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" There is exactly one human whose attempt to turn an $866,000 Bond car into a self-transforming submarine would be the fifth or sixth thing he brags about at a party. That person is electric-car genius and space pioneer Elon Musk, who recently bought the amphibious Lotus Esprit used in The Spy Who Loved Me. Now the man who inspired Robert Downey Jr.&amp;#039;s portrayal of Tony Stark plans to modify the car so it can actually do what it does in this scene (minus the torpedo launcher):       Musk quietly won the car at auction this summer after going bid for bid with another anonymous buyer. But it was only after dropping nearly a million bucks on the Lotus that he cried in his caviar upon learning that it doesn&amp;#039;t morph from car to sub on its own. &amp;quot;I was disappointed to learn that it can&amp;#039;t actually transform,&amp;quot; Musk recently told CNN. &amp;quot;What I&amp;#039;m going to do is upgrade it with a Tesla electric powertrain and try to make it transform for real.&amp;quot;  Don&amp;#039;t bet against Musk. If he can get people seriously talking about colonizing Mars, he sure as hell can make a car transform into a submarine. Especially since Perry Oceanographic already did the work that allows the Lotus to function as a sub. Back in the late &amp;#039;70s the Florida-based company spent $100,000 to turn the Lotus into a fully-operational underwater vehicle, with motorized propellers and levered steering system. Once and for all, this project should convince people that Musk is more Bond than Bond villain. Then again, that&amp;#039;s probably just what a Bond villain would want you to think. PLUS: Read Esquire&amp;#039;s Profile of Elon Musk &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/cars/a25379/elon-musk-bond-car/>