A couple paid 100 dollars for the Lotus Esprit that inspired the Tesla Cybertruck

The Lotus Esprit that inspired the Tesla Cybertruck was purchased at an auction for around 100 dollars. What this couple did not expect is that years later they would earn a lot of money from that strange vehicle.

In 2013, Tesla CEO Elon Musk caused a great stir when he revealed that he had bought the submarine Lotus Esprit from the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.

Fast forward to late 2019, when the entrepreneur revealed that the controversial Tesla Cybertruck had been partly inspired by the design of James Bond’s Lotus Esprit.

After this, CNBC looked into the matter and uncovered interesting information about the prop from the British film and its life before Musk.

The Tesla Cybertruck was inspired by the legendary Lotus Esprit

In 1989, a couple from Long Island, New York, attended a blind auction where they paid approximately $100 for an unclaimed storage unit. Neither they nor the seller had any idea what it contained. You can probably guess where this is going: inside the storage unit was the 1976 Lotus Esprit that had been used in The Spy Who Loved Me. Yes, the couple had just paid $100 for a piece of Hollywood history.

A total of eight Lotus Esprits were used during filming, and the unit bought by the couple was the only one filmed during the underwater scenes. According to Doug Redenius, co-founder of the Ian Fleming Foundation, who authenticated the car, the couple had never seen a Bond film and “didn’t know how valuable their discovery was.”

Intending to repair the car, the couple loaded it onto a truck and headed home when nearby truckers contacted them over CB radio about the car they were carrying and how special it was.

Armed with this knowledge, the couple cosmetically restored it and displayed it at numerous exhibitions before it was auctioned in 2013. It was later sold to a secret buyer for $997,000, and that secret buyer turned out to be Elon Musk.

Upon buying the car, Elon Musk said he would equip it with a Tesla powertrain and try to transform it from a tram into a mini submarine, as happened in the film. So far, there is no news about the progress he has made with this plan.