I got to drive the original Batmobile from the 1960s TV show. It was driven by my childhood hero, the comically uptight, painfully polite defender of the good citizens of Gotham as played by Adam West.

I sat in the same seat Adam West sat in. It felt pretty cool, and I was the only journalist who got the opportunity.

The Batmobile V8 engine still runs and makes a heavy rumble you wouldn't have heard on TV. Today, it hesitates to start at times and it had to be jump-started once during my day with it.

It drove straight and the steering wheel worked with the expected old-American-car sloppiness.

The brakes are, by modern standards, less than heroic. I quickly learned to press on the brake pedal like I was trying to crush an alligator to death with my foot. The Batmobile would stop after a while.

I found out what the Batmobile can do. It can do pretty well for a superhero that's 50 years old and then some.