The first car Musk bought was an old 1978 BMW 320i that he got for $1,400.
Musk said in a Forbes video that he bought it in 1994 and fixed it up himself. He had it for two years when one of the wheels fell off. That unfortunate incident happened when one of his interns from his first company, Zip2, was driving it.
When Musk got an initial bonus for Zip2, the web software company he and his brother co-founded, Musk used the money to buy a 1967 E-Type Jaguar.
Musk explained in the Forbes video that when he was 17 he was given a book of classic convertibles. The convertible he liked best from the book was the E-Type Jaguar, so he told himself if he ever could afford it he would buy one.
When he got an initial bonus check of $40,000 for Zip2, Musk bought the car.
"That one was like a bad girlfriend — it kept breaking down on me and causing me all sorts of trouble," Musk said of the car in the video.
After Musk sold PayPal, he bought a McLaren F1 — that he totaled.
"I had it for several years and I put 11,000 miles on it and I drove it from LA to San Francisco. I had it as a daily driver," Musk said of his McLaren F1 in an interview with Pando Daily three years ago.
Musk was driving with Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal with Musk, in 2000 when he wrecked the car.
He was driving with Thiel on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park to see Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist with Sequoia Capital.
That is Musk in his actual McLaren.
"Peter said 'so what can this do' and like probably on number one on the list of famous last words I said 'watch this.' So I floored it and did a lane change on Sand Hill," Musk recalled of that day.
Shortly thereafter, Musk hit an embankment, launching his car in the air where it kept rotating "like a discus." When it hit the ground again, the glass and wheels were shredded and the car had suffered massive body damage, as you can see above.
The kicker? The car wasn't insured.
Three years ago, Musk bought the Lotus Esprit car from James Bond's "The Spy Who Loved Me" so he could turn it into a submarine.
Musk bought the car at a 2013 auction in London for $886,000, the Huffington Post reported at the time.
"It was amazing as a little kid in South Africa to watch James Bond in 'The Spy Who Loved Me' drive his Lotus Esprit off a pier, press a button and have it transform into a submarine underwater," Musk said in a statement to Huffington Post.
"I was disappointed to learn that it can't actually transform. What I'm going to do is upgrade it with a Tesla electric powertrain and try to make it transform for real," he continued.
Musk also owns an Audi Q7, which actually inspired him to include falcon wing doors on the Tesla Model S.
Musk said he wanted to make a car where the door could open in tight spaces and allow you to access the third row without putting the second row seats down.
Accessing that third row easily is a problem Musk said he has had with his Audi Q7, which Forbes saw he owned during a 2012 walk through Musk's home.
"The Audi Q7 is particularly horrendous. Even in the best case scenario, you need to be dwarf mountain climber to get into the back seat," he said.
