A crowd gathered as Casey Putsch released the pneumatic hatch on the coolest car any of them had ever seen. He handed his license and registration to the police officer, as if being pulled over in a homemade Batmobile were no big deal. Word must have gotten out on the police radio because soon bike cops were pedaling up to see the thing.
The 29-year-old racecar driver and builder was cruising downtown Columbus, Ohio recently in the 365-horsepower, turbine-powered machine he'd built himself. The car was completely legal except for one thing: No front license plate.
Oops.
Kids and octogenarians fumbled with their phones to get a shot of the car as the officer let Putsch off with a warning. Putsch, dressed to the nines like Bruce Wayne, and with a model friend riding shotgun, flipped the switches to fire up the turbine engine and pulled away.
Fans have been building replicas of the Batmobile since Adam West wore his satin cape and high-waisted utility belt, but Putsch's is among the most faithful renditions we've seen. He drew inspiration from the Dark Knight's ride in Tim Burton’s 1989*Batman. *It's as close to the real deal as physics permits, right down to the front-mounted turbine engine.
“The Batmobile is the sweetest car ever thought of in fiction,” Putsch told us.
Putsch runs Putsch Racing in Dublin, Ohio, so he knows cars. He built the car in a mere five months to show what he can do.
His flash of inspiration and motivation led him to learn everything he could about turbines. He found a broker who set him up with a Boeing engine pulled from a Navy helicopter. He mounted it on a custom monocoque chassis.
Rather than using the engine for straight propulsion like a fighter jet, Putsch's Batmobile creates thrust with a separate front turbine, the force of which spins a second turbine that's connected to the drivetrain. Planetary gears slow the turbines' 40,000 rpm to a more manageable 7,000 rpm driveshaft redline. Shifting is done with a modified automatic four-speed sequential gearbox. The Batmobile even has reverse.
The fiberglass and aluminum body, along with the turbines and drive system, weighs just 2,800 pounds, giving the car an impressive power-to-weight ratio. Putsch says the performance is on par with the Dodge Viper GTS he uses when he isn't pretending he's the Dark Knight. Unlike the Viper, however, the Batmobile can run on kerosene, diesel or jet fuel. He uses jet fuel most often, and gets between 4 and 8 mpg.
Putsch’s only deliberate derivation from the source material is the installation of an iPad 2 in the center console. He uses custom-made apps that rely on the tablet’s kinetic sensors for diagnostics like g-force measurements -- strictly for testing purposes, of course, after he checks his email. And yes, the iPad's wallpaper is the logo for Wayne Enterprises.
People love it. The car took an "Award of Distinction" along with the "Hagerty Judges Choice" and "People's Choice" at the Ault Park Concours d’Elegance in Cincinnati last month. Impressive, given it was competing against cars like a 1961 Ferrari 250 GTO and a 1930 Duesenberg J Dual Cowl Phaeton.
No, you can't have one. Putsch's Batmobile is a one-of-a-kind, and he has no plans to sell it. He's using it to show off his skills as a builder, "like a rolling resumé," he says.
Photos: Putsch Racing
The turbine came out of a Navy helicopter. It's good for 365 horsepower in a car that weighs 2,800 pounds.
You know you want to drive it... go on. Admit it.
The bodywork is aluminum and fiberglass.
The dashboard sports an iPad for navi and email.
Climb in, sit down, buckle up and hold on.
Putsch, who graduated from Ohio State University in 2005 and opened his shop in June, didn't know much about turbines when he dreamed up this project. Everything he's learned has been self-taught.
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