In The Spy Who Loved Me, Bond’s underwater Lotus vehicle is nicknamed Wet Nellie.
The name is a playful counterpart to “Little Nellie,” the autogyro used by Bond in the 1967 film You Only Live Twice. Wet Nellie was created for the 1977 film’s underwater sequences and became a separate piece of Bond vehicle lore from the road-going Lotus Esprit.
The submarine prop was not a transforming production car in the mechanical sense. Multiple versions of the Lotus-related vehicle were used, with specialised equipment handling different shots above and below the water. The famous underwater scenes therefore combined practical props, piloting and filmmaking techniques.
A common mix-up is to use “Wet Nellie” as the name of the white Lotus Esprit in every scene. More precisely, it identifies the submarine configuration associated with the car’s aquatic role. The nickname is also sometimes written without quotation marks.