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The original Lotus Esprit from the 1977 James Bond
film "The Spy Who Loved Me" went up for auction in
London today...
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007's Lotus Esprit Auctioned
1st December 2008
The white 1976 Lotus
Esprit from the 1977 James Bond film "The
Spy Who Loved Me", starring Roger
Moore and Barbara Bach,
was sold by the international auctioneers Bonhams on Monday 1st
December at its annual motoring Auction Sale at Olympia, in West
London. The vehicle is one of two Lotus cars driven in the film
by 007. It turns into an amphibious car for the movie, driven
both on land and underwater. The Esprit comes complete with a
surface-to-air-missile button on the gearstick.
When the hammer finally fell, the car sold for £111,500
($65,936 dollars). Bonhams confirmed the car was bought by a
private US collector who was bidding by telephone. The Lotus
Esprit had been expected to fetch as much as £120,000 by
the auction house. The winning bidder wished to remain anonymous,
but described himself as a collector from Atlanta, and "a
Lotus and James Bond aficionado." A Bonhams spokesman said: "We
are delighted with the result and delighted that it attracted
worldwide attention."
Bond drives the car toward the ocean in Sardinia in the film
- it is the car in which Q instructs Bond about its various functions.
After the 1977 movie was completed, the current car was returned
to the Lotus factory, where it was turned back into a production-line
model and eventually found its way to Germany. Last year, the
Esprit’s European owner commissioned the original trimmer
Nick Fulcher to have the “Q specification” Bond interior
recreated by Lotus.
According to the director of engineering
at Lotus Cars, Roger Becker, who drove it during the car chases
in the The Spy Who Loved Me, this is the only one of the two
fully functioning Esprits to be fitted with the missile launch
button on the gear lever and the revised housing for the clock/periscope
screen. Using a sister car, models and seven Lotus body shells,
the director shows the Esprit growing fins and becoming a submarine.
Bonhams sold the car’s sister in 1998 for a hammer price
of 34,000 pounds, before fees.
Also at the auction, another Bond-related item
was the number plate AU1, the registration borne by arch-villain
Auric Goldfinger's
Rolls-Royce Phantom
III in the classic 1964 adventure starring
Sean Connery. AU1 was issued in Nottingham in 1903 and remained
in the original holder's family until the mid-1990s. Offered
with
a
V778 retention
certificate, the registration was estimated at £80,000
to £100,000 - but no bidders managed to reach the reserve
price.
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