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With the Esprit, Lotus entered the modern supercar market for the first time. It's exotic shape was good enough to extend production from 1976 all the way to 2004.

Featured in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, Roger Moore showcased the Esprit’s performance by eluding a chasing helicopter. Unlike the Astons of Bond’s past, the Lotus transformed into a submarine and jumped into the sea.

The Esprit story started much earlier when Giorgetto Giugiaro debuted the Ital Design M70 concept at the 1972 Turin Motor Show. This car’s ‘folded paper’ front end was radical, yet production worthy. Four years later,a production version debuted at the 1975 Paris Motor Show.

At the center of the new Esprit was a Type 907 inline-4 which produced 160 bhp in European markets and 140 bhp in America. This was mounted at 45 degrees in relation to the chassis to keep a low center of gravity. The engine was supported by a steel chassis and covered in a sleek fiberglass body.

Despite modest power of its initial specification, the styling and handling of the car kept it selling. By 1980, the Esprit was upgraded Series Two specification including a new front spoiler and rear valance.

The Spy Who Loved Me Lotus

A white 1976 Lotus Esprit from the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me, starring Roger Moore and Barbara Bach, was sold by Bonham's auctioneers on 1 December at its annual motoring Auction Sale at Olympia, in West London. The car fetched £111,500 GBP.

This Lotus Esprit is one of two complete, fully functioning cars that were used for the driving scenes in the motion picture ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, starring Roger Moore as secret agent James Bond, ‘007’. Approximately nine Esprits were used in different guises, but bar these two the rest were shells, some of which were used in filming the Esprit’s transformation into a submersible.

After the movie’s completion, the car was despatched Lotus and put back on the production line to be returned to standard trim and sold on. The mounting for the clock was removed, the seats and headrests returned to standard, the engine serviced and a black Lotus badge put on. This ex-Bond Esprit later passed into German ownership, its last long-term owner in that country carrying out a mechanical restoration.

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Story by Richard Owen & Bonhams