LEGO is heading back to Tim Burton’s Gotham with a premium Batman Returns Batmobile set that combines one of superhero cinema’s most distinctive cars with a feature fans have wanted to see in brick form for years: the vehicle’s sudden transformation into the Batmissile.

The LEGO DC Batman: Batman Returns Batmobile, set number 76355, arrives first for LEGO Insiders on September 1, before going on general sale September 4. It is an 18+ display set with 2,269 pieces, a $229.99 US price tag, and a fairly ambitious brief: recreate the long, low, jet-black monster car from the 1992 film while preserving the moment where Batman sheds most of it to escape in a narrower rocket-like vehicle.

For Batman fans, the appeal is not subtle. The Batmobile from Batman Returns remains one of the stranger and more memorable designs ever put on screen: part Art Deco limousine, part jet aircraft, and part gothic fantasy. Its exaggerated fenders, elongated nose, exposed rear turbine and near-black silhouette suited Burton’s snowbound Gotham perfectly. It was never designed to look sensible in a real-world automotive sense. That is precisely why it works.

LEGO has recreated that theatrical shape at a substantial scale. The finished model measures more than 17 inches long, 6.5 inches wide and 4 inches high, putting it firmly in the category of shelf display piece rather than toy box Batmobile. The company says the build includes the vehicle’s opening canopy, cockpit detailing, jet turbine rear end and stretched bodywork, along with six hidden Easter eggs tied to the film. One of those references is the Penguin’s tracking device, a nice touch for people who remember how Danny DeVito’s Oswald Cobblepot briefly took control of Batman’s car.

The real draw, though, is the transformation mechanism.

At the press of a button, the model’s side panels release and a lift-arm system exposes the compact Batmissile concealed inside. In the film, Batman uses the Batmissile escape mode to squeeze through a narrow alley after the Penguin takes over the Batmobile. It is one of those deeply impractical movie-car ideas that becomes more entertaining because the film commits to it completely. LEGO says this is the first time one of its Batmobile models has reproduced that transformation, allowing builders to display the set either as the full vehicle or in its stripped-down escape configuration.

That function also helps distinguish set 76355 from LEGO’s growing line of Batman collectibles. Recent adult-focused Batman releases have often leaned hard into static display appeal: detailed vehicles, masks, skyline scenes and character models designed for fans who may have grown up with DC films, comics or animated series. This one still has the proportions and price of a collector’s piece, but it has a central mechanical gimmick that gives the finished build a little more personality than a conventional display car.

LEGO says its designers created three new elements specifically for this project, including a new cowl for the included Batman minifigure. The exclusive figure also gets a newly molded cape and its own display stand bearing the Batman Returns logo. It is a small inclusion next to a 2,269-piece car, but it matters: for a set so closely tied to Michael Keaton’s portrayal of Bruce Wayne, a generic Batman figure would have felt like a missed opportunity.

At $229.99, this is not an impulse purchase, and it is not trying to be. LEGO is clearly aiming at the overlap between adult builders, film-prop collectors and longtime Batman fans – the audience that sees Burton’s two Batman films not just as early comic-book blockbusters, but as a specific visual era with its own identity. The design language of 1989’s Batman and 1992’s Batman Returns has remained unusually durable, from the gothic architecture to the black-and-gold costuming and the exaggerated machinery that looked pulled from a nightmare-industrial version of the 1930s.

The timing is also useful for collectors who have watched Batman merchandise become increasingly fragmented across films, shows, games and comic continuities. Rather than chasing the newest screen version of the character, this set picks a singular artifact from a three-decade-old movie and treats it with the seriousness of a model kit. The Batmobile is immediately recognizable even without a Batman logo attached to it, which is more than can be said for most fictional cars.

For builders, that means the question is less about whether they need another LEGO Batman set and more about which era of Batman they want on the shelf. The 1989 and Batman Returns aesthetic has always been about objects with presence: the cowl, the signal, the cathedral skyline and, of course, the Batmobile. This model seems designed to deliver that presence, then reward anyone willing to press the button and watch it shed its armor.

LEGO Insiders will be able to buy the Batman Returns Batmobile on September 1 through LEGO Stores and LEGO’s online store, with wider availability beginning September 4.