Lotus

The Lotus car company made two significant appearances in the Bond films.  Lotus cars represent excellence of British hand built cars from Hethel, UK.  Starting up as a small automotive manufacturer after World War II, Lotus continued to produce a product of passion, individuality, fun, and gritty determination to a small segment of the market on a continuous basis for eight generations.  The company moto is “simplify, then add lightness” as quoted from the company founder Colin Chapman from his “lightweight laboratory” at the heart of the business.  Lotus cars have the least amount of parts designed into them so they are as light as possible to make them fast everywhere, not just in thought but practice.  Lotus is also Q’s choice of car company to work along side.  Lotus cars are perfect for the type of work Bond requires his vehicles to perform in when tense situations arise.

Bond appeared with a supercar in the wedge shaped Esprit S1.  On its own, this was one of the greatest small cars ever built.  Q took the car and modified it to carry an arsenal of weapons.  He continued to provide a full underwater conversion system to make the car into the first “subphibian” which allowed the car to be a submarine.  All of Q’s invented gadgetry did not take away from the Esprit’s super car performance.  In the film “The Spy Who Loved Me,” the Lotus Esprit appears on the island of Sardinia in Bond’s joint mission with Major Anya Amasova of the KGB as they investigate the shipping tycoon Karl Stomberg.  This car was built under strict security at the Q branch, yet Amasova knew all the abilities of the car as she had stolen the plans a few years earlier.  This supercar car was used successfully in Bond missions.

Many new gadgets were added to the Lotus car.  The first gadget to appear was the cement sprayer concealed under the rear license plate to obscure the pursuing car’s windshield.  The next new invention was converting the car into a submarine when needed.  For example, in one film the car drove into the sea because it was trying to avoid a helicopter shooting at it, the car converted into a submarine.  The submarine conversion included tires folding and exchanging for rudders and fins emerging to fill the wheel wells and propellers deploying from the rear bumper.  Louvers descended over the windows to cut glare from the surface of the water while a periscope rose from the roof to complete the transformation from underwater car to full submarine.  Video cameras and digital readouts were part of the dashboard.   There was even a targeting screen on the centre console and the gearshift was redeployed to aim and fire sea-to-air missiles.  The steering wheel’s controls were used to fire front mounted torpedoes.  The headlight switch was used to deploy an ink cloud from the rear of the car to hide its existence just as an octopus would.  There was even an underwater mine which could be released with the hazard light switch.  Even after obtaining damage during an underwater battle, the car was able to emerge from the water and safely deliver its occupants onto a beach.  Q really outdid himself with this conversion of a super car which is now on exhibition at the Design Centre in London.

The awesome Esprit Turbo was launched in tremendous style at London’s Royal Albert Hall.  This car was to become even more famous as the second Lotus to be featured in a Bond film.  This was a super car for a super spy as the car’s performance took it straight into the supercar league with the ability to go faster than 150 mph in 15 seconds while still having the ability to perform a 0-60 mph in 5.5 seconds all with a 2.2 litre Lotus engine.  The audience never got to see the gadgets in this car in “For Your Eyes Only” as it self-destructed in huge explosion after a thug smashed one of the windows.  Thankfully, a second car was used to show the ability of the turbo on the road.  Perhaps in the future, another Lotus will appear as it was very well received as a car suitable for Bond and meeting the standards of Q.