Monday 21st October 2013

Elon Musk buys the Bond Esprit...

... plans to make it electric, and fully amphibious. Seriously

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We couldn't have made this one up. At RM Auctions London sale last month, the Lotus Esprit S1 from The Spy Who Loved Me sold for £616,000. And who bought it? Elon Musk, he of Tesla CEO fame.

Moreover, in his second Lotus-based project, Musk plans to make the Esprit a fully functioning amphibious car. Using an electric powertrain. Brilliant.

He was reputedly disappointed that the car was just a prop in the film. Though it could be driven underwater, it required the driver to be in specific scuba gear. And Roger Moore wouldn't have looked quite so suave driving onto the beach in a wetsuit, would he?

Given the recent successes of Tesla with the Model S, it's a brave person that bets against Elon Musk, but then this idea is something else entirely. Can it be done? We'll be following the progress of this with some intrigue.

[Sources: Carscoops, pic by Tim Scott courtesy of RM]

[Dempsey1971]

Pleeeeeease let this be true.

[PascalBuyens]

Nice Definitely want to see that when it's finished

[herebebeasties]

An Esprit cabin has what, 4 cubic metres of air in it or something? Assuming you completely fill the rest of the available volume in the car that would usually be air (inside the sills, the boot, bonnet spaces, etc.) with water, that means you'd need to make the car weigh at least four tonnes to get it to sink instead of float. Hmmm.

[r11co]

As I said in another thread on this topic, it has been done already (and properly) by Top Gear.

This is a fail on so many levels - firstly ruining one of the most iconic and valuable film props of all time, and secondly being not the first to achieve the stated aim....

Someone have a word with Elon, please.

[Pat H]

That is a very, very expensive ornament.

[Ozzie Osmond]

That'll give him something to chew. They had real trouble making the film because the car has strong "negative lift" causing it to plummet straight to the bottom every time it tries to move forward under water.

In the film you can see that the four "dive planes" (which replace the wheels) have to be slanted in their fully up position the whole time in order to any footage at all.

Mr Tesla will soon be joining Mr Fisker if he's not careful.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Check this clip - from about 1 min 55 sec.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2-baX3zs-s

[Liquid Tuna]

It's a piece of piss - just needs some ballast over the rear wheels for grip.

[Thehandshake]

Don't believe the hype. He and Tesla became so big mainly thanks to massive tax credits. Let's see where Tesla ends up being in 5 years time.

[Hatchoo]

I can't believe he was "disappointed that the car was just a prop" he's not 12.

What makes this story particularly excellent is that "Elon Musk" is just the kind of name you'd expect to find in Mr Blofeld's rolodex.

[Robbie K]

This would have been a great April the 1st story....

[rejn]

Why on earth would he spend £600k on the real car from the film, then butcher it. Surely easier to buy an old Esprit shell for a few grand and butcher that...

Great on him for trying to recreate somethign most of us 70s kids would love to do!

[J4CKO]

Thehandshake said:

Don't believe the hype. He and Tesla became so big mainly thanks to massive tax credits. Let's see where Tesla ends up being in 5 years time.

I anticipate they will be doing very nicely, the model s is lovely and is getting good reviews, the electric car is gaining momentum, five years is a long time, I want to see more electric cars and admire what they have done, tax credits or not I suspect a lot of his own wealth has gone into it.

Fair play to him, must be difficult having a name like a 1970s aftershave.

[renaultgeek]

Thehandshake said:

Don't believe the hype. He and Tesla became so big mainly thanks to massive tax credits. Let's see where Tesla ends up being in 5 years time.

and what about paypal? was that a failure?

[Ian974]

They're well on their way to making a reusable space rocket with spacex as well, I've no doubt this will get done.
Is it turning into a competition between him and Branson though as to who would make the better Bond villan?

[dino ferrana]

I thought Tesla was only lasting on tax credits etc. but actually they paid their DoE loan back very early and selling California emissions credits was only 13% of their profit on the last set of financials. I went to Cali recently and there are a LOT of Tesla S around over there and it was the best selling car in Norway last month!

[4a4]

Ahh electricity and water - those two old friends from days gone by.

I can't imagine that he'll butcher the prop will he?!?

[Thehandshake]

renaultgeek said:

and what about paypal? was that a failure?

What about it. I'd suggest you read up on paypal's history

[Mark Wibble]

Is this *really* what he's doing? I can't see him being able to make anything that would remotely work like this without starting from scratch.

If he really is going to re-engineer it, it's a sad loss of a classic film prop, regardless of how useless it actually was!

[jetfire]

Thehandshake said:

Don't believe the hype. He and Tesla became so big mainly thanks to massive tax credits.

I thought Musk became big thanks to the ebay / paypal deal.

Following that up with SpaceX and Tesla certainly showed he wasn't just a one hit wonder.

He seems to have a solid grip on identifying markets and building products to meet those needs.

Perhaps Mr. Musk has simply identified an emerging market in electrified 1970s submersible sports cars.