Daily DRVN #142 / Defying Gravity vs Delivering Gravitas

📰 Dream Car Classified / Nine Years to Liftoff

Presented by RevHard Motors
By Josh Juhasz

Tesla already put a Roadster in a rocket. This week it put a rocket in the Roadster.

The original Roadster arrived in 2008 on a Lotus Elise-derived chassis, and the roughly 2,450 built through 2012 proved an electric car could go 244 miles on a charge and hit 60 in 3.7 seconds in Sport trim.

In November 2017 Tesla showed a second-gen Roadster at the Semi reveal promising 1.9 seconds to 60, more than 250 mph, 620 miles of range, a $200,000 base price, and deliveries in 2020, then spent nine years not building it while early buyers sat on $50,000 deposits and $250,000 Founders Series payments.

In between, Elon Musk’s own first-gen car rode a Falcon Heavy into orbit around the sun in 2018, which is why the new car’s party trick lands as a callback instead of a cheap (ok, very expensive) gimmick.

On October 15 at SpaceX’s test site in McGregor, Texas, the new Roadster drove up a towering curved ramp on fan suction good for up to 2 g, flew off the top on SpaceX-supplied cold-gas thrusters said to make more than 80 kilonewtons, barrel-rolled and landed, later hopped clean over the rest of Tesla’s lineup, and ran 0 to 60 in a claimed 0.81 seconds.

Tesla quotes more than 230 mph and 300-plus miles of range, two high-pressure air tanks totaling 600 liters that feed 10 nozzles and refill themselves, a steer-by-wire yoke, magnesium, titanium and carbon fiber throughout, and three trims: two-seat Performance with active aero and suction (under 1.6 seconds to 60), two-seat Thrust with rear thrusters (under 0.9), and the single-seat Rocket with thrusters around the perimeter (under 0.59), the one that actually flies and is not approved for public roads.

There is no official sticker price yet, but Performance takes a $50,000 reservation on tesla.com ($5,000 refundable today, $45,000 more within 10 days), while Thrust takes $250,000, and Rocket is invite only. Tesla says production starts in 2028.

Market Snapshot

Driver-grade first-gen Roadsters have been clearing in a tight band on Bring a Trailer this year, with a 2010 at $45,140 in February, a 2008 at $45,250 in May, a one-owner 2010 at $42,964 in June, and a 46k-mile 2008 at $43,000 in August, a step down from the $46,000 a 47k-mile 2008 brought in July 2025.

The real money is in low miles and upgrades: a 16k-mile 2008 with the R80 3.0 battery sold for $77,000 in September, the same month a 614-mile 2008 was bid to $71,000 without selling, and a 13k-mile 2010 Sport 2.5 brought $72,000 in March, out of only about 2,450 Roadsters Tesla delivered worldwide, roughly 1,800 of them in the U.S.

Now that the new car flies, the original reads as the founding artifact of the EV era, so a documented low-mile or R80 car is a rising special and a tired 53 kWh driver is still soft money.

Sources: Bring a Trailer results (2010, $45,140 · 2008, $45,250 · 2010, $42,964 · 2008, $43,000 · 2008, $46,000 (2025) · 2008 R80, $77,000 · 2010 Sport 2.5, $72,000 · 614-mile 2008, bid to $71,000) · production figures from Tesla’s 2012 annual report via Wikipedia

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🧠 Buster’s Based Metatations / Both Reins

Presented by the $BSTR token
By @Rext_Racer

We’ll admit it. We watched a car fly and forgot, for a minute, why we like driving.

Thursday handed us two reveals. In Texas, a Roadster climbed a wall on suction and kicked off the top on compressed air. In Queens, a Porsche sat still on an old pier with a key holder and five round dials, asking us to lean in and look closer.

We shared the first one. We kept thinking about the second.

Plato pictured the soul as a charioteer driving two winged horses.

One is noble and answers to the reins. The other is all appetite, and it bolts toward whatever shines brightest. Neither horse is the villain, because both of them pull. The trouble starts when the driver drops the reins and calls it freedom.

This week’s reveals are those two horses in sheet metal. The Roadster is built to escape: thrusters, suction, 0 to 60 measured in fractions of a second, a top trim that isn’t even meant for the road.

The Mission S is built to keep the driver in the seat, sitting deep in the car with the phone tucked away and the tach sliding closer when the mode gets serious. We need both.

Wonder drags us toward what’s possible. Discipline keeps us on the racing line long enough to get there.

So here’s the confession, turned into a habit.

Notice which horse you’ve been feeding. If your week was all launch and no landing, give the other one a turn: one drive with the phone in the glovebox and the stereo off, one evening fixing the thing you already own.

If you’ve gone the other way, so cautious that you stopped dreaming, let yourself price out something absurd tonight. Then take both reins back. That’s the whole job of a driver.