven all but impossible, however period reviewers remarked that the car could pull away from stationary in top gear with no signs of struggling.

Above Image: The 424 cubic inch V12 is an L-head engine with two cast-iron blocks of six cylinders each.

Although 88 hp may not sound like much now it was a remarkable figure for the era, competition versions of these engines were built and used for land speed racing and racing in the Indianapolis 500, as well as countless other less famous events.

In street trim the Packard Twin Six sent power back through a three-speed manual transmission into a live axle rear end. It was fitted with a solid front axle as well which was common at the time, it used rear drum brakes, and buyers could choose to order either a road-ready car or a powered rolling chassis which they would then send to their preferred coachbuilder.

In the early to mid 20th century South America was the motor racing world’s version of the wild west, some of the most challenging and dangerous races took part on the continent, and there was no shortage of home grown talent like Juan Manuel Fangio – one of the greatest drivers of all time if not the greatest outright.

Back in 1917 when Fangio was still wearing short pants the Packard you see here was sent new to Argentina to be converted into a race car. Its low slung roadster body was ideal for racing, after arriving in South America it was also fitted with a special radiator, a custom intake manifold, a side-exit exhaust, and a gearshift mechanism relocated to the right side of the driver.

Above Image: As a 104 year old car, the driving experience is entirely unique.

The original Twin Six was only fitted with rear drum brakes at the time, so the enterprising team fitted this one with the front end from a Hispano-Suiza, and in so doing gave it four wheel drum brakes.

Twenty-inch Buffalo Wire Wheels were found at each corner, as well as similar dual side-mounted spares—vital for long-distance events.

As with many South American race cars of this era, this car’s history is largely a mystery. It is known that racing drivers like Mariano de la Fuente, Alejandro Schoega, and Raúl Riganti raced Packards across Argentina from 1918 to 1922 – so it’s entirely possible that some or all of them piloted the car you see here.

The car would be shipped, with no small amount of subterfuge, to Houston in 1964. It remained in the United States in its original, non-running condition for decades until it was restored by new owners in the early 2000s.

Since returning to the road the car has been displayed at the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio as part of a “Packards at Speed” exhibit. It has also made appearances at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and it participated in the Pebble Beach Motoring Classic.

If you’d like to read more about this car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing on RM Sotheby’s. It’s due to cross the auction block in late February and the estimate is $140,000 to $160,000 USD.