Casting collectors of any of the Hot Wheels #Batmobile castings know how hard it can be to track down and maintain a casting collection when it comes to the Caped Crusader’s ride. Unless you are strictly collecting carded releases, it can be be hard to establish which variants are indeed different.

As a collector of the #’89 Batmobile casting, I look for every release, but since I collect this casting loose, I only want to add variants that are different to my collection. Every collector may have a different set of criteria when it comes to establishing a variant as some count individual releases, while others go down to every variation — even as far as differences in paint thickness! Sure, planned variants in the mainline can be easy since there are so many sites that track mainline cars, but the tricky part can be tracking down some of those non-mainline variants.

Released in 2010, this edition of the #’89 Batmobile is often overlooked because collectors mistake this variant as a repeat of the 2004 First Editions release. However, its much more obvious when the car is removed from the packaging that this one is indeed different. This release of the ’89 Batmobile is the only variant of the casting to have the #Batman logo on the roof (along with the legal type). It can be tricky to track down as the 2010 #Monster Duo 2-Packs (oppose to the 2008 editions) seemed to have been in limited supply as they were not widely available at retail. In addition to that, many of these are now sold (on the secondary market) as part of the original packaging, which is bulky, and will surely increase shipping costs — pushing the price past what you are willing to spend on such a similar variant of this casting. They key is to find one for sale that is loose, but a lot of online sellers have no idea where some of theirs loose cars come from and/or mistake the spelling of the name Monster Duos with either “duals” or “duels”.

With such a limited range on what Hot Wheels can do with licensed #TV & Movie Cars such as this #’89 Batmobile, the simply addition of the logo on top can be among one of the more graphically diverse variants as you’ll find. Its surely a must-have for any collector of the Michael Keaton era #Batmobile.

RELEASE DETAILS: Black Body (plastic). Black Windows. Chrome 5-Spoke (5SP) Wheels. Unpainted Metal Base. Made in Thailand. Toy# T1484. Released in 2010 as part of the Hot Wheels Monster Jam Monster Duos.