Lotus Esprit submarine from The Spy Who Loved Me has sold for £616,000 at RM Auction's London sale

RM Auctions sold the ‘007’ Lotus Esprit submarine for £616,000 in Battersea, London on Monday night, as part of its annual ‘Automobiles of London’ sale.

The car that upstaged Roger Moore in the 1976 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me attracted non-stop attention from film crews throughout the day of viewing up to the sale. The ‘Esprit’ – a glassfibre shell built into functioning submarine, one of six different types used in filming, performed the underwater stunts including the fight sequence.

After the film wrapped it toured various car shows before being stored in New York, and in 1989 had been sold for 0 in a blind auction. As found, it retains its ballast tanks and plumbing, oxygen masks and bank of four battery-powered propellers under the tail.

It was sold to an undisclosed bidder, but arch car collector and DJ Chris Evans was spotted showing a keen interest in it earlier in the day. Though it sold under its ambitious £650,000-950,000 estimate, the artefact fetched almost five times the price of the last roadgoing ‘007’ Esprit film car sold at auction, that went to an American buyer for £111,500 when offered by Bonhams at Olympia in 2008: ‘Never underestimate the ongoing appeal of the 007 legacy,’ said RM specialist Don Rose.