After an eight year hiatus, Batman returned to the big screen for Batman Begins. Rather than a sequel or prequel to the previous Warner Brothers movies, Begins was considered a restart, effectively starting the Batman movie universe from scratch. Among the new ideas to appear in this movie was an all-new Batmobile, designed by Crowley & Nolan and built by movie car engineers Chris Corbould and Andy Smith. Their primary focus was to make this Batmobile as real as possible: at 9 feet wide and 15 feet long, the car weighed in at 2.5 tons but was still capable of 0-60MPH in under six seconds with a top speed of 110MPH. Thanks to its unique design, it is also capable of making unassisted jumps up to 30 feet.

After years of training, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City ready to start cleaning out the criminal element. Recognizing that he needs materials to carry out his mission, he joined Lucius Fox in Wayne Enterprise's Applied Sciences division. Fox was placed in Applied Sciences as punishment, as the division is seen as a dead-end career track responsible for projects deemed too expensive or problematic for practical application. Bruce, on the other hand, saw the division as an opportunity to put these rejected projects to use as Batman. After reviewing the body armor, high-tension lines, and memory cloth, Bruce saw a set of tires poking out from under a tarp. Fox then introduced him to the "Tumbler," an experimental bridging vehicle that never quite made it. The concept of the vehicle was this: thanks to adjustable control surfaces and a jet engine, the Tumbler was capable of making rampless jumps to lay the basis for temporary bridges. The "bridge" part of the idea never panned out, so the whole project was scrapped and the prototype was mothballed.

Primary power for this Batmobile came from a 500-HP Chevy 350 V8 driving four 44" Super Swamper tires via titanium axles. The cabin seats a driver and one passenger, with a unique arrangement for the driver: for normal driving situations, the driver simply sits in the left seat. In "attack" mode, the driver's seat moves to the center of the car, and the driver is repositioned to lay face-down with his head in the center section between the front wheels. This serves two main purposes: first, it provides more substantial protection with the driver shielded by multiple layers of armor plating. Second, the prone position reduces the risk of injury a driver faces when making extreme driving maneuvers (stunt drivers are at risk of spine compression when doing jumps - laying down virtually eliminates this risk). In addition to performance and protection, this Batmobile was also capable of attack, with a pair of machine guns mounted in the nose of the car between the front wheels.

The Batmobile easily survived its first adventure, even proving instrumental in stopping Ra's from destroying Gotham City. Time will tell if this Batmobile will appear again, or if will be replaced for the next Batman movie. Despite the mixed reactions from fans on the design of the car, no one can deny that its performance has more than made up for any aesthetic drawbacks. Plus, despite the tank-like look of the new Batmobile, it's not entirely without a bat motif:

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