This prop used to live ...
... a couple doors off the North East corner of Charleston & El Camino in Palo Alto. Fun to look at, but bloody useless.
One wonders at the mentality of the idiot purchasing the toy for that kind of green.
The James Bond submarine car used in The Spy Who Loved Me has sold at auction in Blighty for £550,000. James Bond submarine Lotus Esprit car Despite the over half-million price tag for the Lotus Esprit – which isn't road-worthy – it failed to reach the guide price expected by RM Auctions of between £650,000 and £950,000, the …
jake, neither would I have paid that much or in fact any money for this vehicle. Then again, I guess over the years you have invested quite a bit of dosh in cars. So did I, because I like driving, racing them. Other people pay millions of quid for a rotting shark just because it was conceived by a certain Damien H.
People value all kinds of different things; things that may appear utter useless to everybody else. No reason to become snotty because of that.
"One wonders at the mentality of the idiot purchasing the toy for that kind of green."
If I had that kind of money I wouldn't stop at the car, i would want a copy of Stromberg's Lair in The Spy Who Loved Me..
These are cult symbols, they belonged to every young boys dream, James Bond was a "National Hero", he exemplified a world of fantasy, of the superich, he glorified the Spy world and even the bad guys, he was a ladies man. He was/is a living myth.. Why would we not want to be part of that..
Lighten up Jake, you are allowed to have some fun too.
Another moronic post from Jake.
Some people have lots of money - more than they know what to do with. Those are the sort of people who buy things like this. For fun. Not your sort of fun, their sort of fun. The sort of fun that doesn't involve get plastered and barfing up every Saturday night. There are many many example of people buying things like this, and I can pretty much guarantee than almost NONE of them are idiots, otherwise they wouldn't be able to afford the things in the first place. For example, Chris Evans owns a number of very expensive cars (that make this look cheap). He is a rich man, off his own back, and certainly not an idiot. And he has had the amount of fun that would take your fun, beat it up, piss on it, then throw it in the corner.
The only idiot here is you, Jake. Fun is in the eye of the beholder.
Another piece of quality trolling from Jake the basement dweller, all it needed was a reference to how your old Nokia still got a signal when you took the sub on a test run
Say Hi to your mom for me, I’m sure she still has fond memories (as long as she’s stayed off the drugs)
im sure this was on display at beulieu some time ago. i am not so sure there was only one made i vaguely remember reading somewhere three used for filming. could be wrong.
550k for a functioning submarine doesnt sound to bad, but 550k for a non functioning esprit nah to much.but some one will like it for what it is I would like to think its reached its maximum price now though.
Collectible objects don't really have an ultimate maximum value. Some will go in and out of fashion, and their prices will reflect those fluctuations, and there's generally a period of time when the object(s) and the mystique surrounding them will be forgotten or lost, but sooner or later they are resurrected and have a higher value due to scarcity.
Unique items are weird anyway. There's little financial opportunity in buying most unique things (art being an exception) it's all about emotion. The buyer of this thing decided it was worth what he paid because he liked it. Most things that are truly unique are often "priceless" by virtue of the fact there's nothing to compare it to for valuation. It's worth what someone will pay for it and not a penny more. Scarce objects create their own micro-markets and the accompanying market competition drives the prices up for all of them far, far beyond what one could expect to get for a unique item. They're far easier to sell as well so there's a liquidity component to consider as well.
Higher end auction catalogs are notoriously liberal in their estimates. It is good for the auction house that way as their fees are calcuated as a percentage of the sale price. They attempt to run up the final price by marketing it as worth more than it should be and trying to generate interest in those looking for a deal or investment (even wealthy people look at price tags).
That's why you often hear news report that "Item (x) sells for far more than estimate", it generally doesn't work that way and when it does it's a big deal.
It is a real submersible that looks like a Lotus Esprit and can actually be driven underwater (as intimated in the article when it referred to it being driven by Don Griffin).
IIRC the film used 3 different versions of the Esprit, real Esprits, a static prop for the wheel folding scene, and this submersible.
I think the car used for the beach scene was a real, stripped down (no engine, etc) Esprit that was pulled up the beach by a cable.
ISTR something similar for other vehicles in one of those "behind the scenes" things. The producers said there was no way to get all the toys into one system, so they'd have one model with rocket launchers, another with extra propulsion/jets so it could fly/glide, another with a smoke dispenser etc and swap them for scenes.
I can "drive" a bicycle under water with scuba gear too, that doesn't make it a submarine. Now if you could sit in it without the need to breath canned air, then yes, it would be a submarine and maybe even worth the money. I'm guessing at most this is a neutrally buoyant mockup made from a hacked up Lotus. It's real purpose is to show it to your "friends" and say "I own the 007 submarine, see." If they think that it's worth all that money, then so be it. Must be nice to have that much disposable income.
I loved that film as a lad. Loved the way the Esprit changed into submarine and still think they are great looking if slightly dated. I have never owed or driven a Lotus and no longer drive like the World's road are my racetrack, but once upon a time, a mid engined, high power to weight ratio car like that was my dream. I'm now boring and prefer a practical estate-sofa which gets me there in comfort.
A 1967 Chevrolet Corvette convertible was sold at a Dallas auction Tuesday for $3.4 million, the highest price ever paid for a Corvette at auction.
I would have guessed a car in the UK with waterproof electrics would have fetched a price more in line with a leaky old Corvette. Heh.
People who enjoy underpowered two-seater 3,500 pound plastic turtles with no trunk (boot, to you brits) are completely illogical. Bless 'em.
On the other had ... A UK car with decent electrics from that era? Don't get me wrong, I love mine ... But JEEBUS they are a pain in the ass occasionally!
Beer, because when discussing (NOT DRIVING!) cars, you've gotta have one :-)