This Real Life Batman's Superpowers Include Building Badass Street Cars!

It all started with a suit. At least, that’s the point at which Zac Mihaljovic reckons his wild concept to build a street legal Batmobile was born.

He and his stepfather, famous custom motorcycle builder Scotty Cox, had just finished a Batman-themed custom bike and while searching for a Batsuit to complete the display, Zac happened upon some spare parts for a Batmobile, which is a position so many of us have found ourselves in! 

“My Pop and Scotty were with me, and I convinced them that even if we couldn’t get it street registered it’d just be a cool project. The further we got into the project though, the idea of engineering and registering it started to become a reality,” he explains.

The finished product is on an entirely different scale to your average roadgoing car - at 2.4m wide and 6.4m long, it’s hardly the kind of thing that you can simply roll on to your average car trailer. 

“We were already doing charity work with it, unregistered. We’d have to tow it to the location, unload it then suit up. It was hot work! I figured that street rego’ would massively extend the reach of the charity work we could do,” continues Zac, ever-focused on his most rewarding role - that of a Make-A-Wish ambassador.

“One of the first wishes we granted when the car was registered was up in Queensland. We sent the car to Brisbane and the plan was to drive down to meet the family at their hotel near SeaWorld, then drive them over to Movie World. By the time we arrived at their hotel there was already a heap of TV news crews. I figured they were there for something else, but a news helicopter had spotted the Batmobile driving down the freeway and they thought someone had stolen it from Movie World! Wherever you take it, the car is always the centre of attention,” he chuckles. 

This one stunt exploded his profile.

“We did a few news crosses including one for The Today Show in America. I woke up the next morning and my phone was absolutely stuffed. Once we finally managed to turn it on I’d received 15,000 emails overnight enquiring about everything from weddings to formals. It all changed then,” he admits.

His steely, superhero gaze shifted from using the vehicle exclusively for charity work, and he figured that private appearances could help him sustain the pro bono charity commitments. “We’re able to use the money we raise from private functions for vehicle maintenance, gifts for the Make A Wish kids and generally keeping the charity work viable. I try not to keep count of how many wishes we’ve granted with the car but it’s well over 100, up and down the eastern seaboard,” he confides, humbly. 

HIs latest project has garnered just as much attention, and feeds into the Bruce Wayne/Batman alter ego. Afterall, who else would think that a street-legal, 1:1 power ratio F1 car would be a good idea!

“People's connection with the F1 car is different. They’re interested, but not as emotionally connected as they are with the Batmobile. That said, it’s opened plenty of doors for us,” explains Zac, which includes several appearances at Australia’s own F1 round in Melbourne, as well as air-freighting the car to the Monaco GP!

“The Principality of Monaco rang and invited us there. The car still wasn’t running, but Prince Albert unveiled the car for us and ended up inviting us back to the Palace to meet VIPs like Eddie Jordan, Mika Hakkinen and more,” he recalls, casually.

In fact, the car was almost sold at Monaco to none other than the Prince of Qatar, however by the time Zac had flown the car home to finish it off, COVID had shut the world down and stomped on his plans of traveling to Qatar to hand it over. “We didn’t end up going through with the sale, I kept it and have been enjoying driving it,” he admits. 

But the F1 build didn’t simply happen, as with most projects of this scale it was surrounded by its fair share of drama. “I had an ex-Ferrari technician building the V12 engine for me before its debut. Long story short, he stopped answering his phone and made off with a heap of my parts. Luckily I could retrieve the engine, and the guys at Haltech have done what no one else could - they’ve been instrumental in helping me get the V12 running right in the custom chassis,” he emphasises. 

And if Zac ever needs something more subtle to drive around in he can always flip a coin between his daily-driven Lamborghini Huracan Performante or his Ferrari 360 Modena, or something from his extensive catalogue of two-wheeled terrors.

“I think we’ll try and build the Tumbler next,” he continues, nonchalantly. “I’ve got a friend that wants one so we’ll try and build two at the same time.”

You can support Zac’s charity work through Make A Wish Australia.