How much did Marty McFly’s Back to the Future 2 hoverboard sell for?

The hoverboard that was used by Marty McFly in the movie Back to the Future II went up for auction in September 2021 where it fetched an eye-watering $501,200 making it the most expensive hoverboard in the world.

The irony is, the Marty McFly Back to the Future 2 hoverboard is just a film prop. It doesn’t hover as shown in the film, because that’s a special effect. It hasn’t even got wheels. There’s not much you can do with it, aside from showing your friends and declaring that you own the Back to the Future 2 hoverboard.

The Mattell hoverboard used in the movie, was signed by Michael J. Fox who played Marty and co-star Thomas F. Wilson who was Biff.

In the film, where Marty rides the hoverboard, which seems to float through the air, he journeys to 2015 and 1955.

There is a massive premium on film props, depending on the popularity of the movie in question – Will Ferrell’s costume from Elf went for $300,000 and Russell Crowe’s Gladiator helmet sold for a similar sum.

For those who can’t quite afford the half a million dollars it costs to buy the real Back to the Future 2 hoverboard, you can buy a scaled replica from fun.co.uk for £53.99. It looks exactly like the one that Marty McFly rode, only it doesn’t hover or do anything, aside from look just like the real-life movie prop.

It comes with fake hoverplates on the underside of the board and is made of plastic. You can either hang it on your wall, or walk around with it tucked under your arm, and if anyone asks, tell them it’s the real deal!

At the moment, the technology that saw Marty’s hoverboard fly through the air, doesn’t exist. However, there is a company called Hendo Hover that attempting to harness something called Magnetic Field Architecture™, also known as MFA.

Hendo Hover are trying to make a hoverboard just like Marty’s, that hovers above the ground. To do this, they have envisaged two disc like engines that exert an opposing magnetic field onto the ground, causing the board to lift.

It is made for humans to ride, but there are also plans to utilise them using remote control. The hovering hoverboard isn’t quite a reality yet, but Hendo Hover promise that it will be soon – take a look at this video of Tony Hawk riding a Hendo Hoverboard

An engineer based in Canada called Catalin Alexandru Duru, has also invented a floating hoverboard, which is a drone in the shape of a board, that can support the weight of a human while hovering.

Duru has broken a record on his hoverboard, travelling 275.9 metres, the longest distance travelled on a truly floating hoverboard.

He says: “I am the first man to fly and create a working prototype. I will showcase that stable flight can be achieved with a machine one can stand on and control with their feet, just like in the move, Back to the Future Part II. In our case, the machine is propeller based.”