6 rare luxury cars owned by Elon Musk

Elon Musk is most often linked to rockets, artificial intelligence, and electric mobility, yet his personal relationship with cars has followed a far more eccentric and historically minded path. Rather than assembling a vast fleet, he has gravitated toward machines that rewrote engineering rules or etched themselves into pop culture, vehicles prized not for flash alone but for what they symbolised at pivotal moments in automotive history. From boundary-pushing supercars to screen-famous curiosities, his choices hint at a collector drawn to innovation, mythology, and mechanical audacity over sheer excess. Here are some of the rarest luxury cars Elon Musk has owned.

Perhaps the most unconventional “luxury car” linked to Musk is a first-generation Tesla Roadster that was launched into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018. Complete with a mannequin driver nicknamed “Starman,” the car became a surreal piece of pop culture and remains in a solar orbit. Built on a Lotus Elise chassis, the early Roadster symbolised Musk’s determination to prove that electric cars could be fast, desirable, and genuinely thrilling, long before battery-powered performance went mainstream.

Among the most talked-about non-Tesla vehicles linked to Musk is a 1976 Lotus Esprit Series 1 made famous by its appearance in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Nicknamed “Wet Nellie,” the car seemed to dive beneath the waves on screen, though the effect was achieved through cinematic trickery rather than real amphibious technology. After buying the prop at auction in 2013, Musk hinted at turning it into a genuine electric submarine, a comment that only added to the legend surrounding one of cinema’s most unforgettable automotive icons.

Musk has spoken fondly about owning a 1967 Jaguar E-Type Roadster, a model built by Jaguar and famed for its sweeping proportions, needle-nose bonnet, and motorsport-derived engineering. Reports have traced that affection back to his teenage years, when he reportedly dreamed of the car at just 17. Often described as one of the most beautiful vehicles ever put into production, the E-Type captures the romance of 1960s British design, placing hand-crafted elegance and mechanical purity alongside the futurism that defines his modern ventures.

Among the rarest machines Musk has driven is the McLaren F1, a three-seat, carbon-fibre supercar built by McLaren and powered by a naturally aspirated V12 engineered by BMW. Produced in tiny numbers during the 1990s, it was already legendary when he owned one, and he later acknowledged selling the car after an accident. Revered for its engineering purity and extreme performance, the F1 is now a nine-figure collector trophy, and its brief chapter in his life adds unmistakable hypercar pedigree to his automotive story.

Reports have also linked Musk to ownership of an early Ford Model T from the 1920s, the car that put the world on wheels through mass production. While not exotic in the supercar sense, its inclusion points to a broader curiosity about technological revolutions, the same sort of curiosity that later drove Musk toward electric vehicles and space exploration. In historical terms, the Model T arguably reshaped society as profoundly as any modern innovation.

Image credit: Ford Model T

Completing the picture is a Porsche 911 Turbo from the 997 generation, a car admired for combining everyday usability with explosive acceleration and everyday practicality. Though less rare than a McLaren F1 or a Bond movie prop, a Turbo from this era still sits firmly in the enthusiast-dream category, prized for its all-weather capability and relentless pace.

Image credit: Motor1