Growing up in the 1970s, I have many memorable cinema moments, with two of the greatest being Star Wars (1977) and 007 The Spy Who Loved Me (1976). If you had the fortune of seeing TSWLM on the big screen, the opening parachute ski jump, and later, the transformation of the sleek Lotus Esprit into a submarine were unforgettable.
It would be many years later that I would learn more about the ‘wedge car’ era, led by Italian designers like Giorgetto Giugiaro, who came up with the styling of the Esprit.
Searching for a ‘good’ representation of the Lotus in 1/64 scale turned out to be quite a challenge. There was the Hot Wheels 007 edition of course, but when I got a hold of it, it was a disappointment on many levels: The sculpt was anything but crisp, made worse by the thick coat of white paint; and the black pinstripe that hugged the wheel arches was misaligned. Sad.
I ended up with a smaller 1/72 version made by Kyosho as part of a 007 movie vehicles collection. Despite its smaller size, it was a faithful reproduction of the Esprit’s crisp lines, and the row of square holes on the hood was inked in. Heck, it even had the rear license plate flipped down to expose the cement shooting pipes!
As for the matching pen? I couldn’t find an equally sleek faceted design, but turning back to the movie, I found a different point of inspiration: the villain’s underwater lair.
Ken Adam had designed ‘Atlantis’ with a domed top with distinctive circular cutouts. With the benefit of hindsight and lots of exposure to the works of Luigi Colani, I could see a resemblance to his iconic UFO pendant lamp from 1971.
Of course, there’s no proof that Ken Adam was inspired by Colani, but the timeline certainly makes it possible. And so I picked the Pelikan No. 1 in black and white, sometimes called the ‘Combi’ to go with Giugiaro’s Esprit.
Colani was kind of infamous for loving the limelight and incessant self-promotion. He was fond of including his signature or at least his name in products that he designed, and the Pelikan No. 1 immortalized him on every pen. I think he was a pioneer in designing pens with oversized clips that made it ideal for printing logos as corporate gifts.
Have you watched The Spy Who Loved Me? Who’s your favorite Bond?