James Bond Lotus Esprit Submarine Auctioned For $1 Million

If you remember, back in June we told you about classic car auction firm, RM Auction's announcement of the sale of the Lotus Esprit Series 1. The submarine car featured in the 1977 James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, starring Roger Moore. The auction took place earlier this week in London's Battersea Park.

The price payed for the above mentioned James Bond submarine car was $966,560. That's $863,000 plus an added 12 percent of the amount that goes to RM Auctions. As is always the case, the details of the buyer are not known.

What's interesting is that the famous Aston Martin DB5, featured in several James Bond movies, including the Sean Connery starrer 1964 flick Goldfinger fetched a much higher price. The DB5 was also auctioned by RM Auction, in 2010 and that car was purchased for a cool £2.9 million (~ $4.6 million).

What are we to make of this? Do people prefer the Aston Martin DB5 over the Lotus Esprit Series 1 because the former can actually be driven? Not likely since these highly valuable cars are never used anyway. So, why did buyers not bid as aggressively for the far cooler, submarine car as the DB5?

It turns out it's because of the name associated with the car. During the auction a simple pool revealed that most people in the room preferred Sean Connery over Roger Moore. This translated into a less enthusiastic bidding for the Lotus Esprit Series 1 submarine car. Which car do you prefer?