But, that's how the Batmobile was born, you see. Before Batman became Batman, he was a young wrench turner who went out for a morning hunt on a crabby old neighbor's property. The old man was never much given to words. Not until Bruce Wayne asks him about the mysterious chassis in his woods? Charles McNider could still see in those days and he and Bruce's father were friends. That chassis would come in handy in future...
It takes imagination to write comics and sometimes, imagination to take them a little farther. Would be a fun story for our Story Thread.
...actually, that's a good point. It screws with established continuity, but frankly, the Batman Beyond continuity is kind of ridiculous anyway.
Bruce Wayne, as Batman, had always kept his body toned to the height of human perfection. When he was 25, that made him an explosive fighter. When he was 35, however, that made him merely a reasonably proficient fighter. When he turned 50, even he began to realize his fight against crime was rapidly going downhill. The most potent 50 year old on Earth was still much better suited to fighting ill-kept muggers than to dodging the undodgeable Omega Beam or surviving falls from rooftops.
Thus, an aging Bruce Wayne decommissioned most of his Bat-gear. The bulk of it wound up in a Wayne Enterprises-sponsored Batmuseum, which provided an excellent tax advantage. One Batmobile in particular, however, stood out.
"This is better suited for some Tim Burton trash than it is my career," an aging Batman growled reproachfully at it. The grizzled crime fighter thus took it out into the woods around Stately Wayne Manor and scrapped it, taking the engine, thruster systems, and most of its vital parts with it.
That's where the gutted Batmobile sat as the months went by. Rain fell on the vehicle's carcass, repelled by the aging but advanced-for-its-era hydrophobic paint. Snow was similarly repelled, but more slowly as it piled up. A raccoon found refuge in the upholstered pilot's seat, whelping a litter of pups therein.
And the Batmobile continued to sit.
The first two years went by in similar fashion. At least, they did...until it was stumbled on by a valiant 11 year old explorer. The woods around Stately Wayne Manor proved too great a temptation to avoid. His parents' warnings about going into the thick, unnavigable woods ringing in his ears, he started his walk in. After 10 minutes, and a truly terrifying few seconds where he began to wonder if he was going in circles, he stumbled across the Batmobile's carcass.
And realized, if he could get it back up and running, he would have a truly killer first car. In five years.