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.