This evening I arrived home from a nice long, relaxing trip to Genesee County in a search for Hot Wheels Bat toys and a visit to the mall. People at the 66Batfan.com forum said the 1:50th scale stuff was showing up on shelves again.
After making weekly road trips to various stores in the tri county area since February, I finally found my first two 1966 Batboats at the Toys R Us down the road a few weeks ago.
Today, to my surprise, the Toys R Us near the Genesee Valley Mall had four 1:50th scale Batboats on the same peg, a Batcycle and two Batmobiles. One 1:64th scale $.99 Batmoble was there too, hidden beneath other cars.
Can't believe that those $.99 Batmobiles are still popping up in stores this late in the game! Hot Wheels stopped shipping those a long time ago, they say.
In all, I came home with all four Batboats, one Batmobile and the $.99 Batmobile.
I took one out of its packaging for the first time today. This vehicle is fairly accurate to the original vessel in many ways and to hold a three dimensional version gives a different perspective on how it looked verses photographs.
I'm not the toy collector type but this has been the first time in decades that a manufacturer had been given licenses to make 1966 Batman vehicles. They are low priced and I am a sucker for '60s Bat-stuff.
These are shipped to stores boxed with later Bat vehicle incarnations but the '66 toys seem to sell the quickest and are hardest to find.
From my trips around eastern Michigan to date I've brought home ten $.99 Batmobiles, three 1:50th scale Batcycles, three Batmobiles with trailer hitches, and six Batboats. Most will be given away as presents and maybe displayed with the Batboat vessel.
There are a few updates coming soon on the full sized Batboat work. The deck is almost ready to go in. Stay tuned!
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