The 007 James Bond Car Collection 1:43 scale Lotus Esprit from "The Spy Who Loved Me"

SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is a fictional global terrorist organisation featured in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming, the films based on those novels, and James Bond video games. Led by evil genius and supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the supranational organisation first formally appeared in the novel Thunderball (1961) and in the film Dr. No (1962). SPECTRE is the title of the 24th Bond film, scheduled for release in 2015 with Daniel Craig returning as the MI6 agent.

The James Bond film series is a British series of spy films based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond, "007", who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. It is one of the longest continually-running film series in history, having been in on-going production from 1962 to the present (with a six-year hiatus between 1989 and 1995). A rather amazing feat IMHO

This is a 1:43 scale Lotus Esprit from the 1977 "The Spy Who Loved Me" film. It was part of The 007 James Bond Car Collection series by Eaglemoss Collections, published by Eaglemoss Ltd. It was part of my November 2014 haul (posted earlier HERE). Of all the cars in the James Bond films, this was the only car that stood out for me.

When the Esprit - the ultimate sports car of its time - plunged off a jetty into the sea, we the audience were stunned. Then the unbelievable thing happened! To this day, the car's transformation into a submarine is one of the most memorable scenes of any movie. This was the film that introduced me to the world of James Bond back in 1977.

Scroll down to see all the pictures.
Click on them for bigger and better views.

The 16-page magazine covers almost everything there is to know about the Lotus Esprit - a "Behind the Scenes" look, scene replay, car history and film facts but the scale model of the Lotus Esprit in underwater mode with full front and rear armory is what this is about.

Back then, James Bond was about gadgets and the Lotus Esprit was all gadgets galore! Scroll down to the end of this post to see a scanned image of the two-page spread of 'Wet Nellie' (the Lotus' nickname when it's transformed into a sub) showing off all the weaponry in its arsenal.

When production of the James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me" began, Lotus had only built 70 Esprits – it took a week to hand-build every car – but, aware of the publicity generated by a Bond film, Lotus was happy to loan Eon six cars and six more fibre-glass body shells. The car was turned into a working sub in just six weeks with the body shells.

The transformation from sports car to submarine required the building of full-sized models for each stage of the Lotus' conversion. Four miniatures were also created for sequences where it would be difficult to film the full-size Lotus.

The 1:43 scale Lotus Esprit from "The Spy Who Loved Me" back in its display case with underwater scene

Here's a scanned image of the two-page spread of 'Wet Nellie' (the Lotus' nickname when it's transformed into a sub) showing off all the weaponry in its arsenal. Click on the picture below for a bigger and better view :)

Related posts:
May 1, 2011 – 1999 released Action Man 1/6 scale James Bond Agent 007 "The Spy Who Loved Me" 12-inch Figure Reviewed HERE
May 3, 2011 – Action Man James Bond Agent 007 "GoldenEye" 12-inch Figure REVIEW posted HERE
May 29, 2013 – Kitbash 1/6 scale Daniel Craig as MI6 Agent 007 James Bond 12-inch figure as seen in SKYFALL (with dirt bike, just like in the opening sequence) - pictures HERE
October 14, 2013 – Review of Brother Production 1/6 scale Sky Fall MI6 Agent "Bone" Figure (Daniel Craig as James Bond) posted HERE and HERE