The car. Lincoln Futura, concept car made in 1955 for car shows to promote future Ford styling ideas. The grill, headlights and tailfins ended up being adopted for different Mercurys, Lincolns and Fords in the late 1950s, but for some reason the twin jet fighter style bubble canopies were not used again…quite why you’d want to drive around with yourself and passenger sitting under seperate canopies isn’t at all clear…
The one and only Futura appeared in a film, “It started with a kiss” starring Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford, not perhaps her best film. (!) There are some clips of it on Youtube, including a compilation of scenes where the car appears, about 4 1/2 minutes worth. The rest? Well, not the worse film ever made (that’s obviously Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room”) but has no redeeming features at all (except perhaps the car).
Later, the car was converted into…the Batmobile!
I belive there are a few replicas of the Futura around, like the Batmobile.
The model. It’s a 1956 Revell kit in 1/25th scale. The box has had Revell-Monogram 1995 added so I guess this was a re-run. Pretty basic kit with 28 parts. I sprayed the panels with Volkswagen red auto paint then assembled the rest when the paint had had some time to harden. I polished it with Tamiya polishing compound.
Anyway, an odd prototype which was influential in its day, which was, er, 71 years ago.