The Batmobile is pretty much the coolest car you could ever want. The DeLorean, KITT, the Incredobile (hah!) — none of them hold a candle to the Batmobile. Who didn’t get a thrill when they saw the most-badass interpretation of the Batmobile to date in Tim Burton’s Batman? I might make an exception for the Batmobile in the Batman animated series.
A Swedish guy decided to make himself a working replica. Good on him.
But as I got to thinking about the Batmobile in a practical sense (deplorable gas mileage due to its armor plating and rocket engine not withstanding), I realized that driving this epitome of cool would be a nightmare.
Consider coming to a main road from a side road where your lines of sight are obscured by the tree line. You need to creep forward far enough to see that no oncoming traffic will smash into you before turning onto the main road. This distance depends on the length of your car’s nose (front bumper to your head).
The Batmobile is all nose. You’d have to stick your entire car into the road in order to get a decent line of sight.
And no, awesomeness will not protect you from a collision with another vehicle moving 40-60 mph.
Ever driven a 280Z? On an incline, you can’t see anything but hood.
I haven’t, but yeah, the basic body shape is very similar to that of the Burton Batmobile, so I can certainly see that it would present the same sort of issue.
I’ve only driven a handful of cars, actually. An ’84 Toyota Celica Supra, a ’95 Chrysler LeBaron convertible, a ’97 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, an ’02 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited, my current ’02 Volkswagen Jetta, and a rental Ford Taurus I drove for a week while the Jetta was in the shop, though I can’t recall the yaer on that.