As the cliché goes, all women want him, and all men want to be him – and it’s easy to see why: the tuxedoed anti-hero has the girls, the gadgets and most certainly the cars.

James Bond – it’s just a name, and yet within those two seemingly innocuous syllables lies a wealth of adventure, intrigue and, dare we say it, darkness. No other fictional character of our times is quite so clearly defined – Bond is a tool to rid us of evil geniuses hell-bent on taking over the world, but he does it with a style that sets him apart from all others.

As the cliché goes, all women want him, and all men want to be him – and it’s easy to see why: the tuxedoed anti-hero has the girls, the gadgets and most certainly the cars. It’s a formula that clicked and, despite consuming six different lead actors and enduring a hiatus during the early 1990s, the film franchise has proved an unstoppable rollercoaster, continuing with the 22nd in the series, Quantum of Solace, later this month.

But let’s get down to the cars that Bond made famous. Rewind to 1953 and the arrival of Ian Fleming’s first James Bond book Casino Royale. Clearly it’s here that the secret agent’s fine taste in automobiles was formed. Fleming wanted Bond to enjoy good cars – his first steed was fancifully described as a 1933 Bentley MkIV (later redated in the book Moonraker to 1930) with a Colt .45 in its glovebox.

When Fleming sold the motion picture rights to film producers Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli and Harry Salzmann, 007’s accessories took shape. Although Dr No lacked star cars, Bond’s deft handling of his back-projected Sunbeam Alpine Series II hinted at the excitement to come.

NEXT: Goldfinger, Aston Martin DB5