Driving a 2008 Tesla Roadster is electric—if you’ll pardon the admittedly bad pun.

Mash the pedal and the car leaps forward, pressing you into the seat—0 to 60 in about 3.8 seconds. You can throw it into corners and despite a little understeer, it’s a stable beast. Yet it is also eye-catching, arguably the best model the manufacturer ever produced—in terms of fun, if not family functionality.

Dave Faries here, having taken a 2008 Tesla Roadster out for a spin. The car was the company’s first, a two-seater that came with a removable hardtop, its electric engine producing around 250 all-or-nothing horsepower, prepared at a time when there was little cause to stamp it with an “I bought it before…” excuse.

And it can be exhilarating to drive when not bogged down in everyday Peninsula traffic. Even then, however, it can cause the person behind the wheel to laugh. A car like the Roadster, with its styling Lotus body and burrowed stance, seems to rile other drivers—particularly those in bland, current-edition Teslas or Priuses. Several times as I cruised along, a puttering Tesla in another lane would suddenly pick up its pace in a fit of jealousy. 

No, the car is not mine. But it is up for sale. And no, I was not a prospective buyer taking it out on a test drive. I’m a writer, and 2008 Teslas will run in the $200,000-plus range. Around 600 were built in that year, and just 2,400 or so in the model’s five-year production run.

This week, two of the coveted Roadsters are on the market in Monterey. One is a low-mileage car on the Mecum Auctions block, selling at no reserve on Friday. The other has been in possession of the owner of Monterey Touring Vehicles since the classic car rental company launched in 2018. For a short time it was part of the company’s fleet, as well.

Monterey Touring Vehicles staff tell me that it was not the car’s performance paired with untested drivers that caused them to pull it from the lineup. The progressive, all-electric 2008 Tesla—classic though it may be—simply did not fit in with a collection that includes a 1956 Porsche Speedster, a 1957 Ford Fairlane, a pink Cadillac from 1961, along with Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes and more from the age of chrome and muscle (as well as their 1938 chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce).

But among Teslas, the 2008 is certainly a statement. It’s a car you have to drive, the meaning of which becomes clear when you are behind the wheel. The Roadster is quick and responsive. Pushing the pedal—I almost wrote “gas”—on Highway 1, I had a brief moment to check the gauges and saw the tachometer (yes, it has one; ask Elon to explain) sweep past 9,000 RPM.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of rarities on the road during Car Week. But few are as unexpected as the 2008 Tesla Roadster.

Someone else will own it. But at least I got to put a few more environmentally friendly miles on it before it sells.