A historical artefact should tell you about the time and culture it comes from.
And indeed a Ford Motor concept car called the Lincoln Futura, which
was never mass-produced, illuminates some of the contours of American
society.
This Lincoln Futura, bought for US$1 in 1965, went on to become the
original Batmobile and was snapped up for more than US$4 million (S$5.1
million) at an auction last year.
Painted in "Pearlescent Frost-Blue White", the Futura almost shouts
mid-1950s. It was designed at the dawn of the Space Age, of speed and
streamlining, and it almost looks as if it could take off from Earth.
The Futura's main stylist, Mr Bill Schmidt, later explained that he
modelled the car's louche, aggressive fins on those of the mako sharks
and manta rays he had seen while scuba-diving in the Bahamas.
The car's huge size (5.8m in length) and limited passenger space
(accommodating only two people) were a flamboyant advertisement for
America's post-World War II affluence.
The car's petrol mileage would probably have been horrendous,
consistent with a post-war America that presumed oil would remain
relatively plentiful and cheap.
That was also the premise of one of the most important pieces of
legislation passed by Congress in the 1950s: the interstate highway
act. Mass transit projects were shunted to the side and national
priority given to a cross-country network of expressways.
This encouraged Americans to buy cars, cars and more cars.
If you and your passenger rode down a city street under the Futura's
bubble top, you might feel as if you were on public display like a
United States president.
And, sure enough, the most famous bubble top of the 1950s belonged
to president Dwight D. Eisenhower - it was mounted on his custom-built
Lincoln parade car for motorcades through rain, freezing temperatures
or snow.
But in November 1963, when John F. Kennedy rode through the streets
of Dallas, the bubble top on his own Lincoln - which might have, at
least, interfered with that day's rifle fire - was absent.
The Futura concept car was built for about US$250,000 - more than US$2 million today.
Promoted as "an exciting peek into America's automotive future" and
the most "revolutionary" car of the decade, it was unveiled at the
Chicago Auto Show in January 1955.
As it turned out, two years after the Futura's unveiling, the US
began to suffer from its most punishing recession since the Great
Depression.
From 1957 to 1958, sales of automobiles dropped by one-third.
By then, US car companies were not scrambling to invent new luxury
products - the Futura, in that climate, was a white elephant on wheels.
Instead, they were looking to new "compact" cars, such as the 1960
Ford Falcon, which could do battle with popular new imports such as the
Volkswagen Beetle from West Germany.
Here the Futura's story would have ended, except that in 1965, ABC
television greenlighted a new series called Batman and its producers
needed a Batmobile - fast.
Within three weeks, using blowtorches and saws, automobile
customiser George Barris transformed the Futura's deteriorating concept
car - which he had bought from Ford for a dollar - into a rakish
roadster suitable for TV's new Batman and Robin (played by Adam West
and Burt Ward).
The car was repainted in black and fluorescent red, its tail fins
were expanded into batwings and its grille retooled to resemble a bat's
face.
Barris was asked to add other features such as the Batscope, the Bat-Ray projector mechanism and twin "Bat chutes".
He installed a propane furnace that would let the new Batmobile's tail spit flames and smoke.
"The car," he later told The New York Times, "had to be a star in its own right."
In January 1966, ABC broadcast the first episode of Batman. With the
1950s being supplanted by the 1960s, the Futura had morphed into the
Batmobile.
And as Batman became a television hit, the old Futura - the avatar
of a future that never arrived - was finally transformed into the
American pop culture icon that Ford executives had once hoped it would
be.
Last year, after a brisk auction, Barris sold his Batmobile to an
unidentified collector for more than US$4 million (S$5.1 million).
As Robin would have exclaimed: "Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!"
