Models of Yesteryear Y-2/4; 1930 Bentley 4 1/2 litre; British Racing Green

Year of Release: 1985

Bond's car is battleship grey - not British racing green like this one.

Fleming does not initially say what year the car is, although he describes it as "one of the last 4½-litre Bentleys with the supercharger by Amherst Villiers." James Bond bought the car "almost new in 1933 and had kept it in careful storage through the war." Near the end of the Casino Royale he crashes it in France.

This is Bond's personal car, which the Secret Service had repaired after the accident in France in Casino Royale. In Live and Let Die Bond drives this from his flat to his Regent's Park office. Unlike in Casino Royale, Fleming lists the car's year explicitly.

It gets its last appearance in Moonraker where Bond chases Drax's Mercedes on the Dover road from London, after an incident with an Alfa 8c which Drax forces off the road, killing the driver, Drax's henchman Krebs, climbs out of the Mercedes on to the back of a lorry carrying rolls of newsprint. Krebs cuts the ropes holding the load in place and the rolls of paper roll down the hill towards the Bentley. Bond crashes through the hedge wrecking the car and knocking him unconscious. Later in the book Bond uses money he won from Drax at cards to buy himself a 1952 Bentley Continental Coupe.

This Models of Yesteryear was sourced in January 2022 from a private collection