Thanks for signing up!
Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go.
7 cars Elon Musk has owned — and we're not talking about Teslas
To have the success Elon Musk has had with Tesla requires one important thing: a love of cars.
Advertisement
Before Teslas, Musk had a lot of different cars. Some got totaled, others inspired certain design elements in the cars Tesla makes today. Either way, each says a little bit about who Musk is as a person.
Here's a look at all the cars Elon Musk has ever owned:
Musk said in a Forbes video that he bought it in 1994 and fixed it up himself. He had it for two years when one of the wheels fell off. That unfortunate incident happened when one of his interns from his first company, Zip2, was driving it.
Musk explained in the Forbes video that when he was 17 he was given a book of classic convertibles. The convertible he liked best from the book was the E-Type Jaguar, so he told himself if he ever could afford it he would buy one.
When he got an initial bonus check of $40,000 for Zip2, Musk bought the car.
"That one was like a bad girlfriend — it kept breaking down on me and causing me all sorts of trouble," Musk said of the car in the video.
The car actually broke down on the way back from the dealer.
"I had it for several years and I put 11,000 miles on it and I drove it from LA to San Francisco. I had it as a daily driver," Musk said of his McLaren F1 in an interview with Pando Daily three years ago.
Musk explains in the interview that he was driving with Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal with Musk, in 2000 when he wrecked the car.
Musk was driving on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California to see Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist with Sequoia Capital.
"Peter said 'so what can this do' and like probably on number one on the list of famous last words I said 'watch this.' So I floored it and did a lane change on Sand Hill," Musk explained.
Shortly thereafter, Musk his an embankment, launching his car in the air where it kept rotating "like a discus." When it hit the ground again, the glass and wheels were shredded and the car had suffered massive body damage.
The kicker? The car wasn't insured.
Musk bought the car at a 2013 auction in London for $997,000, Jalopnik reported.
We have yet to see Musk successfully transform it into a submarine, but Model S drivers found an easter egg referencing the iconic Lotus Esprit.
Holding down the T button while in the entertainment menu will trigger an Access Code prompt, Engadget reported. If you type in 007, it'll show the Lotus Esprit sub and a "Depth" drop-down menu.
"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 said in a statement to Huffington Post at the time.
"I was disappointed to learn that it can't actually transform. What I'm going to do is upgrade it with a Tesla electric powertrain and try to make it transform for real," he continued.
Musk said he wanted to make a car where the door could open in tight spaces and allow you to access the third row without putting the second row seats down.
Accessing that third row easily is a problem Musk said he has had with SUVs, such as his Audi Q7, which Forbes saw he owned during a 2012 walk through Musk's home.
"The Audi Q7 is particularly horrendous. Even in the best case scenario, you need to be dwarf mountain climber to get into the back seat," he said.
That little nugget of information comes from an interview Musk had with Vanity Fair in 2007.
Advertisement