Before it became the most famous crime-fighting car on television, the 1955 Lincoln Futura was a $250,000 Ghia-built concept car with a double plastic canopy and a 300-horsepower V8. A decade later, George Barris pulled it out of storage and turned it into the original Batmobile. Here’s the real story behind the car everyone’s been trying to guess.
A quarter-million dollars. That’s what Ford’s Lincoln division spent hand-building a single concept car in Turin, Italy back in 1955 — an outrageous sum for the era, for a machine that wasn’t even meant to go into production. It rolled out with a double clear-plastic canopy, tailfins that looked borrowed from a jet fighter, and push-button transmission controls that felt like science fiction. Ford’s designers had no way of knowing that a decade later, a completely different studio would take this exact concept car, chop it apart, and turn it into the single most recognizable crime-fighting vehicle in television history.
Built by Ghia, Debuted on National TV
The Lincoln Futura was designed by Ford stylists Bill Schmidt and John Najjar, then hand-built by the coachbuilders at Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin, Italy — a price tag equivalent to roughly $3 million today.
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A V8 Ahead of Its Time
It debuted publicly at the Chicago Auto Show on January 8, 1955, and went on to appear on national television that spring, complete with a 300-horsepower V8 and styling so far ahead of anything on American roads that it looked like it belonged in a different decade entirely.
From Auto Show Curiosity to the Original Batmobile
Ten years after its debut, the Futura sat mostly forgotten until 1966, when custom car legend George Barris needed to build a car for a new TV series in a hurry. With no time to build something from scratch, Barris pulled the aging Futura out of storage, reworked its already dramatic tailfins and canopy roof, and transformed it into the original Batmobile for the Batman television series — arguably the most famous conversion in custom car history. Barris later built fiberglass replicas on Ford Galaxie frames for the show, but the genuine reworked Futura eventually sold at Barrett-Jackson in 2013 for $4.62 million.
A Concept Car That Was Never Meant to Sell
The Futura was built purely as a design exercise meant to gauge public reaction to Lincoln’s boldest styling ideas of the era — there was never a production version planned, which is exactly why Ford let the finished concept tour the auto show circuit for years rather than rushing it toward a dealer floor. That freedom from production constraints is why its stylists could get away with a double-bubble canopy and fins sharp enough to look like they belonged on a jet fighter instead of a passenger car.
Storage, Not the Scrapyard
Unlike a lot of one-off show cars that got crushed once their touring duty ended, the Futura survived years in storage after its spotlight faded — a stroke of luck that meant it was still intact and available when Barris needed a donor car in a hurry for a new television project.
Barris’s Deadline Sprint
George Barris had only a few weeks to deliver a finished Batmobile before the show’s premiere, an impossibly tight turnaround for a custom build of that scale, which is exactly why reworking an existing concept car rather than fabricating a body from scratch made the deadline achievable at all.
A Design Legacy Bigger Than One TV Show
The Futura’s dramatic canopy roof and sweeping tailfins went on to influence custom car and show car design well beyond its Batmobile conversion, and the car’s second life turned what could have been a forgotten one-off into arguably the single most famous concept-to-custom conversion in automotive history.
From Forgotten Concept to Auction Icon
When the genuine Futura-based Batmobile crossed the auction block, its price reflected not just nostalgia for the TV show but recognition of how rare a surviving, unmodified 1950s concept car really is — most concept cars of that era were scrapped once their PR duty was done, making a genuine survivor with this kind of documented history close to one of a kind.
Ghia’s Reputation Was Already Established
Carrozzeria Ghia had already built a name for itself hand-crafting show cars and low-volume specialty bodies for American manufacturers throughout the 1950s, and the Italian coachbuilder’s willingness to execute Ford’s most ambitious styling concepts is a big part of why so many of that era’s wildest American concept cars were quietly built an ocean away in Turin rather than in Detroit itself.
A Design Team Chasing the Jet Age
American car design through the 1950s borrowed heavily from aviation and jet-fighter styling cues, and the Futura’s designers leaned into that trend harder than almost anyone else at the time — the double-bubble canopy in particular was a direct nod to fighter cockpit design, an unmistakable visual signal that this was meant to feel like the future of transportation rather than just another show car.
A Show Car Built for Years of Touring, Not One Event
Unlike a modern concept revealed once and quietly retired, the Futura toured auto shows and public appearances for years after its 1955 debut, giving Ford a long runway to gauge crowd reaction to its most experimental styling ideas before committing any of them to a production car — a slower, more deliberate approach to concept-car marketing than the industry generally uses today.
Barris Didn’t Just Repaint It
George Barris’s transformation went well beyond a simple black respray — reworking the tailfins, integrating new lighting, and fitting the car with the props and details needed to sell it as a crime-fighting vehicle on camera required genuine structural and cosmetic changes on top of the Futura’s existing shape, all completed under that same brutal handful of weeks before the show’s premiere.
Few concept cars anywhere get a second act this dramatic, which is exactly why the Futura’s story keeps getting retold decades after its original auto show debut faded from memory.
From a Turin coachbuilder’s workshop to a Gotham City soundstage to a record-setting auction block, few cars anywhere have lived three such distinct lives in a single lifetime.
That’s a legacy no amount of horsepower alone could ever buy.
Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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Chysler
Lincoln Futura!
Lincoln Futura
Lincoln Futura.
I want 2 say Lincoln Mark
Lincoln Futura, I actually saw it at Autorama back in ’55. It was Customized By George Barris as The Batmobile.
Right on! Very cool that you saw it in person! Pretty easy but I like this car so much I had to see what fans were out there.
I would have guessed 56 concept. Missed that one.
batmobile
Batmobile
Thunderbird
Some kind of chyrsler like batmobile
I too have a good feeling Batman and Robin are lurking around somewhere looking for the joker who stole their car and Batman batgirl keeps saying Batman it was Robin who took to show Lincoln how a real sports car should look lol
Lincoln
Lincoln Batmobile
Looks kinda like a DeSoto!!
I would like to have that play Linkin futura Barris Batmobile
Bat mobile
Zephyr prototype that George Barris turned into the batmobile.
rockett 88
10
Absolutely a Lincoln Futura that was made into the batmobile.
.Good –
Batman and robin car
Lincon futura the bat mobile
Lincoln Futura. Stunning! Future Batmobile!
It’s the batmobile