The short answer: the Cybertruck’s design belongs to several older traditions, but Tesla has not confirmed that all 13 vehicles in the popular comparison list directly inspired it. The clearest named connection is the Lotus Esprit submarine, or “Wet Nellie,” from The Spy Who Loved Me. The rest are best understood as visual precedents, design parallels, or historical antecedents—ranging from the DeLorean DMC-12 and Lamborghini Countach to the Honda Ridgeline and the early electric CitiCar.
That distinction matters because the Cybertruck’s shape was not simply copied from one famous car. Tesla says the project began with first-principles goals: build a futuristic pickup whose stainless-steel exterior would resist scratching, denting, and rusting. The material, manufacturing process, and science-fiction brief all helped produce the truck’s unmistakable folded, planar body.
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Before the list: inspiration versus resemblance
The 13-vehicle grouping comes primarily from automotive design analysis, rather than a Tesla-issued list of confirmed sources. It became widely discussed after a 2019 comparison article assembled a set of cars that appeared to anticipate the Cybertruck’s wedge profile, unusual proportions, stainless-steel appearance, electric powertrain, or cinematic personality.
There are three different kinds of connection in that list:
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- Documented inspiration: a Tesla executive or designer publicly names the reference. The Lotus Esprit submarine is the strongest example.
- Design precedent: an earlier vehicle established forms or ideas that help explain what the Cybertruck resembles, without proving that Tesla copied it.
- Historical parallel: an older vehicle explored a related idea, such as an angular electric car or a nontraditional pickup.
So the accurate question is not whether Tesla literally used every one of these cars as a blueprint. It is how each vehicle helps explain one part of the Cybertruck’s unusual visual and conceptual language.
The clearest confirmed references
1. Lotus Esprit
The 1975 Lotus Esprit is the foundational production-car precedent in this group. Designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Italdesign, it introduced a dramatic low wedge, a sharp beltline, and a geometric profile that became one of the defining expressions of 1970s futurism.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsThe Cybertruck is obviously not a low mid-engine sports car, but the relationship is visible in the use of a strong triangular silhouette and deliberately hard transitions between surfaces. The production Esprit is best described as a visual ancestor, not as a separately confirmed Tesla source. Its importance also comes from the fact that the car supplied the basis for the film vehicle that Musk did explicitly reference.
2. The Lotus Esprit submarine, or “Wet Nellie”
This is the strongest named vehicle connection. In the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, a Lotus Esprit transforms into a submarine. Musk publicly said the Cybertruck was influenced in part by that film and its amphibious Esprit.
The reference explains more than the Cybertruck’s silver color or wedge shape. It explains the truck’s cinematic personality: an angular, apparently impossible machine presented as though it had arrived from a spy movie or science-fiction future. The production Lotus and Wet Nellie should be counted separately because they represent different influences. One is a real 1970s sports car; the other is the movie-prop version that gave the shape its cultural association with transformation and futuristic technology.
Wet Nellie is therefore the best-supported answer when someone asks for the Cybertruck’s confirmed automotive inspiration. It still does not mean the Cybertruck is a literal replica of the film car.
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Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen later described fighter jets and other unusual vehicles as part of the design search. That detail is important because it prevents the 13-car list from being treated as complete. The Cybertruck’s sharp planes and aggressive nose can also be read through aircraft design, not only through 1970s cars.
Musk also described the truck as futuristic, cyberpunk, and influenced by Blade Runner before the November 2019 reveal. Those references establish a tone and visual world rather than a one-to-one source vehicle. The Cybertruck is not a direct copy of a Blade Runner car; it is a road-legal pickup shaped to evoke the same dystopian, industrial future.
The wedge-car lineage
Several entries are connected through the same broad design movement. In the late 1960s and 1970s, designers including Giugiaro and Marcello Gandini moved away from soft, rounded bodywork toward wedges, creases, low noses, and intersecting planes. The Cybertruck revives that vocabulary in a much larger and more utilitarian form.
3. DeLorean DMC-12
The DeLorean is the most obvious popular comparison. Its Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed wedge body, unpainted stainless-steel exterior, and gull-wing doors make it an unusually close cultural parallel to the Cybertruck.
The stainless steel is a genuine common feature, but it is not proof that Tesla copied the DeLorean. The two vehicles use the material for different overall purposes and belong to different categories: the DeLorean is a low sports car with a distinct painted-looking black-and-silver trim treatment, while the Cybertruck uses stainless steel as part of a broad exterior exoskeleton intended to support durability goals.
The DeLorean’s stronger connection is symbolic. Like the Cybertruck, it turned a difficult-to-ignore exterior into the main event and became permanently associated with a fictional future. Similarity is compelling here, but the available evidence does not establish the DeLorean as Tesla’s main or definitive source.
4. Lamborghini Countach
The Lamborghini Countach is one of the defining wedge cars of the 1970s. Marcello Gandini’s Bertone design used extreme angles, sharply intersecting surfaces, visual drama, and unconventional door architecture to make the car look more like a machine from a concept sketch than a conventional grand tourer.
Its relevance to the Cybertruck is the emotional power of geometry. Both vehicles use hard lines to communicate drama and technological boldness. The Countach makes a wedge look exotic and fast; the Cybertruck adapts a related visual language to communicate toughness and futuristic utility.
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There is no basis here for saying Musk specifically studied the Countach. The defensible claim is that both participate in the broader wedge-design tradition.
5. Porsche Tapiro
Shown at the 1970 Turin Auto Show, the Porsche Tapiro was an early Giugiaro wedge concept based on the Porsche 914/6. It is significant less because of any direct Tesla connection than because it helps show where the angular Italdesign vocabulary came from.
The Tapiro’s sharp nose, low roof, folded surfaces, and highly stylized proportions demonstrate how designers were already using geometric forms to visualize the future decades before the Cybertruck. It was a concept rather than a production car, so it should be treated as design-history evidence—not as a practical template Tesla adapted.
6. BMW M1
The BMW M1, designed by Italdesign and produced from 1978 to 1981, gives the wedge lineage a production performance car with German engineering behind its Italian-influenced shape. Its low nose, crisp creases, and disciplined geometry recall the same late-1970s movement that shaped the Esprit and other cars in this group.
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7. Ferrari 308 GT4, or Dino 308 GT4
The Ferrari 308 GT4, also known as the Dino 308 GT4, was introduced in 1973 and designed by Bertone as a mid-engine Ferrari. Its angular two-box sports-car form represented a clear departure from softer, more curvilinear Ferrari shapes.
That makes it another useful precedent for the Cybertruck’s rejection of conventional smoothness. The 308 GT4 shows that geometric design could be applied to a serious production car, not only to a futuristic show car. Its connection to the Cybertruck is stylistic kinship, not documented Tesla attribution.
8. Lancia Stratos
The Lancia Stratos, designed by Marcello Gandini, is one of the most recognizable wedge-shaped rally cars. Its compact body, short overhangs, steep glasshouse, and purposeful geometry make the car look ready for action even when parked.
The Stratos is relevant because its shape uses angles to communicate toughness and performance. The Cybertruck applies a related idea to a pickup: instead of relying on rounded fenders and conventional truck ornamentation, it tries to make the body’s structure and silhouette do the communicating.
Again, this is a design parallel rather than a confirmed Tesla source. The Stratos helps explain the visual language, not the Cybertruck’s documented design brief.
9. Citroën Karin concept
The 1980 Citroën Karin concept pushed geometric futurism in a different direction. Its pyramid-like body, unusually tall glasshouse, and triangular, faceted surfaces made it look more like an architectural object than a normal automobile.
The Karin matters because it shows how automotive designers used triangles and planar shapes to represent the future long before the Cybertruck. Its tall cabin and show-car proportions are not practical comparisons for a modern pickup, but its willingness to make geometry the subject of the design is highly relevant.
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Because the Karin remained a concept, it belongs in the history of futuristic visualization rather than in a list of production vehicles Tesla is known to have directly studied.
10. Aston Martin Bulldog
The 1979 Aston Martin Bulldog was a one-off wedge concept with gull-wing doors, hidden headlamps, and an unusually futuristic cabin. Its dramatic British science-fiction character makes it a natural comparison for a vehicle unveiled with movie-prop theatrics.
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The Bulldog and Cybertruck both use an almost exaggerated visual premise: the car is supposed to look like an idea of the future, not merely a current vehicle with updated styling. But the Bulldog is still a concept-car parallel. No direct Tesla attribution connects it to the Cybertruck.
It is also worth separating the door architecture from the broader resemblance. The Bulldog’s gull-wing doors are part of its identity; their presence does not mean the Cybertruck adopted the same feature.
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11. First-generation Honda Ridgeline
The first-generation Honda Ridgeline, introduced for the 2006 model year, belongs on the list for challenging assumptions about what a pickup should be. Its car-like unibody approach, independent suspension, distinctive side profile, and unusual rear-window treatment set it apart from traditional body-on-frame trucks.
Its connection to the Cybertruck is primarily conceptual and packaging-related, not visual. Both vehicles question the idea that a pickup must follow the same proportions and construction conventions as an established full-size truck. The Ridgeline explored a more integrated, car-like utility vehicle; the Cybertruck takes a far more radical route with a visibly structural stainless-steel body.
The contrast is instructive. The Ridgeline’s rounded surfaces and practical design language show one way to make a pickup unconventional. The Cybertruck shows another: make the departure impossible to miss.
12. Dodge MAXX concept
Introduced in 2000, the Dodge MAXX concept was presented as a “passenger priority truck.” It used a shortened bed and cab-forward proportions on a Dakota-based platform, placing more emphasis on passenger space and everyday usability than on traditional truck proportions.
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The MAXX helps explain the Cybertruck as an attempt to rethink the pickup audience and package. A pickup does not have to be designed only around a long hood, separate cab, and bed-first proportions. It can be treated as a different kind of vehicle with a new balance between passenger space, cargo utility, and visual identity.
There is no direct Tesla link in the available evidence, and the MAXX’s conventional rounded bodywork looks very different from the Cybertruck. Its importance is as a packaging precedent.
13. Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar
The Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar connects the Cybertruck to an earlier chapter of American electric mobility. Built in the United States during the 1970s energy crisis, the CitiCar combined battery-electric propulsion with an unmistakably angular body.
That makes it a useful historical parallel on two levels. First, the Cybertruck is not the first electric vehicle to use an unusual shape to signal technological difference. Second, the CitiCar demonstrates that electric cars have long been free from some of the styling expectations attached to gasoline-powered vehicles.
The resemblance should not be overstated. The tiny CitiCar and large Cybertruck serve completely different markets and have dramatically different capabilities. What they share is the willingness to make electric identity visible through unconventional geometry.
What these 13 vehicles reveal about the Cybertruck
1. The Cybertruck revives a design language instead of inventing one from nothing
The Esprit, Countach, Tapiro, BMW M1, Ferrari 308 GT4, Stratos, Karin, and Bulldog show that the Cybertruck’s angularity has a long history. Wedges have repeatedly been used to suggest speed, technology, danger, or a break from ordinary design.
What is new is the application. Earlier wedges were usually sports cars, concepts, or exotic performance machines. The Cybertruck puts that visual language on a pickup, a category normally associated with upright cabins, rounded fenders, and familiar utility proportions.
2. Stainless steel is both a visual reference and an engineering decision
The DeLorean comparison is memorable because both vehicles expose stainless steel rather than hiding the body beneath conventional paint. But the Cybertruck’s material choice is tied to Tesla’s stated durability objectives: the exterior was intended to resist scratches, dents, and rust, and to function as a durable exoskeleton.
The material also helps explain the folded appearance. Complex curved panels are more difficult to form from the selected stainless steel than simpler angular panels. That does not mean stainless steel can only be flat, or that every line on the truck was forced by manufacturing. It means the design brief and the manufacturing constraint pointed in the same direction: large, hard, relatively simple surfaces made both visual and practical sense.
3. The truck’s radical shape is not just nostalgia for the DeLorean
Calling the Cybertruck a DeLorean with a truck bed misses the most important part of the story. The DeLorean explains the cultural association with stainless steel and futuristic wedges. The Ridgeline and MAXX explain the precedent for challenging pickup conventions. The CitiCar adds the history of angular electric mobility. The Lotus submarine explains the cinematic, transformable-machine persona.
Tesla’s stated first-principles objectives then provide the final layer: a pickup designed around durability and a stainless-steel exoskeleton rather than a conventional painted body with decorative angular accents.
4. The movie references were part of the product’s identity
The Cybertruck was presented as an object from a fictional future. The Spy Who Loved Me connection supplied a specific vehicle reference, while the cyberpunk and Blade Runner language supplied an atmosphere. That is why the launch design felt closer to a film prop made road legal than to a normal pickup redesign.
Those cultural references should be described carefully. The evidence supports a tonal and thematic influence, not a claim that the Cybertruck directly reproduces a particular Blade Runner vehicle.
Final verdict: which inspiration matters most?
If the question is asking for the most clearly documented vehicle inspiration, the answer is the Lotus Esprit submarine from The Spy Who Loved Me. If it is asking which cars best explain the Cybertruck’s appearance, the answer is broader: the Lotus Esprit and DeLorean provide the strongest visual and cultural comparisons, while the Countach, Tapiro, M1, 308 GT4, Stratos, Karin, and Bulldog place it in the larger wedge-design tradition.
The Honda Ridgeline and Dodge MAXX explain why the truck can be understood as a challenge to pickup conventions, and the CitiCar shows that angular electric vehicles have a history that predates Tesla.
Ultimately, the Cybertruck is best understood as a collision of influences rather than a direct copy: 1970s wedge design, stainless-steel futurism, early electric experimentation, unconventional truck packaging, fighter-jet imagery, and movie-driven science fiction. Tesla’s durability goals and the demands of shaping stainless steel turned those ideas into the distinctive planar pickup that reached the road.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Tesla officially confirm all 13 cars as Cybertruck inspirations?
No. The 13-car grouping is primarily an editorial and design-history comparison. Tesla publicly connected the Cybertruck most clearly to the Lotus Esprit submarine in The Spy Who Loved Me, while other vehicles are better described as visual precedents or historical parallels.
Was the DeLorean DMC-12 the main inspiration for the Cybertruck?
There is no evidence in the reviewed material establishing the DeLorean as the Cybertruck’s main inspiration. Both vehicles use visible stainless steel and wedge styling, making the comparison understandable, but resemblance is not proof of direct sourcing.
Why does the Cybertruck have such flat, angular body panels?
Tesla’s stated durability goals called for a stainless-steel exterior exoskeleton, and simpler planar panels are easier to form from the selected stainless steel than highly complex curves. The material choice and the visual brief therefore reinforced each other.
Why are the Lotus Esprit and Wet Nellie counted as two entries?
They are two versions of the same underlying car with different relevance. The production Lotus Esprit is a 1970s wedge-design precedent; Wet Nellie is the transformed film-prop submarine that Elon Musk explicitly connected to the Cybertruck.
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The Cybertruck was not confirmed as a direct descendant of all 13 cars. Its strongest named connection is the Lotus Esprit submarine, but its final form also draws meaning from the wider wedge-car movement, stainless-steel futurism, early electric vehicles, unconventional pickups, and Tesla’s own durability and manufacturing objectives.
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