Fans of ’60s television camp, rejoice! The BatCycle, as ridden by Adam West and Burt Ward in the live-action Batman television show, is for sale.
Errrr, not quite, actually. The bike seen here is actually a replica, coming up for sale at a Mecum auction in January. The collector who’s selling it has it jumbled in with a bunch of his unwanted muscle cars that he’s also auctioning off.
However, although it’s a replica, it seems to be pretty much identical to the original machines used to film the ’66 show. There was one bike that California-based Kustomotive put together and rented to the show for filming, and this machine seems close to that one’s layout (there were a few others built for promotional purposes, which were shipped around the country).
One major difference between the bike and the show and the one for sale here: The detachable go-kart sidecar has an electric motor on this machine, instead of a gasoline go-kart engine.
Otherwise, it’s much the same. The actual bike used is a Yamaha Catalina 250 two-stroke, and as for the bodywork, it appears that it may have been built from molds built off the original machine. And, just like the original machine, it looks pretty sketchy to ride.
Considering its status as a reproduction, this won’t go for the insane-high amount that The Fonz’s bike recently sold for (almost $250,000 USD, at a recent auction). However, given the attention to detail, and considering that Burt Ward and Adam West saw fit to sign the bike to certify its authenticity to the original, we’d expect it to still command a pretty high sale price. If you want to know for yourself, you can keep an eye on the auction here, and see the sale price in January.
