What is a bat pod?
The Batpod is intended as a kind of escape pod integrated into the Tumbler, it also served an auxiliary vehicle. Armed with dual front-mounted cannons, machine guns and grappling hooks, the Batpod affords Batman greater mobility at the cost of some protection. Following the destruction of the Tumbler Batmobile in a chase with the Joker (Heath Ledger), Batman’s new vehicle of choice became the Batpod. The lack of protection is balanced by the vehicle’s exceptional mobility while packing an arsenal of dual mounted-cannons, machine guns and grappling hooks.Conceived by Christopher Nolan and production designer Nathan Crowley, the Batpod was intended to provide an alternative to Batman’s trusty Tumbler vehicle. The design was created by Crowley and brought to life by special-effects supervisor Chris Corbould, who made six of the vehicles for use on The Dark Knight.Batman may be a fictional character, but his car isn’t. Life-sized drivable replicas of the Batman Tumbler – a tank-like, off-road vehicle featured in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy – are for sale, though only a finite number were made.
How does the batpod work?
Steering the Batpod is done using shoulder movement rather than with the hands which for any rider seasoned or not would take some getting used to. The suspension is all in the front of the bike (it’s a hardtail! The Batpod is The Dark Knight’s version of the Batcycle. The workings of the Batpod were explained in a special on The History Channel, including the facts that it is steered more with the driver’s shoulders than his hands, and that the engine(s) are actually mounted inside the wheels instead of the frame.