Inspired by the (fictional - yes, it was a scaled model) underwater Lotus Espirit that James Bond drove in the movie "The Spy Who Loved Me," Frank Rinderknecht of Rinspeed commissioned ESORO to build the sQuba, a concept car for the Geneva Motor Show. What's so special about the sQuba? It can really 'fly' underwater.

It's fitting that we finally have the ultimate James Bond submarine. We were close with the personal submarines from Uboatworx. Close again with racing-car manufacturer Lola making a sleek unmanned-submarine for BAE Systems. But, here with the sQuba is the genuine article - a full-size latter-day Lotus Elise inspired concept design that is eco-friendly (being electric powered) and capable of 'flying' underwater or driving on land.

The sQuba is an open top concept car - so you'll need a wetsuit - that uses 2 rear mounted propellers to provide forward thrust and 2 forward mounted water jet nozzles to maneuver. While the car has a reasonable top speed of 75 mph (120 km/h) on land, it can only manage 2mph (3km/h) when totally submerged and can descend to a maximum depth of 33ft (10m). It's clearly in need of some drag reduction if it is to serve as a Bond getaway vehicle. An emerging trend amongst car makers is to use Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to analyze external aerodynamics, but what about using CFD for car hydrodynamics? I guess that's a relatively new field.

Next up has to be the (fictional - yes, another scaled model I'm afraid) flying car that Scaramanga drove and flew in the Bond film "The Man with the Golden Gun."