Say it ain't so, Batman! Just when a Russian Batman fan was reaching the very heights of cool Caped Crusader mimicry, the police swooped in to penguin his dream of swerving through the real city streets strapped inside a lovingly-crafted, real-life Batmobile.
AFP reports the unnamed bat-fan had his car confiscated after police in central Moscow discovered a litany of alleged off-the-grid offenses that might make a masked vigilante proud. The car, which bears a striking resemblance to the version that shredded the Gotham pavement in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, was towed and impounded — but fortunately for us, more than one bystander had phone cams at the ready to catch the mighty machine’s sad, slow hobble to the police garage.
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That’s not how the Batmobile’s supposed to roll! So what did Moscow’s 32 year-old Dark Knight wannabe get wrong here? Well, according to the report, the car was “assembled illegally at a private workshop” (maybe the Batcave?), was never legally registered, and — probably the real coup de grâce — doesn’t meet street safety requirements and is simply too bat-big (at 20 feet in length) to be allowed on public roads.
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It’s a shame, though, because apparently a lot of loving care was put into the creation of this vehicle. AFP reports that the car was built in the U.S. and then modified further in Russia after selling for about $842,000, leading to additional enhancements that would probably make Lucius Fox smile. Those include Wayne-worthy upgrades like "armor" plating, night vision and thermal imaging cameras, a “laser-aiming device,” and even an externally mounted prop gun — complete with pew-pew sound effects.
If there’s a silver lining in the Bat-signaled clouds that now hover over the car owner’s shattered dreams, it’s that he can reportedly get the car back — once all the fines have been paid. Sounds like the perfect time for a well-heeled hero like Bruce Wayne to swoop in and save the day.