The Dark Knight Trilogy: 18 Cool Behind-The-Scenes Details You Didn't Know
14. The Tumbler's Design Came From Smashing Two Toys Together
After deciding that the Batmobile would appear in Batman Begins, Nolan and David S. Goyer (who worked on the stories for the entire trilogy) strongly believed that it should be "function over form", as opposed to the "form over function" seen in earlier Batman movies.
To that end, Nolan told production designer Nathan Crowley that the Batmobile should be an "assault vehicle", resembling a Humvee and a Lamborghini mixed together.
But rather than simply imagining what such a vehicle might look like - and rather than simply drawing a few sketches - Crowley chose to get a bit more hands-on.
He went to a toy store and bought a Humvee, then went to a model store and bought a Lamborghini. From here, Crowley "smashed" the two toys together, and even though the end result apparently looked "awful", this is where the basic idea for the Tumbler's design came from.