Remember When A Batman Movie Used A Ton Of VW Foxes?

Remember the Tim Burton Batman movies? Sure you do. They were arguably the start of the modern era of superperson movies, and they incorporated all kinds of stripey, twisted-Halloween Tim Burton-esque visuals. The look and feel of everything in these movies was very highly curated to fit a specific aesthetic, which is why it’s interesting that, in 1992’s Batman Returns, almost every car in that movie was a 1987 to 1991 Volkswagen Fox.

Well, the cars were all VW Foxes with one minor alteration: they had the VW logo in the center of the grille replaced with a third headlamp, sort of like that Subaru “Cyclops Eye” setup.

You remember that, right? I never miss an opportunity to show the Cyclops Eye:

But these weren’t Subarus, they were VW Foxes, and lots of them.

The top image shows a whole bunch, and here’s four more, along with that fantastic Batmobile in the foreground. See the third light on the one on the left?

I have a lot of questions about why Tim Burton chose this Brazilian-made VW to be the everycar for this movie, but I do have some theories. I think he wanted to pick a car that felt somewhat generic and not quite identifiable as a car viewers would be familiar with, hence the replacement of the VW badge for the third light, and, I think, why this sort of anonymous-looking three-box car worked for the this-isn’t-normal-reality feel Burton wanted.

I don’t mean to malign the Fox here, by the way; sure it wasn’t the most striking-looking car, but I remember when these came out and they were pretty cool and dirt cheap. The exciting version was the two-door wagon one, which may qualify for shooting break-status?

These were also the last new VWs to only come with a manual transmission, I think. You could get a four- or five-speed, but no auto, something remarkable to think about today. These were competing with Hyundai Excels and other low-end cars, and I remember them being pretty appealing.

My old scoutmaster actually traded in his old ’63 Beetle for a wagon one. I think it was in his Fox that I was first in a car to hit 100 mph! See, that’s how you’re a good scoutmaster, taking some kids to 100 mph in an airbag-less car on some country road. It was the ’80s, before we had “safety,” remember.

Speaking of old Beetles, there are a few other cars represented in the movie, but they’re very clearly picked for highly specific reasons. The Batmobile, of course, is practically its own character, and there’s also Catwoman’s car, which is (I think; the scenes are pretty dark) a ’67 VW Beetle.

This car seems to have been picked to match Catwoman’s humble and quirky origins and aesthetic, and I think it’s a good choice. It also really stands out from the sea of very rectilinear Foxes.

And since I mentioned rectilinear, we may as well note that the cop cars all seem to be Dodge Aries K-Cars:

These have a similar general, generic-car aesthetic like the Foxes, but just different enough. Having spent time in these very K-Cars in the ’80s, I can’t stress enough what shit cop cars they would have made. Slow, flimsy, unreliable – but in their favor, the rear side windows didn’t roll down, so that would help keep baddies trapped, if you remembered to set the child locks.

Batman Returns was a delightfully odd Batman movie, I think in large part thanks to Danny DiVito’s gleefully disgusting portrayal of the Penguin, and, of course, the fact that Christopher Walken is in the movie.

There’s a part where an attempt is made to make the Penguin appealing to the general population of Gotham so he can attempt a mayorial run, and it’s pretty fantastic.

Also, there’s cameos here by Saturday Night Live and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure Alamo tour guide Jan Hooks, along with some Apple //e computers.

Here, watch, it’s nice and ridiculous:

The fact he never dropped that fish is what gets me.