Tesla Model 3 first-day reservation holders will get mini versions of their cars as their ‘something special’

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been promising “something special” for the many Model 3 reservation holders who waited in line sight-unseen to order the new electric vehicle.

Deliveries have already started for months now with no sign of the “something special”, but now we learn that it will reportedly be a miniature diecast version of the car.

When Tesla started taking orders for the Model 3 on March 31st, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that unlike Tesla’s previous models, there will not be any ‘Signature reservation’ option for the Model 3. With the Model S and X, Tesla opened up 1,000 ‘Signature reservation’ spots per market for a $40,000 deposit (versus $5,000 for a regular reservation).

A ‘Signature reservation’ assured that you would get the vehicle sooner than anyone in your market and you also had the option to choose a special color called ‘Signature red’ to make your car stand out.

While there were no ‘Signature’ reservations for the Model 3, Musk still promised “something special” for early reservation holders.

It led many people to believe that it would be something to make the vehicle standout as being one of the earliest ones reserved, but now we received several reports of Tesla retail employees confirming that it will actually be a miniature diecast version of the Model 3.

That’s something that Musk actually mentioned almost 2 years ago:

@squallcraft and a few other things

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2016

Tesla already sells a 1:18 scale diecast of the Model S P100D on its website for $210. It’s not clear if the Model 3 version will be 1:18 scale, but it will apparently be customizable to look like your specific Model 3 configurations, which only means matching color and wheels right now.

Electrek’s Take

It’s still not clear if the gift is for all first-day reservation holders or just those who have waited in line to reserve at the store pre-unveiling.

First-day reservation holders already received a thank you card from Elon and a poster of early design Model 3 sketches:

But that could have just been one of the “few other things”.

Sightings of a Red Signature Model 3 have led many people to think that a special color option would be the “something special”, while others were hoping for something more valuable like free Supercharger access.

At the end of the day, the main benefit of an early reservation is actually to be ahead of the massive backlog of reservations and getting your Model 3 sooner.

With this said, it’s still nice to have something to remind you that you were an early supporter of this Tesla vehicle program and a special diecast model is pretty good for that and also quite a generous gift if it’s of the same value as the 1:18 scale Model S diecast. Considering there are over 100,000 first-day reservations, that’s over $20 million worth at retail value.

But it could also be smaller or different verion.