Building the Batmobile Tumbler [Hachette Partworks: Issues 113 – 120]

The #Batman Tumbler build is complete! And it’s damn epic: this is indeed the 2-year Season finale…

It’s here, and it’s damn epic: this is indeed the 2-year Season finale!

Welcome to the ultimate update of the build for the Hachette Partworks 1:8 scale model of the Batman Tumbler! While it’s been the long game, I have enjoyed learning all kinds of new skills, and there’s a lot more to constructing these models than just screwing things together. The electronics, the patience, the weight and balance, the careful nature of not breaking very delicate sections, right through to the less welcome ‘easy’ issues, which I will come back to.

In the years before this creation, I’d also made a 1:8 Scale Delorean from Back to the Future, and while that also took a couple of years, it never felt quite as complex as this one and, yet, as a display it probably looks more interesting, in relation to pop culture awareness, but the Batman Tumbler, from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight series, is another kind of fun all together, and to say it’s an absolute beast is not an understatement.

You remember when you watch Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) testing out the Batman Tumbler before ‘Does it come in black?‘ – which incidentally was filmed in one of those huge warehouse/hangers at London ExCel’s centre – and how heavy and robust it ‘feels’, even on film? That is completely applicable with this final outcome. I’m assuming it weighs in or around 8kg and that back suspension moves, the slickness, the beautiful black sharp edges, much like a stealthy F-117 Nighthawk but on the ground… with brawny wheels the size of a small car? This is it! Even in the 1:8 scale, this is definitely represented, and I’ll try my best to share that photographically as well.

While my previous blog posts have been broken down into issue summary, this is more of a final goodbye, and with actually less to explain anyway, but I’ll still feature some progression and that completed outcome in images. With Issues 113 to 120, it’s mainly those rear wheels coming to life, and being put into place. With this, there are wheel rims, hubs and axels being added to the left and right back end, looking at it from behind, and then screwing them securely into place.

In some ways, considering it’s over 7 issues, those could have been done in less than that. That’s certainly a concern throughout as well, there could be far fewer issues in total but I can understand why the producer would do it as they do. The small positive is that the magazine continues to share interesting Batman history, through the car, the artists and the worlds built over all Batman’s lifetime but I do have to ask… across all 120 issues, where’s Jock? A huge part of modern Batman, he certainly deserves a mention for his innovative work with The Dark Knight.

All this aside, I will mention Issue 199 as it jumps to an important part away from the wheels with the bottom plate and battery compartment cover, and one of the most difficult wire retrievals process I’ve ever done. There’s a tip at the start of your magazine instructions and I highly recommend following it because if you don’t, you could lose an entire connection inside the car for the lights, and so forth. I am now part surgeon, as I used a selection of screwdrivers, huge patience, and tweezers to get it sorted but I did – and it’s a wild achievement.

And then suddenly, it’s all over as we hit Issue 120. This throws in some finishing touches, which includes aerials for the emergency airbrakes and ailerons, which add a nice look but maybe could have been offered earlier. Essentially, this last issue is to wire up the canopy/roof/windscreen, connect up all the outstanding cables to their relevant numbers and set it into place. Now, my roof did reset and click itself into place once I’d done everything, and the roof impressively closed, but I haven’t been able to open the roof separately since – if you’re at this part, reportedly Hachette will be supplying stronger wires that we can then replace it, but I’ll update that once it happens.

Despite this small setback at the end, the rest of the lights work wonderfully and when you step back to see what you’ve created, with all the heavy wheels, lights, internal lights and ‘fired up’ Jet Boost element (via the remote control) of the Batman Tumbler build, it is really impressive. I do wonder if a little more detail inside the cockpit would have been welcome, and I’m relating it once again to the DeLorean build, but the physical weight of it goes a long way to proving your work put in over the years gone by. And once everything is done, well, now it’s yours to display!

So, now it’s time to find a good spot to display your Batmobile Tumbler because you’re going to want a space to light it up out of the darkness, as it’s quite the achievement!