Cafe Racer of the week: Batgirl.

Via 1966 batfan.com

The prop department at Foxmotorcycle from Yamaha for the creation of Batgirl's bike. Studios did all the customizing on it. When looking at the fiberglass work done on the faring and rear section, doubtful that Fox did the moulding, painting, work themselves. We are unsure of who made the custom parts but understand it they completed the assembly on the Fox Studios Lot.

It was told to me that possibly Gene Winfield, did the body work. It had an electric starter but was a bit too big for Yvonne to handle according to Batgirl herself. There was only one made as opposed to all the other bat vehicles, it was never shown outside the studio on tour."

The unmolested Yamaha YDS-5E-before Batgirl.

According to Yvonne on the Batgirl cycle, " I guess they decided that since I was an inveterate motorcycle rider I would want something that had a lot of zip . But they gave me one that actually had more zip than you need, because you can always undercrank when you shoot and they always undercranked when we were supposed to fly out of scenes. I didn't need anything that big and it weighed too much. If I got it more than just a few degrees off center, I'd have to drop it and pick it up because I just couldn't wrestle it back. But they did do a good thing. They gave me an automatic starter. My own personal bike had a kick starter and I told them that often I'd try to kick it and it'd kick me, and did they really want to see all this on film? so they said that I'd have an automatic starter and I just just punched a little button and it was wonderful.

All good things must come to an end, the series ended and the motorcycle was to be sent back to Yamaha. A cause of concern was that the bike was slightly different ( unrecognizable) than when the studio received it. Not a problem, Yamaha said they would accept it in a modified condition. When returned to Yamaha, still the Batgirl cycle, Yamaha was informed of the many legal requirements to show the motorcycle if it was done for profit.

The show's producers wanted it to be shown as they got a piece of the pie, as did Licensing Corporation of America and National Periodical Publications. From the looks of things it appears that it was a ton of red tape to show the bike publicly without having to pay an arm and a leg and Yamaha just didn't want to fool with it. In 1969 Yamaha came out with a completely redesigned line of cycles making the YM series of their bikes history. What did Yamaha do with it ? The old story goes or did one of the VP's of Yamaha give it to their daughter as a present so she could pretend to be Batgirl.

We may find out someday but for now its still a mystery of the final resting place of the famous purple frilly motorcycle"