Pump the brakes: original Batmobile up for sale but will set you back $5m

Holy cats, Batman fans – find your wallets because the Batmobile is for sale.

The car, driven by Adam West in the 1966-68 TV series Batman, is available for $5m at the Barrett-Jackson Collection showroom in Arizona.

The Batmobile started as a concept car developed by Ford, called the Lincoln Futura, which was built in 1955 and appeared in the 1959 film It Started with a Kiss.

George Barris, a car customizer, purchased the Futura for $1 in 1965 and built the Batmobile within three weeks, so the car was ready in time for the show’s production. Barris kept the chassis and basic shape of the car but redesigned the nose and tail with bat-inspired shapes and designs. He later made three more replica Batmobiles.

Equipped with rockets, oil slicks, an automatic tire re-inflating system and a Batphone, the Batmobile served many of the superhero’s needs in the show.

The car “perfectly embodied the image of the superhero”, a spokesperson said in a release.

Along with the car, the buyer will receive a Batmobile pinball machine signed by West and documents from Barris’s private collection.

This the first time the Batmobile has been up for sale since it sold at an auction in January 2013 for $4.2m.