What Happened To The OG Batmobile Featured On American Pickers?

On February 25, 2013, during the 8th season of "American Pickers," an episode called "California Kustom" aired in which Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz got a chance to meet George Barris, better known as the "original" King of Kustomizers. In case you didn't know, Barris was the legendary car customizer who designed some of the coolest custom cars ever built, including the Batmobile for the 1966 television series.

Barris made four Batmobiles: one for stunts, another for crashes, a third for racing, and the original "#1" car used for close-ups. Two additional vehicles were built for promotional use. He had only three weeks (15 working days) and a limited budget of $15,000 to construct a car that couldn't go faster than 45 mph. 

Mr. Barris, who passed away in November 2015 at the age of 89, kept the original Batmobile after the show was complete; however, by all accounts, it was on display at the Guinness World Records Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for several years before it moved down the street to the Hollywood Star Cars Collection, where it reportedly resides today.

Mike and Frank visited Kustom City (spelled with a "K" because Barris was Greek) for the February episode, but Barris sold the Batmobile at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Arizona, for $4.62 million on January 19, 2013 – about a month before the episode aired. Producers added a slide in post-production that mentioned the sale, but nobody talked about it during the episode, which means filming likely happened before it was sold (for the very first time, mind you).

Barris' Batmobile was based on the 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car, which back in the day cost Ford $250,000 to build. After losing interest in the vehicle, Ford allowed it to wither away, and Barris was able to swoop in and buy it for one whole dollar from Ford. The King of Kustomizers regaled the "American Pickers" team with a story about the first time it rolled out of the Batcave. Initially, it was skinned in flat black with white trim, but it just didn't pop, so Barris drove it "down the hill," painted it gloss black, and added the red trim glow colors — all while on set.

Oddly, the winning bid was decided on by the flip of a coin, making it the second highest-selling vehicle ever at a Barrett-Jackson auction (the highest was Carroll Shelby's very own 1966 Cobra Super Snake). Still, it set a new world record for the highest price ever paid for a TV/movie car.

Rick Champagne won the coin flip, who showed up determined to buy the OG Batmobile and jokingly said he was going to tear down a wall and put it in his living room. Given his passion for the show and the vehicle — not to mention the price tag of $4.62 million dollars (which included $420,000 in premiums) — it seems odd that Champagne would stick one of the most iconic automobiles in popular culture history (but isn't the first "official" Batmobile from 1963) in a museum in Tennessee instead of one with a bigger audience or even somewhere closer to where he lives in Phoenix, Arizona.