007 Relations

Company vehicle

Vehicle Bond drives

Notes

• Appearances
• Facts
• After Filming
• Trivia

Appearances

The Lotus Esprit is first seen when Q drives it off the ferry in Sardinia. Q then gives Bond instructions about the car. Bond and Major Anya Amasova drives to Stombergs residens for a meeting, They visit Stromberg in his underwater lair, Atlantis. When returning to shore they drives off in the Lotus. But they are chased by Strombergs henchmen, a motorcyclist using his rocket sidecar, Jaws in a car and one of Strombergs helicopters with machine guns. Thanks to all Q's extras they evade them all. To evade the helicopter Bond drives the car off a pier into the sea where it transforms to a submarine. And the helicopter is shot down with an sea-to-air missile.

Facts

The Lotus Esprit S1 was in production from 1975 to 1980 and a total of 718 was produced.

Lotus provided two roadcars and 6 bodyshells for filming. One of these shells was used for the submarine 'car'.
Chassis no 76070122G was the road car in the chase.
The other car, the one that Q presents to Bond in Sardinia, has chassis no. 76090187G, and engine no. 760913101. It was both a road car and camera car. As the high speed chase required a camera car that could follow the Esprit, the other Esprit was the obvious choice,

The transformation to submarine was rather complicated. It required different shells to give the illusion of the Esprit transforming. So each shell was only equipped to do parts of the transition.

The submarine was equipped with 4 electric motores and operated by a diver.

After filming

The first road car was sold by Lotus in July 1998 at an auction for GBP 32.935. It has covered aproximately 19.000 miles. It was bought by Peter Nelson, at the time owner of the 'Cars of the Starts' museum Bond department in Keswick, UK. In 2011 the whole collection was sold to Michael Dezer to be part of this car collection in Miami. Later in 2019 the Bond cars was moved to Dezerland Park in Orlando.

The second road car was returned to Lotus and put back on the production line. It was rebuild to Lotus Esprit standard. It ended up in Germany. It ended up in UK and was restored back to the original film state. In December 2008 it was sold by Bonham's auctioneers for GBP 111.500.

The submarine body has an interesting story. It was acquired by the US Lotus distributor and used for display. In 1979 the body was put into storage in an container on Long Island and it dissappeared for years. In 1989 a couple paid USD 100 for an unclaimed storage container and found the vehicle covered up by blankets. They have never seen a James Bond film, didn't know what it was and how valuable.
When they learned what it was, it was cosmetically restored. Then it was exhibited at museums and events in the next 24 years. In 2013 it was up for auction at Sotheby's in London and was sold for GBP 616.000 (USD 997.000) to an at the time anonymous buyer.
It was later revealed that the buyer was Elon Musk. In November 2019 Elon Musk tweeted that the new Cybertruck was partly influenced by the Lotus Esprit S1.

Trivia

The submarine 'car' was called 'Wet Nellie' on the set as a homage to the gyrocopter 'Little Nellie' in You Only Live Twice.

When Lotus manager Don McLaughian, became aware of preparations for a new James Bond film. He parked a Lotus Esprit pre-series model in front of Pinewood Studion in London. The goal was to catch the attention of the producers. And we know now that the trick worked.

The cement sprayed to the windscreen of the chasing Taunus, was gray oatmeal - not cement.

The underwater scenes was filmed in the Bahamas and in the diving pool at Pinewood Studios.

The Esprit around the Atlantis is a remote controlled 1:4 scale model.

The Esprit S1 was presented the first time at the Earls Court Motor Show in London in 1975.

One of the shells is owned by the Ian Fleming Foundation.

Talking about scale models: The Nautilus Drydocks LLC sells a 1:8 scale model of the Lotus Submarine. It's available as a 3D STL print file or a 3D resin kit. See their website for details.

Technical Data

• Manufacturer: Lotus (UK)
• Model: Esprit S1
• Year: 1977
• Engine: 2,0L 16V Inline 4-cyl DOH (S1 1.973 cc, S3 2.174cc)
• Power: 160 bhp @ 6.200 rpm
• Transmission: 5-Speed manual
• Steering: Rack & pinion
• Brakes: Discs w/ Vacuum Assist
• Unladen weight: 1.066 kg (2.350 lbs)
• Wheelbase: 2.438mm (96.0 in)
• Length: 4.191mm (165.0 in)
• Width: 1.867mm (73.5 in)
• Height: 1.105mm (43.5 in)
• Performance: Max. speed 135 mph
  0 - 60: 8.4 sec.
• Colour: White
• Numberplate: PPW 306R

Gadgets

• Able to transform to a submarine
• Periscope
• Torpedoes
• Sea-to-air missile
• Deptcharges (mines)
• Smokescreens (both land, cement and sea, ink)

Sources and Links

The Essential Bond, Lee Pfeiffer & Dave Worrall, Boxtree, 2000, page 110.

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