Elon Musk To Transform The 007 Lotus Esprit “Submarine Car”

The iconic Lotus Esprit submarine car that featured in the 1977 Bond film, The Spy Who Loved Me, has been snatched up by no other than Tesla’s Elon Musk.

News has surfaced that Musk won the auction for the car with a bid of $866,000. What is even more interesting is Musk’s plan for the said vehicle.

Through Jalopnik he said: “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.”

Elon Musk has quite a job on his hands, as making an electric submarine that can also drive on land is no mean feat. The engineer team will need to find a way of making the car safely transform from a land car to a sea vessel capable of dealing with salt water. Another challenge will be overcoming the natural downforce created by the Lotus’ bodywork, which sends the vehicle sinking to the sea floor.

However, seeing as this is Elon Musk we’re talking about, aka Tony Stark, perhaps it’s not such a difficult task after all.

[Image via digital trends]

SOURCE: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/elon-musk-buys-007-submarine-car/