James Bond’s Lotus submarine, “Wet Nellie,” sells for $966,440

Wet Nellie in action. Image courtesy RM Auctions.

Perhaps the world’s most renowned Lotus Esprit, the Series 1 “driven” by James Bond on land and under the sea in 1977′s The Spy Who Loved Me, sold at RM’s London auction over the weekend for 616,000 British pounds ($966,440), including buyer’s fees.

Known on the set as Wet Nellie, the Lotus (or, more correctly, Lotus replica) was constructed by Perry Oceanographic, specifically for the filming of the movie’s underwater chase scenes. Unlike a conventional “dry” submarine, Wet Nellie utilized a flooded cockpit for neutral buoyancy, requiring its operators to wear underwater breathing apparatus. The craft proved tricky to pilot below the water, thanks in part to the Lotus’s aerodynamic shape, which had to be countered by the use of dive planes fore and aft. Powered by four submersible drive units, the Lotus had ample thrust in a forward direction, but was incapable of producing reverse thrust; in other words, the craft had no way of stopping once under motion.

When filming wrapped, the submersible was shipped to a storage locker in Long Island, New York, where it remained untouched for over a decade. In 1989, the locker’s contents were sold at auction, and the unsuspecting buyer soon realized the significance of his purchase. Subsequent authentication proved that the car in the locker was indeed the one and only Wet Nellie, and the car has been displayed in public on rare occasions (such as an exhibit at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles) since.

The hammer price of £550,000 came in below RM’s low pre-auction estimate of £650,000 to £950,000 (about $1 million to $1.5 million), but still well above prices paid for other Lotus Esprit models used in the filming. In 2008, Bonhams auctioned a fully functional Esprit automobile used in the production for £111,500 (approximately $170,115), while a static display Lotus submersible was offered by Coys in 2007 with a pre-auction estimate of £30,000 to £40,000 ($45,800 to $61,000).

Full results from RM’s London sale will appear shortly at RMAuctions.com.