Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- A Lotus sports car featured in the James Bond movie “The Spy Who Loved Me” is expected to fetch up to 120,000 pounds ($185,000) in a London sale next week.

The white 1976 Lotus Esprit comes complete with a surface-to- air-missile button on the gearstick, although the auction house Bonhams tells prospective purchasers and vengeful drivers that the device is for show and does not work.

“This Esprit featured in the scene where Bond takes collection of the car from Q, but is paying more attention to Barbara Bach,” said Bonhams specialist, Tim Schofield.

Roger Moore, playing 007, drives the car toward the ocean in Sardinia. Using a sister car, models and seven Lotus body shells, the director shows the Esprit growing fins and becoming a submarine.

“It’s just a road specification,” said Schofield. “It isn’t submersible and doesn’t have the periscope it had in the film. It was also used as a camera car in a chase scene because it was the only one that could keep up with its sister in the Sardinian mountains.”

Bonhams sold the car’s sister in 1998 for a hammer price of 34,000 pounds, before fees.

After the 1977 movie was completed, the current car was returned to the Lotus factory, where it was turned back into a production-line model. Last year, the Esprit’s European owner had the “Q specification” Bond interior recreated by Lotus.

Sale Estimate

The auction house will offer the Lotus at its Dec. 1 sale of collectors’ cars, motorcycles and automobilia at Olympia, west London. The 520-lot event is expected to total between 3 million and 4 million pounds, said Bonhams.

Last month, the U.K. auction market for classic cars showed signs of improvement after the recent fall in value of sterling, said dealers.

On Nov. 19, Bonhams’s annual auction of classic cars in Harrogate, Yorkshire, fetched a record 1 million pounds, with fees. Ninety-five percent the 532 lots -- all of which were valued at under 50,000 pounds -- found buyers, who were based in 17 different countries.

“The exchange rate was a factor,” said Schofield. “Normally, most of the cars are sold to private people from Yorkshire. It was different this year.”

(Scott Reyburn writes about the art market for Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Scott Reyburn in London at sreyburn@hotmail.com.

Last Updated: November 25, 2008 20:25 EST