Ask any moviegoer what kind of car James Bond drives and, depending on their age, they will suggest either an Aston Martin of one kind or another or perhaps an ocean-going Lotus.

Few would suggest a Bentley but the original super-spy of the books arrived at the lairs of his many adversaries in a customised Bentley Type R that he affectionately dubbed The Locomotive.

The car, mentioned in Thunderball and Oh Her Majesty’s Secret Service, never existed in reality but a tiny replica can now be found in a secret compartment concealed within the luxurious leather binding of a limited edition hardcover of Sebastian Faulks’ new Bond novel Devil May Care.

Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks will be published in hardback by Penguin Books in the UK and by Doubleday in the US on 28 May. The special Bentley edition of the book, limited to 300 copies with each copy carrying an individual serial number both on the jacket itself and on the numberplate of the included replica car, is part of a series of special events to commemorate celebrating the 28 May centenary of Ian Fleming’s birth .

The special edition book, bound in Bentley upholstery leather an designed by Chief Designer at Bentley, Dirk van Braeckel, will retail at £750 and is only available through Penguin’s Bond Microsite: www.penguin007.com

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