The €4.9m Pininfarina B95 Gotham is a Batman-inspired hypercar
Italian coachbuilder Pininfarina has launched a Bruce Wayne-themed special based on its 1874bhp all-electric barchetta
Automobili Pininfarina will unveil a new variant of its electric B95 hypercar on August 16 at The Quail event during the 2024 Monterey Car Week. Inspired by the Batman movie franchise and produced in collaboration with Warner Bros., the €4.9m special is called the Automobili Pininfarina B95 Gotham.
The car’s unique colour, trim and design details have been inspired by the fictional alter-ego of DC Comics’ superhero, Bruce Wayne. Aside from a project in and of itself, Pininfarina is displaying the car as a demonstration of its ability to fulfil special ‘one of one’ commissions from clients.
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‘This project started with Warner Brothers approaching us,’ Automobili CEO Paolo Dellachà tells evo, ‘for a series of luxury projects inspired by Bruce Wayne: a character who is interested in technology, beauty, luxury. It was originally one car, then became more.’
Three further Batman-themed cars will follow: the Battista Gotham, the Battista Dark Knight and the B95 Dark Knight. The B95 Gotham on display at The Quail is purely a show car, with the first of the four customer-spec Gotham/Dark Knight cars under construction at Automobili Pininfarina’s base at Cambiano in Italy.
All will ultimately be sold to private collectors, who will be given the opportunity to further customise the cars’ spec. All will feature Batman-themed features, such as a ‘Bruce Wayne’ driving mode, for example, in addition to the cars’ regular settings.
Based on the underpinnings from the Pininfarina Battista (itself closely related to the Rimac Nevera), the B95 was revealed at the 2023 Monterey Car Week as an open-top barchetta with electronically adjustable aero screens in place of a traditional windscreen, a four-motor electric powertrain and an 1874bhp total power output. The B95 name commemorated the Pininfarina name’s 95th anniversary (and the Bruce Wayne-themed car celebrates 85 years of Batman in 2024). Aimed at wealthy collectors, its price is €4.4m (c£3.8m).
The Gotham edition will be one of the B95’s ten-car production run. All ten cars have been reserved by customers, including the second Batman-themed car, the B95 Dark Knight.
‘We tried to imagine we had Bruce Wayne as one of our clients,’ Dellachà told evo. ‘You can imagine this was quite inspiring for us.’
A unique spec devised with a billionaire playboy/philanthropist/tech enthusiast/masked vigilante crimefighter in mind includes gloss black paintwork and wheels finished in a mix of gloss and matt black, quilted tan leather upholstery – and an ‘Alfred’ voice for the sat-nav, recorded by an actor playing the role of Bruce Wayne’s butler. The car is badged as a ‘Wayne Enterprises’ project.
The Gotham/Dark Knight cars will represent two of Battista’s 150-car production run (some slots of which remain unsold; Dellachà says Pininfarina expects to fill them in ‘less than one year’).
It is not yet confirmed whether any of the cars will feature in future Batman films but the B95 Gotham has been photographed in the Lightbox studio in Los Angeles, the setting for scenes in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy in which Bruce Wayne’s vehicles and gadgets are presented to him by Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox character.
Pininfarina will show a second special car at The Quail, details of which are to be announced next week.
