Elon Musk pays $1 million for a $100 car. Here’s why

Elon Musk recently smashed Twitter with the launch of Tesla's new Cybertruck — a huge triangular car loaded with futuristic features. As Twitteratis are speculating what was the inspiration behind Musk's never-seen-before truck, the Tesla chief has himself revealed what has influenced the design of the Cybertruck.

The story began in the year 1989 when a couple from Long Island, New York bought a storage unit for a mere amount of $100 in a blind auction. Nobody knew what was inside the locker. The couple cracked the box only to find a 1976 Lotus Esprit sports car. It was not just another sports car. The car was used in 1977 James Bond film “The Spy Who Loved Me.” Nicknamed as “Wet Nellie”, the car transforms into a submarine and fires missiles when it is under the water.

The couple had no idea what it was as they had never seen a Bond movie before. They “cosmetically restored” the vehicle and they displayed it in occasional exhibits over the next two decades, reported CNBC.

They put up the car for auction in 2013 and a secret buyer reportedly bought it for $997,000, according a report in CNBC.

The secret buyer was none other than Elon Musk. The car had no wheels and it could not drive on land. It only had “articulated fins.”

Elon Musk is an ardent James Bond fan who had grown up watching Bond movies.

"It was amazing as a little kid in South Africa to watch James Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me drive his Lotus Esprit off a pier, press a button and have it transform into a submarine underwater," Musk told auto blog Jalopnik after buying the Lotus Esprit sports car.

The SpaceX chief was disappointed to know that the Lotus Esprit sports car can't actually transform into a submarine.

"What I’m going to do is upgrade it with a Tesla electric powertrain and try to make it transform for real,” Musk told in a statement to Jalopnik.

Musk could not transform the 1976 Lotus Esprit sports car in to a submarine, like a Bond movie but surely got inspiration for his all new futuristic Cybertruck.