A buyer at Propstore’s coming sale could spend up to £900,000 on a motorcycle whose earlier role was a chase involving Batman and the Joker.
The Batpod took its form from a design by Christopher Nolan and production designer Nathan Crowley, while Chris Korvold, an Academy Award winner for special effects, brought it to life.
The machine, known as ‘The Beast’, uses a 750cc Honda engine and has 31-inch tires. It was made for The Dark Knight, Nolan’s 2008 Batman film, then appeared again in the 2012 sequel The Dark Knight Rises.
Its screen life was not entirely orderly. There were several occasions when someone lost control of a Batpod, including an incident caught on video in which it crashed into one of the cameras.
Propstore founder Stephen Lane called the bike an ‘extraordinary feat of filmmaking and engineering’.
The Hertfordshire-based auction house is offering the vehicle at its Winter Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction, held online and at Bafta in London from 4-6 December. The first day includes in-person bidding at Bafta’s 195 Piccadilly venue, while phone, online and absentee bids will be available globally across all three days.
The Batpod carries an estimate of between £450,000 and £900,000. It is one of six made and the only example officially released by Warner Bros. Studios.
A Batpod used in both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises sold for £312,000 at a London auction in 2016, according to Guinness World Records. Reaching the upper estimate would put this sale at nearly three times that amount.
The wider auction contains more than 1,400 lots with a combined value of £10 million.
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