Surely there must be a video of him outbidding the Penguin for it?
Holy classic car auction, Batman! They sold THE Batmobile!
The original Batmobile has been snapped up at auction for $4.2m (£2.6m, €3.2m) by a fan of the 1960s television series. 1960s TV series Batmobile The 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car was bought for just $1 in 1965 by customiser George Barris. He then spent $15,000 over 15 days turning it into the iconic vehicle for the Caped …
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Monday 21st January 2013 16:52 GMT Steve Knox
$15,000 invested in the stock market in 1955 is worth $5.0m today.
Well, there's a meaningless statement., You don't invest in "the stock market". You invest in companies, which happen to sell their stock in the stock market. Those numbers might work if one invested in a specific set of companies, or some particular brokered investment account. But $15,000 invested in different companies or accounts might be worth $0 or $5b today.
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics*, $15,001 (don't forget that original dollar to buy the vehicle...) in 1955 dollars is $128,512.67 in 2012 dollars (their calculator hasn't been updated with 2012-2013 inflation rates yet, so I'll call that close enough.) That would make his profit roughly $4m, or about 3,168%. Not bad.
Of course, even my analysis doesn't take into effect maintenance costs or any money he made for making the vehicle available to ABC for the show or for later public appearances. And we haven't even started talking about the non-monetary gratification which can come from owning a piece of US cultural history -- or even simply having a nice keepsake.
In short, some arbitrarily chosen index of some arbitrarily chosen market is a pretty poor basis for judging the value of an investment, and judging an investment of this type in purely monetary terms is very short-sighted.
PS. Adding promiscuous sex as your only value measure other than money is just plain sad.
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Tuesday 22nd January 2013 07:20 GMT Shagbag
You clearly know nothing about investing so let me enlighten you. 'Investing in the stock market' consists of holding a fully diversified portfolio that has a beta of 1.0. You can either do it yourself or - since the 1970s - you could buy units in an Index Fund that tracks a market index, eg. S&P 500. You want an accumulation index, of course, not just a price index.
The $15,001 spent on the car wasn't a good investment at all - unless it gave rise to non-pecuniary benefits as I alluded to.
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realise it'd be better being the guy who put his money in the market in 1955. He could've bought that batmobile today and still be left with over $0.8m to spunk away on shagging upmarket hookers in Las Vegas.
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Wednesday 23rd January 2013 11:24 GMT Chicken Marengo
@Shagbag
>>The $15,001 spent on the car wasn't a good investment at all
>>it'd be better being the guy who put his money in the market in 1955. He could've bought that batmobile today
Except that if nobody spent that $15,001 way back when to make the Batmobile, how the f*ck was anybody going to buy said Batmobile today?
Or perhaps the plan was to not spend $15,001 in 1965, investing it instead, then buy another movie car, namely the Back To The Future DeLorean in 2013 with the money accumulated, then travel back to 1965 with $15,001 of future money and use that to build the Batmobile. then travel back to 2013 and buy the now existing Batmobile? Of course you'd need a few million for the DeLorean as well as few for the Batmobile, so your $800K surplus would be insufficient. Perhaps you should take a Sports Almanac back to 1965 to make up the shortfall.
Seriously tho, you sir are a perfect example of why no Economist or accountant has ever contributed anything worthwhile to humanity.
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Wednesday 23rd January 2013 13:35 GMT Shagbag
Re: @Shagbag
"Except that if nobody spent that $15,001 way back when to make the Batmobile, how the f*ck was anybody going to buy said Batmobile today?"
WTF?
If nobody spent that $15,001 way back when to make the Batmobile we wouldn't be having this discussion. You'd be taking the bait on someother forum and I'd be busy shagging really fit looking whores in downtown Vegas with all the money I'd made off you from selling you crap investments.
The question is a non sequitor.
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Monday 21st January 2013 18:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Forget the Batmobile
Grease Lightning is the correct name. I dunno why people keep calling it "Greased Lightning", and there were two cars. The red one in the sort of "dream sequence" whilst they are singing the song, and the white one that appears for the race. The red one reappears when John and Olivia fly away in it.
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Monday 21st January 2013 19:18 GMT JassMan
Re: Rick Champagne (@TeeCee)
The restriction is only for wine makers. There are several areas in France called Champagne, for example in the Cher, Eure-et-Loir. Ardeche and another in Charente. In fact many Cognacs and Eau-de-Vie from the Charente are entitled to add "Fine-Champagne", "Grande-Champagne" or "Petite-Champagne" to their labels on the grounds that no one could confuse them with bubbly. There is also an village in Switzerland called Champagne where the french winemakers took them to court over Champange biscuits - and lost.
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Tuesday 22nd January 2013 04:29 GMT LateNightLarry
Re: Rick Champagne (@TeeCee)
Most US producers of the wine formerly called Champagne now abide by the EU regulations, and call their version of bubbly Sparkling Wine or California Champagne (less common) There are still a few who were producing bubbly before the agreement was adopted by the US and who still use Champagne. Of course, if the company producing bubbly in the US is owned by a French Champagne producer, they do not use the term Champagne on their product, per orders from HQ.
Where's my glass of w(h)ine???
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Monday 21st January 2013 16:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
At least it's clean ;-)
As we can all see in this Youtube video the old classic beats the modern one in a straight on race.
Although I'm still not too sure if the driver in the 1989' version didn't ease on the throttle a little bit in anticipation of seeing the female host of the show wash the classic in her bikini.
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Wednesday 23rd January 2013 13:55 GMT George Nacht
Re: Not the original Batmobile
I bow to your knowledge, hardly anyone heard about 1943 and 1949 serials today.
But I am afraid there was no Batmobile in these series. In 1943, Batman used the same limousine as Bruce Wayne, and in 1949, Batman and Robin were drivin Ford Mercury.
So I believe the one auctioned is the first Batmobile in existence.
And a pretty one it is. Batmobile in Tim Burton´s Batman was impressive, yet at the same time too cartoonish.
And Tumbler is infinitesimally more practical, but not much to look at.
I stand ready to be corrected.
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Monday 21st January 2013 17:36 GMT Oldfogey
Atomic Batteries to Power!
This may be the original Batmobile from THE series, but it was not the only one. As with the General Lee, imitations were used for a number of purposes, either to shoot two scenes at the same time, or when there was a stunt (such as they were) that risked damaging the primary vehicle.
A car dealer I knew in Coventry had one of them for a while, as a publicity gimick. I believe it was on a Lincoln chassis, and weighed tons as the bodywork was just metal bashing by hand. It was good for about 40mph in a straight line, the turning circle of a lorry, and the brakes off a bicycle. The suspension didn't bounce as Americars normally do, because it was hard down on the stops at all times.
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Monday 21st January 2013 17:38 GMT Petrea Mitchell
Watched it live on TV...
...as the SO is a car fan, that was pretty much the only thing on TV at home last week. The best part was hearing the apology from one of the TV commentators who'd been complaining they were giving too much attention all week to something that was never going to be a big seller. Never underestimate the power of fandom...