Lots of reproductions of the original BZ Batmobile body out there. Lots of misrepresentation about such thin Lexan bodies mounted over original or Charlie Almond produced chassis copies. What to believe?

Lloyd Asbury built both the BZ (Beck & Zimmerman) forming tools (4 of them, I own one of the original), but also a couple for use by the Lancer company. The visual difference is in the license plate on the back of the car, smooth on the Lancer, engraved “BZ1966” on the BZ tooling. All the BZ bodies were made of thick, 30-thou butyrate, and they were always sold completely trimmed and ready to use including the side mounting holes, in either clear or painted form. Of course BZ used most of them to build their RTR cars, the famous Batmobile RTR:

Many have survived in fair to excellent condition, a few with their original and fragile clear plastic 2-piece box, the same box used by K&B for their late-issue RTRs, the same as used by Western Hobbies for their RTR cars, and this box was also used by another couple of manufacturers for various purposes. In other words, the plastic company which made the box tooling had a good salesman. Current market value of these BZ RTR cars, mint in mint original box with the yellow and blue insert, the car unused with its original “white-line” Riggen-produced rear tires, oscillates between $450.00 and $1250.00 depending on how many bidders there are and how bad they want one. The original bodies sell factory painted for as much as $100.00 and clear for as much as $60.00.

Meanwhile, Lancer also produced the body (sans license plate) also in butyrate, also trimmed, but sold in the usual white and blue Lancer boxes. These generally go for about $40.00 but are actually rarer.

When the BZ company collapsed like most of the larger-volume slot car manufacturers did in 1968, one of the body tools was in the Lancer shop for repairs and never made it back. This is the tool that I inherited many years later.

Lancer eventually closed their doors in 1969, and all the body tools were unceremoniously piled into two large 100-gallon drums and left outside the vacuum forming plant in San Bernardino, CA. In 1973, Robert E. Haines (REH) was offered the tools by Lloyd Asbury’s former “partner” (as usual, Lloyd got the short end of the stick) and bought the tools for a song. Since then, REH has pulled thousands and thousands of bodies, using thin Lexan (and not butyrate) as a material. Lexan being very hard on epoxy tools, most of these are now seriously worn out and much of the original fine detail is gone or seriously diminished.

This means that EVERY SINGLE “Batmobile” body made from LEXAN (VS thick butyrate) is a reproduction, most made from new demand in the late 1990’s to now. Their basic value is simply their wholesale price: around $3.50. Anyone paying more than the $6.95 retail price is a SAP, and it amazes me to see that there are still so many fools paying twice as much (or more!) PLUS shipping & handling for something they can get at their local REH retailer for a lot less.

There were a total of 4 licensed “Batmobile” produced as slot cars in the 1960’s: the Aurora HO, the 1/24 BZ, K&B and Classic. Of these, the K&B is by far the most scarce, and it very seldom comes to auction. It sports a peculiar injection molded cockpit affixed with “melt-on” tabs onto the vacuum formed body. It is also the only one with a working dome light. Here is a picture of the rare beast inside its original packaging:

And a picture of the chassis featuring a functional “disc” brake:

A view of the injected cockpit (don’t bother buying a car without one, you will never find a suitable replacement…):

Note that the K&B and the BZ have the same “Bat” hubs (sold by one company to the other, not sure of which sold to whom but likely K&B sold to BZ) while the Classic NEVER came with them. Many Classic Batmobile owners did fit the Bat hubs that were sold separately by BZ, 5 of them in a little bubble pack, but one had to fit longer axles to the chassis to do so as the stock ones were far too short to accommodate the little bats. Today, many Classic “bat” owners are in complete denial, claiming that “theirs came that way”. Pure delusions from confused teenage memories.