Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Roadster on TV show - Leverage

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
I walked into my wife's office tonight while she was watching that new TNT show, Leverage. It was the end of the show and one of the actors (Timothy Hutton?) had just told the rest that he had bought an electric car. I stepped in just to see the cast walk up to a Radiant Red Tesla.

He hopped in, turned the key to the familiar video game sound, and stomped it leaving the rest of the cast with their jaws hanging open. My wife tells me they were ribbing him about his new "electric car" until they saw it.

The Tesla badge and the letters T E S L A on the back were in proud display. Very nice.
 
Thanks In5, I just caught the show. (spoiler alert)
".I just concluded watching the latest episode of the new television drama "Leverage", episode entitled "The Home Coming Job"... when I was pleasantly surprised to see actor Timothy Hutton (the lead in the show) jump into and drive off in (tires squealing) a red, with red on black interior, Tesla Roadster...

It is terrific news. The last scene has Radiant Roadster looking luscious as a show(off) piece for Tim's character. The final shot has the clue though. As the girl exits, the Producer credit pops up as Dean Devlin. (Producer of WKtEC) It has to be his car parked in the spot clearly shown with a sign "Electric Vehicle Parking Only". The car's drive away shot starts tight on the TESLA logo clearly holding on the (real looking) CA license number 2WAQ233. Nice to see Dean is getting the word out still.
 
Last edited:
Was thinking about the Roadster's appearance in the show last night. I think it marks the beginning of a new chapter in the Roadster's life.

Previously we and Tesla were dependent on it's infantile company fleet to get the word out. At first the crib only had two cars, then eight, then 15, now Tesla has spawned two dozen well cared for VPs crisscrossing the world making appearances at public events, doing stories on local news, and having drive days with customers and lucky fans. But at the end of the day these babies are still wrapped in swaddling clothes and trailered back to the nursery for a mother's care.

Now with a privately owned Roadster making a appearance on Leverage, we see the toddler take it's first steps. It is going out into the world by itself. A customer with no ties to the company vision has offered the Tesla for his own agenda. Soon we will see the car promoting Websites and Redbull, It will be on platforms at Casinos and will be used to sell all manner of (at best), tangentaly suspect products. The child has learned to walk. To date we have only been watching the teething pains and colic of a newborn. Now we get the fun of watching it step and struggle through all the new obstacles as the car's image is co-opted by private ownership. It will surely fall down but before we know it, our child will be dating.
 
Ya know, now that I think of it, I was in the Menlo Park store back in early September and Bob Sexton or one of the other guys mentioned that one of the red cars in LA got borrowed for some TV show. I think it was EP2, though might have been VP17. I wonder if this was the show.


.
 
Last edited:
I kinda have a soft spot for the scoundrel characters and this wasn't halfbad. The Roadster fits perfectly though into the spirit of the show and this is a perfect product placement for them..... and it doesn't feel as much as a product placement as those things usually do.

Cobos
 
Perhaps Dean Devlin didn't get around the waiting list. He is likely to be just such a person who has been waiting on it for 2 years. Although it is also possible that they are using one of the VPs instead.

Edit to add: Oh, I see - you meant the character played in the episode. Have not finished watching the linked episode yet, so do not have a good guess thus far.
 
There was a flickr set a while back of some guys borrowing a red roadster from the LA store then hanging out in the penthouse suite of an oceanside hotel. There was some mention of them doing a TV show with the roadster... I wonder if that was the one. If so, they would have done the show months ago.
 
How could the show have an owner's car?

Dean the Producer of Leverage was a Producer on Who Killed the Electric Car. And pushed Chris Paine the Director of the film to buy a Roadster (even though it's a stretch for a Director of a small Documentary.
Dean was at the Tesla debut party at Baker hanger where they sold 40 cars (the next 60 went in three weeks). and we know he was on he list.

*Update* I just got word Chis says the car in the car is probably Dean's.

Why would Tim's character have a car without waiting? Well the story is he had Elon type money. (Yeah, I know, it's a television show).

The good news is if it is Dean's car then we we are likely to see the car on a regular basis.
 
I'm thinking that the one on the last episode was VP17 because I'm sure it was filmed months ago. Having watched movies and tv shows get made, I'm thinking they swapped the plates so they wouldn't be manufacturer plates.

But I also figure that, since they made such a big deal about showing the car off, Dean Devlin's car will appear in future epesodes.
 
Looks like VP17 to me.

99d1229053285-roadster-tv-show-leverage-leverage-tesla.jpg
 

Attachments

  • Leverage Tesla.JPG
    Leverage Tesla.JPG
    38.4 KB · Views: 366
I'm thinking that the one on the last episode was VP17 because I'm sure it was filmed months ago. Having watched movies and tv shows get made, I'm thinking they swapped the plates so they wouldn't be manufacturer plates.

But I also figure that, since they made such a big deal about showing the car off, Dean Devlin's car will appear in future epesodes.

I just got an email confirming that it was VP17 from the LA store.
 
Scathing review of Leverage, using the Roadster as a metaphor for all perceived problems with the show.

Robbin'? Good! | Culture11

LeverageArticle.jpg


Leverage is a ghastly business, with its soundtrack’s thudding “ain’t this a caper?” jazz riffs, its whimpering attempts at badinage (not excluding “What’s the plan, Stan?”), the peculiar stiffness of Hutton chewing his way through this or that accent as his character is supposed to be in disguise. But the show is perfect for this moment because of its imperviousness to irony: Tesla Motors is currently seeking a federal handout — in effect, a subsidy that would remove money from the pockets of the average taxpayer to benefit wealthy tech-industry honchos and a handful of rich liberals who ache to be seen in the lavish new eco-hot rod.

Nice first comment by tomsax!

Tom Saxton posted: January 7, 2009 12:14 am
Tesla Motors is not asking for a bailout, and the loans that Tesla Motors has applied for have nothing to do with the Roadster. In 2007, congress enacted the $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Incentive Program, a low interest loan program to encourage the development of more energy efficient vehicles. Tesla Motors has applied for two loans under this program, one to increase their capacity to produce electric drivetrain components to other automakers and the other to develop and build production facilities in California for their Model S sedan. Recently, it was revealed that the drivetrains they are supplying to another automaker are for an electric vehicle that will sell for "comfortably below $30,000." That's exactly what the ATVM was intended to encourage. It's the Detroit 3 that have perverted this progressive loan program into a bailout program because president Bush won't allow them access to any of the $700 billion allocated to bailing out the financial industry.
 
Actually, I thought it was funds from the TARP that got GM and Chrysler $14B in bridge loans till March.

Well, of course that was the result. But the source of the "Tesla is asking for a bailout" was that auto manufacturers were initially denied a bailout from that package, and then went after the ATVM funds for their own bailout. Along the way bad-mouthing any other manufacturer applying for those loans as also seeking a bailout.

It is a shame that even though the bigger auto manufacturers got their bailout from the source they originally wanted, Tesla got smeared along the way for political expediency. And an even bigger shame that idiots like the author of this article continue to spread the misinformation months after its debunking and relevance to try and grind some non-existent political axe.