Tag Archives: The Spy Who Loved Me

Wet Nellie

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The second most famous Bond Car of all time is actually the best. Discuss. This is ‘Wet Nellie’, the Lotus Esprit S1 from 1977’s ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, that ‘transformed’ – by the push of a button – into a submarine. And nothing in the world is cooler than that.

Suggested by a reader, this is Paul Nicholson‘s fantastic recreation of the aquatic sports car, and not only does it look absolutely spot-on, it transforms too, with the wheels tucking in to reveal submarining fins, and the rear fins and propellers also folding out from within. Of course it wouldn’t be a classic Bond Car without some evasive weaponry too, and Paul’s Esprit duly replicates the front missile launcher, mine layer, and the rear missiles (that really fire) used by Roger Moore to escape Karl Stromberg’s henchmen.

It all adds up to something that would make a superb official LEGO set, and whilst LEGO don’t have a Lotus license, they do have a 007 one, with Paul’s model constructed in a matching scale to the 10262 Aston Martin DB5 ‘Goldfinger’ set. Plus how cool would it be to add Lotus to LEGO’s ever growing list of vehicle manufacturer partners?

There’s much more to see of Paul’s incredible creation at his Flickr photostream, where you can ask him to add it to LEGO Ideas where it would surely get 10,000 votes so we can all buy it one day. For what it’s worth TLCB would be at the front of the queue. Get wet via the link above.

Floatus

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Lego Lotus Esprit Submarine James Bond

James Bond might be a dark and moody character these days (as he was in the books too), but there was a time when spying was a little more… extravagant.

The height of 007 ridiculousness was the late ’70s, when Bond went into space, spent more time on one-liners than actually secret agenting, and – in 1977’s ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ – drove a sports car underwater.

It was a ludicrous scene, but one that cemented both Bond and Lotus into vehicular film royalty. Bond’s Lotus Esprit S1, modified by Q-branch, featured some rather ingenious optional extras, and – as Q always somehow seemed to manage – they were exactly what was required for the mission. What luck eh?

This brilliant recreation of the iconic movie car/submarine was suggested to us by a reader and comes from Luis Pena of Flickr. Luis’ ‘Wet Nellie’ as it was called (stop sniggering at the back!) includes all the cunning features of Q’s finest creation and there’s more to see on Flickr. Dive in via the link above.

Wedge

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Lego Lotus Esprit

The Lego Car Blog veteran Senator Chinchilla is back, with one of the office’s favourite cars, the brilliant Lotus Esprit. The Lotus though, came from one of the least appetising eras of automotive design. In the late ’70s cars were designed with rulers, and only rulers, interiors were made entirely from nasty grey plastic, and reliability – until the Japanese arrived at least – hovered somewhere between crap and really crap.

Somehow though, Lotus took all this and created one of the most desirable cars ever made. Penned by Giorgetto Giugiaro and his ruler the Series 1 Esprit launched in 1976, featuring a small 160bhp 4-cylinder engine attached to a Citroen gearbox. Not a recipe for speed then, but it looked fantastic and drove brilliantly. And if you were James Bond you could even tick ‘amphibious’ on the options list.

Four years and two series later the Esprit finally got the power it deserved, through the addition of the newfangled turbocharger, and a legend was born. Senator’s Lego model of the S1 is where it all started though, and you can see all the photos of his excellent recreation via Flickr at the link above.