If you’ve seen any of the Batman movies from the latest trilogy, you know how cool his motorcycle looks, and probably understand why this Vietnamese bike enthusiast couldn’t resist the thought of owning his very own Batpod, even if that meant having to build it himself.
Dubbed the “Vietnamese Dark Knight”, the young man behind this impressive scrap-part motorcycle has been identified as Tùng Lâm, from Vietnam’s Lang Son province. About a month ago, the builder posted a YouTube video of himself riding a prototype of the home-made Batpod which went viral receiving about 370,000 views in just 10 days. Although it was obvious the replica was not yet finished, the video still managed to draw a lot of attention and left many viewers curious to know if he had built it himself, what parts he used or how long it took him. There were some trolls commentators who said it was a poor effort that looked almost nothing like the Batpod in the Dark Knight films, but overall the reaction to the video was positive. Yesterday, almost a month from the first video, another one was posted, this time of the completed bike.
Before you start acting all disappointed, you have to take into consideration this Batpod was built by a young mechanic who only had access to various cheap scrap parts and used only images and the Dark Knight films as reference. It might not look as cool as the Batpod replica built by Parker Brothers Choppers, but those guys are professional bike builders with a significantly larger budget, so all things considered I think this baby turned out pretty good. According to Vietnamese site VNExppress, Tùng Lâm built his impressive scrap-part Batpod to be displayed at his car shop in Lang Son, as an advertisement. It’s not clear how long the building process lasted, but he did reveal his creation is really a modified Suzuki FX 125, for which he paid just 3 million VND ($143). The two used car tires were 800,000 VND ($39), and the entire bike is estimated around 10 million VND ($480).
After seeing the online reaction to his videos, Tùng Lâm said that even though this Batpod replica was originally created as advertisement for his car shop, he’s now considering selling it to fans of the Dark Knight series. He hopes to get a good price for it and plans to invest the profit in another daring build – Batman’s Tumbler. The young mechanic says his creation would have been much better had he had a bigger budget, and says that in the distant future, when he has enough money to invest in parts he will build replicas of the futuristic helicopters from the movie Avatar. We’ll definitely be keeping an close eye on this ambitious guy.
