There are not many White House Communications Directors who become embedded in popular culture–how often do people talk about Margaret Tutwiler? It can happen, though, and Anthony Scaramucci is undoubtedly the most famous/infamous living White House Communications Director. His tenure was short, but he’s become an enduring presence online since his truncated role in the first Trump White House. Why am I writing about him on a car website? It’s because he claimed this week to have owned a Batmobile that was sold for $7 million, and I don’t think that claim is true. Are you ready to learn more about Anthony Scaramucci’s than you ever needed to know? To the Bat-Blog!
The Batmobile that former investment banker, talking head, and extremely temporary White House employee Anthony Scaramucci is talking about is the actual film car from the 1992 Tim Burton-directed comic book sequel Batman Returns. This is considered one of the best and rarest of the Batmobiles, given that few of them were made and it looks cool as hell.
If you don’t remember, Scaramucci became famous for getting appointed to the position of White House Comms Director and only lasting 11 days, allegedly fired after he gave a long and profanity-laden interview to a reporter for The New Yorker that he didn’t realize was on the record. At one point in that interview, he called the then White House Chief of Staff a “paranoid schizophrenic.” Since then, a Scaramucci has become a unit of measurement for how long someone lasts in a position (one Scaramucci = 11 days). To his credit, Scramucci also seems to find this hilarious.
He’s now become a critic of President Trump and frequently appears on TV, in podcasts, and has over a million followers on X/formerly Twitter. If you’re on X, you may have seen this post from him claiming to have sold a very important Batmobile, specifically pointing out that it’s sometimes better to hold onto assets:
I’m going to embarrass myself here.
In 2003, I bought the Batman Returns Batmobile featuring Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny DeVito.
I paid $140,000.
Three years later, someone offered me $350,000. I sold it.
It just went to auction last week. Sold for $7 million.
That’s a 19% compounded return!!!
I had the asset. If I just held the asset, I would’ve been very well rewarded.
The lesson isn’t about Batmobiles. It’s about holding great assets and getting out of your own way.
— Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) October 27, 2026
As you can see, he claims to have bought the car from the film (not a replica made later) for $140,000, then sold it for $350,000, and has just learned that it was sold for $7 million. What’s interesting here is that some of that is definitely not true, and some of it is probably not true. I spent far too much time looking into it, so I had no choice to write it up for you, dear readers.
The Batmobile He’s Talking About Is Currently Up For Auction
Both the Batmobile from the original Tim Burton film and the sequel has a sort of Art Deco-meets-stealth fighter look that feels very at home in the film and makes it an absolute stunner. That Anthony Scaramucci owned a Burton Batmobile is a credit to him and his taste. I’m not attempting to gotcha Anthony Scaramucci, but his statement is confusing.
As soon as I saw the clip he posted, I started to try to track down what happened, and I think I can clear up the first bit of confusion. Scaramucci is claiming that the car he once owned was sold for $7 million. This is the easiest thing to disprove.
What he’s referring to, I’m sure, is that Julien’s Auctions in Los Angeles is going to auction the Batmobile actually used in the filming of Batman Returns next month, and that the current estimate is between $5-$7 million. You can read more about the auction here. His mistake was in thinking it had sold.
Another problem is that it doesn’t appear that he owned this specific vehicle. Before we get into that, let’s talk about the history of Batman cars.
While George Barris created the original and iconic Batmobile used in the television series, he wasn’t involved in the movie series cars. As Chevy Hardcore wrote, the car for the first film was the work of production designer Anton First.
The Batmobile was then built by an effects crew working under Special Effects Supervisor John Evans. When the Batmobile was updated for Batman Returns, Production Designer Bo Welch was the architect of the work.
Furst wanted a menacing looking car with a combination of stealth aircraft and medieval knight. Looking to early auto designs, and Bonneville land speed record cars, Furst captured what he believed was, “Something that has brute force and forbidding power coupled with form, shape, and sculpture. Something that is, frankly, quite rude.”
For the second film, longtime car builder Carl Casper was brought in to make a new version of the Batmobile, apparently because the first ones were too unreliable for filming. It is reported in most places to be built on a 1967 Impala chassis stretched to nearly 20-feet and powered by a small-block Chevy V8 (or, possibly, two frames put together).
This gets a little screwy, but it seems like there were at least three and up to five cars that were built for the film, either for actual filming or for promotional reasons, possibly including one or more for a Six Flags amusement park ride. The most-known one is the Batmobile currently in possession of our friends at the Petersen Museum in California. If you were at Radwood last weekend with us, you saw this car.
Here’s where it gets controversial. YouTuber and online Batmobile expert ProjectWorkBench claims the Petersen Museum car is a replica, and not actually used in the film. He believes the narrow rear fenders are a giveaway that it’s not the car used in actual filming.
To provide a little more info, Carl Casper did an interview many years ago (you can watch it here). In that video, Casper says there were four cars total made for the film. Three were made of fiberglass, and one was made in carbon fiber (on film, one of them does look fairly matte and not glossy). The one used in the film is referred to as “No. 1,” whereas the “No. 2” is the other picture car (and was sold at some point), and the “No. 3” car was put up for bid at the short-lived Rand Workman auction in New York. Casper said he wasn’t willing to part with the “No. 1” car at the time.
I believe the #3 car is the car that Anthony Scaramucci-owned, and I’ll explain why a little later.
The car that is being auctioned by Julien’s Auctions (see above) is currently in the Marconi Automotive Museum in Tustin, California. This was a vehicle that, according to a representative of the museum I spoke with, was the actual movie car that was “the only screen car used for that particular Batman movie,” adding that “there are other replicas and other hero cars, but it’s not this particular car.” According to the museum, this is the car that was held by Warner Brothers and, other than a few appearances at events, was mostly in storage until being restored and transferred to the museum.
A spokesperson for Julien’s Auctions also said that, according to their research, “The Batmobile Julien’s is offering has never been sold. It’s with its original owner. I am unsure which one Scaramucci is referencing. This particular vehicle is coming to auction for the first time.”
The bit about it being with the original owner makes me think it’s either being auctioned on behalf of Warner Brothers or Casper himself.
What Scaramucci Actually Said In Full Gives Some More Details, Though I Think Some Are Wrong
Car collector and comedian Adam Carolla has a podcast called “The Adam Carolla Show,” and last week he had Anthony Scaramucci on as a guest. Why? I’m not sure. [Ed Note: Probably because of this *points around*. –DT] I have a great respect for Carolla’s car collection, but based on the episode titles alone, I feel like the podcast is maybe a do not engage-type situation for me.
In this episode, Carolla and Scaramucci end up talking about high-dollar assets, and Scaramucci basically repeats the story above from X, but with a lot more detail than we get in the social media posts. Here’s some of the transcript:
Scaramucci: Okay. Okay. Okay. But Batman: Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Danny DeVito were in the movie. Okay, you ready? I paid $140,000 for it. Three years later, I was offered $350,000 for it.
Adam Carolla: Wow.
Scaramucci: I sold it, and, you know, it went to auction last week and sold for $7 million. [laughter] Okay. How about that? How do you like those apples? And let me just point out to people, that was a 19% compounded return, and I’m in the investment business. Do you know how hard it is to generate a 19% compounded return? But I had an asset that, if I had just held it, I would have been well rewarded. So it’s your point about housing, or owning a high-quality collectible or a high-quality stock.
Later on in the episode, Scaramucci said he heard about the sale from a friend who read a story in the New York Post. I think that’s probably this story, and to their credit, Carolla or a producer correctly identifies that the car wasn’t sold yet:
Adam Carolla: “The Batman Returns hero Batmobile is scheduled to go to auction.” I’m reading my screen here.
Scaramucci: Oh, it hasn’t sold yet, then. Okay.
Adam Carolla: It’s at the end of November, and the estimate is 5 to 7 million.
Scaramucci: Okay. All right. Someone told me it went for seven. But anyway, five to seven. If it sells for five, [laughter] there’s slightly less salt on the skin, Adam, but there’s still a lot of salt. Okay.
What’s strange is that this podcast was released on October 21st, but the social media post came out days later. It seems Scaramucci chose to continue to tell the story of the car being sold for $7 million, even though he understands on the show that the car hasn’t been sold yet.
It gets stranger. In addition to incorrectly calling the original Batmobile a Ford “Futuruma” built by “George Farris” in this section of the interview (he got it close-ish: it’s based on the Lincoln Futura concept and was built by George Barris), he says the one he bought was built on a Ford F-150 chassis. All of this is possibly just him misremembering what happened and being confused as to what he actually owned, which is forgivable if you’re not a hardcore car geek. I’ve spent too many hours looking into Batmobiles and even I still have some open questions.
Why I Think Scaramucci Owned No. 3
Above is the video, filmed as part of a short-lived television show called Muscle Car Madness TV that was produced in 2005 and 2006. The title of the clip here claims that No. 3 is a “screen used” vehicle from Batman Returns up for auction at the aforementioned Rand-Workman Auction, which occurred on the weekend of September 10th, 2005, but only lasted one year and was apparently not very successful.
“We did three for the movie, I’m keeping the No #1 car for my own collection. No. 2 was the only other car that had ever been sold that was in the movie, and this is #3, and someone will be able to have the No. 3 movie Batmobile from Batman Returns in their collection,” says Casper in the video.
I suspect that the builder chose his words carefully, because I don’t hear in this interview that he’s saying the car was ever in the film (I think he’s implying only No. 1 and No. 2 were used in the filming). I think he’s saying it was made for the movie, but possibly only used as a promotional vehicle. Or, maybe it was at some point, though if it was it apparently wasn’t the main car.
According to the details from the liveauctioneers.com website, this is the third of five cars made for the film, and was sold for $340,000 (though, according to a post on the Ferrari Chat forum, the car didn’t meet the initial reserve and was sold later, which appears to be confirmed by a release from Rand-Workman).
Who sold Scaramucci his Batmobile? It’s possible it was Casper himself. The price, the timing, and the geography of the auction are fairly close to what Scaramucci claims, though there are key differences. Scaramucci says he bought it in 2003 and sold it three years later, but this is only two years later. He also says someone “offered me $350,000,” but this car was auctioned. Did someone else buy the car and then try to auction it quickly? It’s been known to happen, though given how similar the prices are it’s possible that Scaramucci is phrasing it a certain way for effect.
And that’s what most of this likely boils down to, in the end. It’s too weird of a thing to make up entirely, and Anthony Scaramucci was a successful investor who could have easily spent $140,000 on such a car, so it’s possible he’s just got a really good story to tell, and the actual details are less important to him than the overall thrust of what he’s saying.
You’re probably asking yourself if Scaramucci ever drove the thing, and he told Carolla he did:
Scaramucci: By the way, I drove around in that car. That car was not road-ready. You couldn’t really drive it, but I was driving it around my neighborhood with the Batman outfit on, on Halloween. It was one of the funnest experiences of my life.
Cool. That’s also what I, or any reasonable person would do. I’m glad he got that little bit of joy out of the car before selling it.
I realize that I’ve now written over 2,400 words about this claim, but that’s just what it required to tell the story as I understand it. If someone has more details about this or any other Batman Returns Batmobile, please let me know. There doesn’t even appear to be an agreed-upon number of cars built, meaning someone potentially could have built more than the 3-5 known cars.
While I don’t think the No. 3 car is likely worth $7 million, it’s probably worth more than the $140,000 he paid for it, which was his original point. I’ve reached out to Mr. Scaramucci for comment, and if he gets back to me, I’ll update this story.
Top graphic images: Julien’s Auctions; Collision Conf, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic via Wikimedia
The post Anthony Scaramucci Says His Batmobile Sold For $7 Million, Which Isn’t True, So I Spent All Night Trying To Figure Out Why He’s Saying That appeared first on The Autopian.
