Lotus Esprit – The Spy Who Loved Me

Published: 20 October 2008 Updated: 26 January 2015

Ranking: 5       

Year of release: 1977

The car: Lotus Esprit

Why it’s special: Jaws, a white Lotus Espirt, Barbara Bach and some cheesy one-liners from Roger Moore made a great Bond film

Best bit: Bond blowing up the helicopter with Barbara Bach by his side.

Pub fact: When 007 drives his Lotus off the pier you can see the underbody is that of a normal car, but it’s fully sealed once the car is underwater.

Plot overview: When a British and Russian nuclear sub go missing, secret agent James Bond teams up with his USSR counterpart Major Anya Amasova to find them. The investigation leads them to billionaire shipping magnate Karl Stromberg, who has a crackpot scheme to destroy life on the Earth’s surface and create an undersea kingdom.

For: It’s an underwater car

Against: Continuity – the chase sequence was set in Sardinia, but the underwater scenes were filmed in the Bahamas. You can tell by the fish!

CAR verdict: The best Q-equipped Bond car of all time, but not 007’s favourite.

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By Ben Pulman

Ex-CAR editor-at-large

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