Toyota To Take On The Dark Knight At Silverstone

In recent years Formula One teams have joined forces with Hollywood to help promote their latest offerings from the big screen. Red Bull have in the past, promoted Superman at Monaco, and before them Jaguar did one of the Ocean’s films, Twelve, I think. And now Toyota are joining in by promoting the lastest Batman film, due to hit European cinemas later in the month and expected to be a high-grossing blockbuster movie.

Toyota will be sporting new overalls and team-wear at Silverstone this weekend and the cars will also have artwork from the film emblazzoned all over them. What’s more, Warner Bros. will bring the Batmobile to the British Grand Prix and allow it to perform a demonstration run on Thursday. It is expected that the Dark Knight’s car will tour the track alongside the Toyota TF108, although I’m not sure if Batman himself will be available to drive. The Batpod will also be on show at the Northamptonshire circuit although I don’t believe it will be used in the demonstration as very few people can actually ride it.

Given that the new Batmobile measures 3 metres at it’s widest, 4.5 metres at its longest and 1.5 metres at it tallest, I think the TF108 may be dwarfed next to it. And not only is Batman’s car much bigger, it also has two extra wheels. The four rear tyres are from monster trucks while the front two are from sprint cars. The car also doesn’t have a front axle, enabling it make very tight turns and could probably out-manoeuvre Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock.

The British Grand Prix is this weekend while The Dark Knight is released in North America on July 18th and in Europe on July 25th.