James Bond is trading in his Aston Martin for a Bentley. After years of happily tooling around in DB5s and DBSs, 007's allegiance will tranfer from Gaydon to Crewe in the new Bond novel, Devil May Care.

The book, written by Sebastien Faulks - he of Birdsong and Charlotte Gray fame - to commemorate the centenary of Ian Fleming's birth, takes Bond back to his motoring roots.

"Despite many of the films portraying him with an Aston Martin, Bond's first choice of car was a Bentley, so that is what he will be driving in my book," says Faulks.

Devil May Care is set in 1967, during the height of the Cold War, and though the plot is shrouded in mystery Faulks did reveal that Bond's Bentley will be 'battleship grey' - the same colour that Fleming specified for 007's Bentley convertible in the original Casino Royale novel.

There is speculation that Bond's car could be the 1967 T-series, a slightly earlier variant of the Bentley owned by our very own James May and driven in Season Two of TGTV.

We always knew the man had taste.

Bentley Mark IV

Contrary to the films, James Bond's official car in the Ian Fleming novels was a grey 1933 Bentley convertible. The car featured a 4.5 L engine with the Amherst-Villiers supercharger. In the novels, no gadgets were installed as this was Bond's personal vehicle that in Casino Royale is mentioned as being a hobby that Bond enjoys working on. Its only armament, in the novels, is a .45 Colt Army Special revolver Bond keeps in the glove compartment. The novel version of the Bentley Mark IV was destroyed during a chase sequence in Moonraker. The Bentley is also the very first Bond vehicle seen in the film series, although it was shown very briefly during Bond's first scene in From Russia with Love and mentioned only in passing in Goldfinger. In From Russia with Love, the only gadget known to be included was a car phone, which in 1963 was very uncommon. The film version of Goldfinger strongly implies that the Bentley was issued to Bond by Q-Branch when he asks Q about the vehicle, only to be told that it had "had its day" and is given the Aston Martin instead.

Note: In Casino Royale Fleming writes that Bond bought the car "almost new" in 1933 and had it stored during the war, which is mentioned in the Young Bond novel Double or Die. In Live and Let Die Fleming states the automobile's year as 1933, however in Moonraker Fleming states it's from 1930. This earlier date is the correct one, as the Bentley 4.5 Litre ceased production in 1930.