Bill Cushenberry

Bill Cushenberry is an American car customizer and model kit designer who helped create the Batmobile that appeared in the 1966–1968 Batman TV series.

Cushenberry started customizing in 1947 in a small shop set up in the back of a Wichita, Kansas, service station owned by his parents.[1] His first custom was a 1948 Frazier coupé.[1]

Newly married, he moved to Monterey, California, in 1954.[1] At first, his body shop did work paid by insurance companies, as well as some "mild customizing".[1]

In late 1959, he began work on his first showcar, El Matador, as a rolling advertisement.[1] He scrounged parts from Seaside Auto Wreckers, operated by Vick Irvan (father of Ernie Irvan)[1] El Matador started life as a 1939 Ford, and debuted in February 1961 at the Oakland Roadster Show.[1] Another Cushenberry project, a '59 Chevy called Exodus, built for Tony Cardoza, was shown at the 1961 Monterey Kar Kapades.[1] Every body panel was altered in some way, setting a new trend in customizing.[1]

In 1962, collaborating with artist Don Varner, Cushenberry built Silhouette, his first full-on show car, from scratch. He hand-hammered 20-gauge steel on a shortened 1956 Buick chassis (which also supplied the a Buick nailhead V8 later fitted with Stuart Hilborn, with a front-hinged bubble canopy supplied by Acry Plastics.[1] It was candy-painted, mixed with black, red, and gold.[1]

Silhouette debuted at the 1963 Oakland Roadster Show and earned Cushenberry his first Master Builder Award.[1]

In 1963, he began Marquis for Gene Boucher, which took two and a half years to complete.[1] Paint was done by Don Mathews and Naugahyde interior by Bill Manger.[1]

The same year, Ford hired Cushenberry, along with other customizers, to produce styling variations on their new Ford XL 500 convertible; Cushenberry's, dubbed The Astro, emphasized the round taillights.[1]

Cushenberry was also part of Ford's Custom Car Caravan.[2]

The Batmobile in 2003

During the 1960s, Cushenberry also did the 1958 Impala Limelighter and The Popo, a 1940 Ford built in collaboration with George Barris.[1] Bob Cresp still owns this car.[1]

By 1966, the public had lost its taste for radical customs like Silhouette and Red Baron,[1] so Cushenberry turned his attention to restoration work, and to repair for high-priced imports.[1] He built a dune buggy, The Gypsy, which was never shown (and which he owned in 1998).[1]

Around this time, he was hired by AMT to design model kits.[3]

For the car used in the Batman TV series, Barris hired Cushenbery in October 1965 to do the metal modifications to a primer-painted, white-striped Lincoln Futura concept car. The conversion into the Batmobile was completed in three weeks at a cost of US$30,000. They car was shown in a network presentation reel,[4] and leased to 20th Century Fox Television and Greenway Productions for the series.

One of the last known custom cars to be completed by Cushenbery was the Surfin'Bird, a 1956 Ford Thunderbird, radically modified for 93 KHJ Boss radio's 'Big Kahuna' promotion in 1966.

Per the promotion, Bill Cushenbery was contracted by the Big Kahuna to build a custom outta-sight Surfin'Bird to be given away by the radio station in early August of 1966, and was given $5,000 dollars to complete the project. The Boss radio jocks ran multiple promotional spots for the contest. At the sound of the Big Kahuna's Cockatoo, hopeful listeners would call in for chance to win the car. Contestants were given a tiki charm with a numbered tag that would be used to draw the winner.

Several radio spots were created with fake auto body "grinding noise" in the background, to simulate being in Cushenbery's shop, while the Big Kahuna in his trademark Hawaiian pidgin english (Mahalo Nui Loa Cushenbery), requested features to be added to the car. These may be the only known audio recordings of Bill Cushenbery's voice.

The starting point of the car was a 1956 Ford Thunderbird. The car was built in Cushenbery's Burbank shop and had a tight deadline for completion. Sources stated that Bill hired a friend that worked at the Barris shop to assist with the build. Bill supposedly worked on the "Ferrari front", while the other man (possibly Steve Tate) worked on the "Stingray rear."

This car clearly shows the flamboyance of 1966, with a look that mimics other wild customs of the time period, like the Dean Jeffries "Monkeemobile". The Surfin'Bird was given away August 8th, 1966 on KHJ-TV Channel 9 The Dick Curtis 18 to 34 show at 5:30 pm. It is unknown to date who the original winner was or if any of the footage from that broadcast exists.

The Surfin'Bird was displayed at the "A World On Wheels" Auto Show at the RoseBowl in Pasadena on August 7th, one day prior to the giveaway. Currently, no photos of the completed car are known to exist other that the mock up shots on KHJ promotional materials. [5][6][7][8]