One of the best-known automotive gadgets in the James Bond 007 cinematic universe is the submersible Lotus Esprit. The original Aston Martin DB5, which featured guns, tire-shredding knock-off hubs, bullet-proofing, and an ejector seat, was such a difficult thing to follow up that Roger Moore’s Bond really needed a memorable hero car for The Spy Who Loved Me.
And the freshly unveiled Lotus Esprit S1 was just the ticket. All wedge shape with a flat windshield and ground-hugging design, it was a real head-turner even in stock form in the late 1970s. For the iconic scene where it jumps off the end of a pier, hides its wheels inside its bodywork, and transforms into a torpedo-shooting submarine, Lotus provided seven bodyshells on top of the two driving cars that featured in the preceding helicopter chase. One of these was built into a functional submarine car, which reportedly was piloted by two stuntmen in scuba gear. That car was auctioned by RM Sotheby’s in 2013 and was said to have been bought by Elon Musk for $866,000.
Spacer
The history of the rest of the bodyshells is spotty at best. One is said to have been destroyed during filming, but the shells used to show off the hidden wheels and the periscope are lost in time. Despite the scenes being set in Italy, the filming of these underwater stunts took place in the Bahamas; a scrap metal company supplied the cranes to lift the equipment and props in and out of the water. For his trouble, the scrap metal company boss was gifted two Esprit shells, one of which is the car being auctioned in Monaco this month.
Having sat outside at the scrapyard for over a decade, the Esprit was bought by an Italian collector in 1988. With help from Lotus, including photographs and technical information, the shell was rebuilt into the specification in which it stands today, complete with the steering fins and propellers that it likely originally lacked. Coys auctioned it in Monaco in 2007, and it was bought by a Finnish entrepreneur, Jorma Lillbacka, who also owns the PowerPark fairground in Southern Ostrobothnia.
Mäkelä Auto Tuning, a well-known rally car restoration business that sourced the car from Monaco, also restored the car at that point and built a movable display stand for it. The Lotus went on display at Lillbacka’s shopping mall near PowerPark, where it remained for years. I managed to take a photo of it in 2015, and because this was 2015, I slapped all of the world’s Instagram filters on it.
Now, the Esprit is again back in Monaco, and again up for auction. MAT has done more recent work on it to bring it to showroom condition; inside, it’s the bare Esprit bodyshell that shows its movie prop history, with no interior or engine. Weighing around 800lbs, it’s lighter than a complete Lotus but likely still takes a careful push to wheel around any garage, shopping mall or living room.
That brings us to the question: what car would you display in your living room, as a static object?
I’ve often said the DeLorean is the sort of car that might be best on display instead of being daily driven, thanks to its various build quality challenges and meager power output, but the tangentially related Lotus Esprit is certainly a good alternative. This particular Esprit is expected to bring 200,000 to 300,000 Euros, or up to $345k; there are cheaper plastic-bodied cars you can bolt on a stand and admire from your couch.
Top graphic images: DepositPhotos.com; RM Sotheby’s
It’d have to be incredibly pretty and completely useless. Alfa 8C?
Oh, that’s an excellent choice!
I’m a simple guy; my living room is already peppered with Quatrelles in various scales (1/64 to 1/18). A 1:1 R4 body shell would be right at home there.
Either that or a Monica 560.
Dino 206 GT
I’ve long thought about having a combination living room / workshop, so that my cars would just be in my living room. I like that idea much more than just having a static basically dead car in my house.
A Duesenberg Mormon Meteor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_Meteor
I “just” want a media room set up like an indoor drive in with half a dozen classic cars for seating. Sometimes they’re convertibles for better viewing and surround sound, sometimes they’re not because it’s not an orgy if we’re in our own cars… I have weird dreams.
I think I would go through kit car route. Speedster and or a cobra. F5 818 and Daihatsu Copen would be neat too.
Cars are supposed to be driven, not turned into (ugly trailers or) indoor sculptures.
(model cars and posters are OK)
I used to have a sofa in my garage so I could sit and stare at the fully functional and often daily ridden ZXR400 I kept there.
If I’d had a bigger garage I could have stared at my cars too.
Yes, I can sit in the garage too, and enjoy looking at the beautiful machines.
Nothing wrong with that.
But a of the joy is knowing I can take them out and use them, as they are not just museum art pieces.
My new living room is going to have 15FT of built-in bookcases / lighted display shelves. So I expect to have my 3 dozen 1/18th scale cars, plus my smaller collection of 1/64th and 1/32nd scale cars displayed on them, along with some LEGO and model railroad this and that. I have a lovely HO model of a Pennsy GG-1 electric locomotive and a rake of Pennsy coaches that I won’t have a big enough railroad to run on that will look mighty nice on display.
As for a real car – if I am going to fantasize about having a living room big enough for such a thing, a ’62 Ferrari GTO of course.
The best choice.
“British cars can’t break down if they’re not driven”….as the owner of an old Mini and an MGB-GT, I beg to differ. 😉
I’d go with a Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona or an Aston Martin DB5. Maybe a Ford GT40 or Jag E-type; a car that’s pretty and naturally is a centerpiece.
Of course, having a car that valuable means big nerves whenever someone uses the living room for anything other than sitting still…
For a budget option, I’d choose an MGB, some sort of Triumph or NA Miata; all very whimsical cars that I think would fit well in a living room and the British cars can’t break down if they’re not driven
You know how people build a coffee table out of an engine block?
That, but instead of an engine block, a whole fully functional Austin Seven chassis.
1962 XKE…if I can find a way to get up the stairs.
“what car would you display in your living room, as a static object?”
Absolutely none unless that garage was also my only living space. If that were my situation I’d probably be staring at a musty, rusty, clapped out and very broken 30 yo Altima or Kia and contemplating the terrible choices that lead me to such a fate.
I think a type 35 Bugatti would fit.
If it’s my own money, a Kurtis Kraft midget would look nice.
Man, there are some very reasonably priced examples out there.
Pagani Huayra, pure art and craftsmanship from front to back, top to bottom, inside and out.
I always thought they looked weird but my work had one in bare carbon a few years ago and up close the detail is insane. All the weave facing the same direction but mirrored on the other side. I was like, ah, okay, I get it.
A matchbox car, so I actually have room for living in.
My living room is small so a Mazda suitcase car fits the bill. A whimsical little thing that doubles as a coffee table.
Austin-Healey Bugeye Sprite, the happiest car on earth.
Who doesn’t love that smile?!?!
A 1992 Honda Beat.
Because I actually do have it inside the house.
I rotate different cars in the house depending on the season, but right now it’s the Beat, and in a few weeks when it gets too hot to drive my 1964 Porsche 356 SC in Vegas, I’ll move that one in and take the Beat out.
Does the smell not bother you? I love cars, but I’m not interested in smelling rubber, oil, and other automotive scents inside my home.
No, never even occurred to me – it doesn’t leak oil or anything.
AC Cobra MkIII. But it couldn’t be a static display piece. The lounge would just be its parking space.
BMW 2002 Turbo in Chamonix White of course! Small and stunning.
One of the submarine Esprits is located in a gas station between Baker and Las Vegas – Terrible’s Road House in Jean, Nevada.
Mercedes W196R Streamliner. Achingly beautiful, looks fast sitting still, priceless, and not street legal. It’s better off in my living room than me trying to drive it anywhere.
A Youabian Puma in your living room!
(heh-heh-heh now you can’t un-think about it) (<rubs palms together> <evil madman laugh>) (april fools, two days late)