007’s Lotus Esprit Submarine Car for sale at auction

American dotcom millionaire Elon Musk has admitted he blew nearly $900,000 on the Lotus Esprit Submarine Car from the James Bond 007 film The Spy Who Loved Me. The car was sold by RM Auctions but only in the past few hours has the identity of its buyer become known. Musk is the co-founder of online payment scheme Paypal and has gone on to launch Tesla Motors, the electric car specialist.
Now he's spent $866,000 on the amazing aquatic Lotus Esprit - one of the most famous cars ever to grace the silver screen. He told Jalopnik: ' It was amazing as a little kid in South Africa to watch James Bond in 'The Spy Who Loved Me' drive his Lotus Esprit off a pier, press a button and have it transform into a submarine underwater. I was disappointed to learn that it can't actually transform. What I'm going to do is upgrade it with a Tesla electric powertrain and try to make it transform for real.

 For an international man of mystery, we know a remarkable amount about James Bond. How he takes his Martini, for example. What kind of gun he prefers. And his weakness for both flash women and fast motors. Or should that be the other way round? In 1977 film, The Spy Who Loved Me, the famous Aston Martin DB5 is nowhere to be seen, however. Instead, 007, played by Roger Moore, finds himself slumming it at the wheel of a Lotus Esprit – arguably the most exciting sports car at that moment in time. Hard life, being an MI6 agent. 

 In the film, Commander Bond and beautiful love interest Major Anya Amasova, a KGB agent (naturally) played by Barbara Bach, find themselves being pursed along a road in Sardinia by a rocket-toting motorcycle sidecar. This chase sequence rapidly evolves to include a Ford Granada co-piloted by metal-toothed hench-villain, Jaws, and then a helicopter equipped with machine guns. Despite the Lotus’ legendary handling, Bond can’t quite shake them on the asphalt, so launches the Esprit off the end of a pier and into the sea instead.


Next comes one of the most magical moments in any action movie, ever, as instead of sinking to the bottom, 007 calmly flips a few switches and the Lotus transforms into a submarine. The sequence includes the wheels folding up into the arches, the resulting holes closing and dive planes emerging. In reality, this required two different Esprit shells (one for the wheels and one for the fins), plus a third for the moment a rocket is fired out of the rear screen to destroy the helicopter that’s still circling above them… Then the submarine motors off serenely into the deeper blue, on its way to find more baddies.