Alongside the Matt Reeves / Robert Pattinson movie The Batman LEGO released three sets at varying price points and piece counts, and today we’re going to turn the smallest and cheapest of them into the famous Tumbler from the Christopher Nolan trilogy, because why not?
The set in question is 76179: Batman & Selina Kyle Motorcycle Pursuit containing just 149 pieces. Once assembled you get two bikes for the titular characters in minifig form to ride and a Bat-Signal for good measure too. Here is a picture of that set for reference.
Using only the pieces from this set we have created a miniaturised version of the Tumbler that features some key functionality such as the iconic “inboard” front wheels, a split canopy and an enclosed cockpit that fits the Batman minfigure that comes in the set.
All the wheels still roll smoothly too. In some fan Tumbler creations the wheels may not move for the sake of looking good but these work just fine.
The cockpit was rather difficult to pull off given the limited pieces here as any LEGO builder will tell you that stuffing a minifigure into any build can be tricky given their odd proportions compared to regular bricks.
This is made more difficult by the fact that the cowl LEGO makes for its Batman minifigures is very tall because of the pointed ears. Batman still fits inside of the canopy and his arms even reach the two control sticks we put in there too, but he does need to lean back a bit.
With all that in mind please find, at the bottom of this story as an embed, the free instructions we’ve created so you too can turn the 76179 set into a Tumbler.
Before that here’s a gallery of what the final build looks like:
Again, this is built entirely from the pieces in the set and nothing else. The only caveat is that the final result is a bit on the flimsy side so expect some unintentional breakage here and there. Good thing LEGO is made to be put back together.
The biggest concession in this build is the back wheels. Another key feature of the Tumbler design is the double tyres at the back that are bigger than the ones on the front. As the original set only comes with four identical wheels and tyres this was an impossibility.
The other feature that sticks out a bit is the grey roof. We tried for a long time to design around this but couldn’t make anything that works without that big grey element sitting on top of the build. For those interested to see what the Tiny Tumbler looks like if you swap out a black piece from your own collection, click here.
We have also uploaded these instructions to Rebrickable, a site that focuses on fan creations that create new builds using only the pieces in a set.
This site is a fantastic resource for showing off just how versatile LEGO can be and what can be remade with the limited resources from a retail box.
The upload on Rebrickable also comes with a parts list. This can be seen as redundant as it only uses the pieces from the one set, but it should be remembered that LEGO sets aren’t sold forever and when they retire it’s sometimes cheaper to buy the individual pieces on their own than to track down a used copy. This can be useful if someone stumbles across this in the future and likes the look of this Tiny Tumbler on its own.
Finally we just want to acknowledge that we are fully aware of the fact that LEGO is currently selling not one but two official Tumbler sets in the forms of 76239 and 76240.
Aside from the fact that Batman & Selina Kyle Motorcycle Pursuit is far cheaper than both of these, it’s just been a fun challenge to see if two bikes could be turned into an approximation of the Tumbler.
And, as promised, here are the instructions:
