The slick looking submarine car used in the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me has been sold at auction for a whopping $967,120. Not bad, considering that the “car” can’t even be driven on dry land.
According to auction reports, the custom Lotus Esprit was the subject of a fierce battle until a phone bidder eventually came out the winner at RM Auctions in Battersea, South-West London.
The Lotus was nicknamed 'Wet Nellie' during filming and was constructed by Perry Oceanographic, specifically for the filming of the movie’s underwater chase scenes.
Unlike a conventional “dry” submarine, Wet Nellie utilized a flooded cockpit for neutral buoyancy, requiring its operators to wear SCUBA gear.
The previous owner, who has chosen to stay anonymous, found the car after buying a storage container in Long Island back in 1989.
It’s believed the Lotus was left in storage by the production company which paid for the container for over a decade. However, when the payment ran out and nobody came to collect it, the container was put up for sale.
The guy who bought the storage locker didn't realize that he had just purchased one of the most iconic movie cars of the era since he had aparently spent the last two decades living under a rock and had never seen a Bond film.
But, things started to look up as he towed the car home on a trailer and a passing motorist spotted the vehicle and let him know what he had found.