20 Things You Didn’t Know About The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)

2. “Can You Swim?”

Audiences were stunned when Double-0 Seven confidently drove off of Liscia di Vacca in Sardinia into the Mediterranean Sea.

An empty shell of the Lotus Esprit S1 was launched off of the pier pursued by Naomi’s machine-gun-toting Bell 206 Jet Ranger helicopter and footage of a miniature Lotus shot in a water tank showed the sports car drifting towards the seabed before it effortlessly transformed into a submersible. Derek Meddings then provided several full-scale models of the Lotus to represent each stage of its metamorphosis.

The underwater sequences with the Lotus were shot in The Bahamas and achieved using miniatures for sequences in which it is nearing Atlantis and a full-scale working submersible that was developed by Ken Adam in association with Perry Oceanographic, Inc. of Riviera Beach, Florida. Perry Oceanographic also provided the two-man mini-submarine that Stromberg’s men use to try and destroy the Lotus.

The Lotus submarine - nicknamed "Wet Nellie" in honour of the Little Nellie autogyro from You Only Live Twice - was not actually watertight and was driven by divers whilst Alka-Seltzer tablets stored inside it produced the requisite air bubbles from its occupants’ breathing.