Elon Musk Buys James Bond’s Submarine Car, Plans to Make It Actually Work

Elon Musk Jame Bond submarine car

At an auction in September, entrepreneur Elon Musk paid $920,167 for a Lotus Esprit submarine prop car from the 1977 James Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me. Unlike the gadget-filled car depicted in the film, the prop car does not work as an automobile and only operates underwater as a wet submersible (thus requiring passengers to use scuba gear). Yesterday, Musk announced plans to make James Bond’s car a reality by turning the prop car into a working, transformable submarine car with a Tesla electric powertrain. In his own words:

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.

photo by Tim Scott via RM Auctions

via Jalopnik

Thanks David Holmes!

E.D.W. Lynch
E.D.W. Lynch

Writer and humor generalist on the Internet and on Facebook.