Altered Altitude Customs Sponsors the BatBerry!

I’m very pleased to announce that Altered Altitude Customs have come on as a suspension sponsor for the BatBerry project!  Altered Altitude is the place to go for your air suspension needs, especially if you’re in Canada. They have a great online site at airassisted.ca where you can get all of the premiere names and products in the air suspension world.

When I started asking around locally who I should talk to for equipping the BatBerry with an air suspension, everyone pointed me to Kevin at Altered.  Altered has participated and won competitions in many of the different after market shows such such as Scrape By The Lake.  It was actually funny that when I first contacted Kevin about the BatBerry he remembered my Subaru from ImportFest.

Altered is going to make sure that the BatBerry has what it needs to be able to lift up and down whether it be for a car show, cruising or loading it on and off a trailer.  To start off with we have decided to go with Ride Tech’s COOLRiDE kit for the 91 Caprice.  Kevin made sure I had enough hose and fittings so that I’ll be able to move the car around the garage and onto a trailer if needed.  We’ll be adding the compressor(s), tank, valves and switches as the build progresses.  Of course this system will also be automated using the BlackBerry PlayBook and Smartphone.   I can see some swipe up and down action coming 🙂

I thought I would post a video that Rusty from Rusty’s TV & Movie Car Museum added while he was installing his air suspension.  This will give you an idea of what is coming soon to the BatBerry.

The BatBerry Has Landed

After two days of travelling and one day of being storm stayed, the BatBerry has finally found its way to Canada.  It was a long round trip down to Dayton, OH and what made it even longer were the crazy winds that we had to deal with on our way back.

We actually couldn’t have asked for better weather from a temperature and snow perspective, but that wind plus a 26 foot long U-Haul was like driving a sailboat on the freeway.  A HUGE thank-you goes to my Dad for holding on to that steering wheel for dear life for 8 hours in those crazy winds!

Of course as soon as we arrived home, the wind combined with snow and I was storm stayed for a day before they re-opened the local roads.  I’m just glad we got the BatBerry to its destination before that crazy snow hit.

Below you’ll see a quick video of the car in the garage.  I’ve also created a YouTube channel for the videos I’ll be taking during the build.  I also have some more pictures after the “Continue Reading” link for this post.  And yes…. that is snow all over the car 🙂

Gun Doors Revised

I’ve been continuing to ponder how I’m going to be able to make my gun doors work with the flip-flop hood setup I am planning to use.  I blogged about some ideas for the gun doors in a previous post, but I don’t think the rotisserie style of door is going to work because of the height of the guns.

The trick that I’ll have to figure out, is how to make the hood easily roll up and down without constantly having to remove the gun doors.  At the same time I would like to have the gun doors totally tuck back down out of sight when the guns pop up.

One of the mechanisms that just might work is one which is typically used for garage doors.  The mechanism is commonly referred to as a retractable “up and over” garage door.  This allows a solid one piece door to sit flush and then entirely retract away.

I’m thinking that if I were to pivot this mechanism so that the door rolled down instead of rolling up, it would provide what I’m looking for.  I may be able to connect a lever to the mechanism attached to the guns to automatically roll the door up and down as the guns raised and retracted.  Or maybe simply re-use the power window motors to open and close the gun doors.

I’m sure I’ll have to do some prototyping, but so far this mechanism is looking promising.

Auto Meter Sponsors the BatBerry!

I received some more great news yesterday.  Auto Meter has agreed to come on as a sponsor for the BatBerry project!  The cockpit of the BatBerry looks very much like something you would see in a fighter jet and I’ll need lots of great gauges to make a screen accurate look.  As you can imagine this is a greatly appreciated sponsorship with the amount of gauges on the BatBerry dash.

I’ll be going with Z-Series gauges to create that cockpit look and feel with black faces and bezel and red needles.  For the Speedometer and Tachometer I’ll be going with the Sport-Comp 5″ gauges.  I’ll be sure to paint their silver bezels to match the rest of the gauges for a final look.

For those die-hard Batmobile fans out there, you’ll notice that I’m 2 gauges short.  This is because I’ll be having two pressure gauges that will be tied into my Air Ride system.  More details on that later 🙂

BatBerry Welcomes the Discovery Channel!

Today I received a very surprising voice mail message at work.  It was the Discovery Channel who had tracked me down after seeing an article about the BatBerry on Jalopnik.

I’m imagining it was a pretty awkward message to leave wondering if I was the same “Tim Neil” who was mentioned in the online article and if I was the one creating the BatBerry.  But sure enough they had found the right person 🙂

As soon as I listened to the message I made sure to call back right away!  After a great conversation we’re all set for the Discovery Channel to cover the build progress of the car and film each step of the journey.  My goal is to have the car ready to drive to the next Batman movie coming out during the summer of 2012. The Discovery Channel will also be there for the unveiling of the car at the local premiere of the movie.  I’m really looking forward to capturing that moment on film!

Once filming is complete, the story will be edited and broadcast on an episode of Daily Planet.

Needless to say, I’m very excited about this opportunity to share the project with a wider audience.  I’ll also be breaking out my video camera to ensure that I take lots of behind the scenes footage.  The Daily Planet camera crew will also be making sure that they are there to capture as much as possible on film.

I’ll make sure to blog each time the camera crew has come out to cover different parts of the build.

Today has been a VERY GOOD NEWS DAY!! 🙂

Time for a Road Trip!

The time is finally here!  The BatBerry shell will be completed at the end of this week.  Plans are now in motion to head down to Ohio next week to pick up the kit from Gotham Cruisers.

Now all I have to do is secure a U-Haul down in Dayton, and haul this beast back up to the Great White North.  Hopefully the weather cooperates.

Also great news on the tear down of the donor car.  I’ve been talking with Frank and Dan at Fourstar Motorsports, who have performed lots of great work on my Subaru, and we have plans to strip down the Caprice to its bare bones during the first week of March.  I’m making arrangements to dig the donor car out of its snowy resting place and haul it down here for its crash diet 🙂

I’ll also be scheduling a time to get the frame over to the sandblasters shortly after the tear down.

Did I mention that I love progress 🙂

The 30Cals are on their way

I just received some great news and some new pictures from Lou who has been creating the guns for the BatBerry.  The weather had been less than favorable for the resin casting process but Lou made sure that I have some great quality guns.

He’s finished the casting process and performed some initial prep work so that I’ll have less to do.  This is much appreciated!  He’s also primed them black and has finished some of the initial sanding/filling of the casting lines.  I’ll pick up where he left off once they arrive.  They look fantastic as is, but they’ll look perfect once the prep is finished and they get a fresh coat of paint!

Continue reading to see more pictures of these bad boys 🙂