James Bond Underwater Car

[styromaniac]

A modeling buddy of mine emailed me saying that he was in a Barnes and Noble within the last day or so and saw a modeling magazine with a pic of James Bonds underwater car on the cover, thought I might be interested. So I popped into my local Barnes and Noble and it looks like they cleared the magazine shelf of any issues related to scale modeling....they usually have at least 3 or 4 issues of Fine Scale Modeler,  Airfix and a couple of other primarily aviation or armor type modeling magazines on the rack. Anybody else see something with the Bond Lotus Espirit on the cover in the last month or two? 

Edited September 14, 2020 by styromaniac

[styromaniac]

Never mind...think I found out what it is. It's a Kalmbach Publishing Special Spring 2020 issue of Fine Scale Modeler titled "Damaged- Weathered & Worn". Cover article is "Paint Bond's Lotus Sub. I don't think my local Barnes and Noble ever had it on the rack.

[iamsuperdan]

Probably the Fujimi kit?

 

 

[Pete75]

+1 Fujimi kit. They released the sub version and the land version of the Lotus a short time apart around about 2016. I'm currently doing the latter.

[OldNYJim]

Got inspired by this thread to look at those kits on eBay...and found this ?

[Pete J.]

A side story about the original.  My new wife and I were on our honeymoon in 1978 in the Bahamas and were cruising around one of the back roads on a rented scooter(not really a smart thing to do, but we were young) and came across one of the originals, on a pile of other cars in a junkyard.  Some where I have a photo I took of it with my trusty kodak 110. ? 

[NYLIBUD]

Always liked this car...Lotus,

[ChrisBcritter]

Yep - and it's a real blast to drive!

[OldNYJim]

32 minutes ago, ChrisBcritter said:

Yep - and it's a real blast to drive!

Wasn’t that same car also metallic red in one of the movies?  Bond certainly liked his Lotuses when he was Roger Moore

[Brian Austin]

So where does the smooth bottom come from when the car transforms into the sub?  :-)

Very strange instance of licensing regarding the black livery of the model.

[SSNJim]

1 hour ago, Brian Austin said:

So where does the smooth bottom come from when the car transforms into the sub?  :-)

The same place as the propulsion/rudder unit at the rear.

[alan barton]

There was an episode of American Restorations where they did a resto on one of the Bond Lotus subs.  Gave you some interesting insight into the details. I recall it was a dummy that was just pushed around as needed.

Cheers

Alan

[Oldcarfan27]

On 9/14/2020 at 11:02 PM, Pete J. said:

A side story about the original.  My new wife and I were on our honeymoon in 1978 in the Bahamas and were cruising around one of the back roads on a rented scooter(not really a smart thing to do, but we were young) and came across one of the originals, on a pile of other cars in a junkyard.  Some where I have a photo I took of it with my trusty kodak 110. ? 

I hope you find that picture - would love to see it!

Hard to believe a Bond car ended up in a junkyard. 

[Mike999]

1 hour ago, Oldcarfan27 said:

I hope you find that picture - would love to see it!

Hard to believe a Bond car ended up in a junkyard. 

The original "Goldfinger" Aston-Martin DB-5 ended up being sold as a used car.  From Aston-Martin's own used car lot, no less.  After the movie hoopla died down, in 1968 the DB-5 went back to Aston.  They stripped out all the 007 toys, and had to weld in a whole new roof to get rid of the "ejection hatch." 

In August 2019, a replica of that DB-5 sold for $6.4 million at a Sotheby auction in California.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/history-of-james-bond-aston-martin-db5-most-famous-car-in-the-world/

[afx]

On 9/19/2020 at 11:19 PM, alan barton said:

There was an episode of American Restorations where they did a resto on one of the Bond Lotus subs.  Gave you some interesting insight into the details. I recall it was a dummy that was just pushed around as needed.

Cheers

Alan

 

[afx]

 

[Brian Austin]

FWIW, the Bond sub cars were also profiled in one episode of AutoBiography series on MotorTrend TV.

 

https://www.motortrendondemand.com/detail/the-case-of-the-missing-movie-cars/23246/

 

(The episode does not appear to be available on YouTube or Vimeo at the moment.)