James Bond is to be reunited with the Aston Martin marque in the next 007 movie.

Daniel Craig, who will star as Bond in Casino Royale, will be seen in a new Aston Martin DBS when the film comes out later this year.

Craig visited Aston Martin's headquarters at the former RAF V-Bomber airfield at Gaydon in Warwickshire last week, where he met company chiefs and some of the workforce and took a short test drive in the new car.

Aston Martin chairman Dr Ulrich Bez said: "It is great news that Bond will drive an Aston Martin again and we have built him something special to enable him to do his job in style."

Full details of the Bond car will be released at a later date.

Aston Martins first featured in a 007 film in 1964 when Sean Connery as Bond drove a silver DB5 in Goldfinger. It was fitted with a number of Bond extras, including front firing machine guns behind the indicators, rising bullet-proof rear screen, revolving number plates and a passenger ejector seat.

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The DB5 reappears in Thunderball, Goldeneye, and Tomorrow Never Dies. The last Bond film, Die Another Day, featured Aston Martin's flagship model, the Vanquish.

Aston Martin's film history also includes the 1969 film, The Italian Job. Charlie Crook (Michael Caine) owns a silver DB4 Convertible, which is destroyed in a Mafia ambush along with a pair of E-type Jaguars.

The director decided the filming of the Aston going over the cliff was not dramatic enough, so rather than destroy another Aston, a Lancia was mocked up to go over the edge for a second take. In the 2003 remake of the same name, the character Handsome Rob, (Jason Statham) ends up driving a DB7 Volante.

Shooting of Casino Royale starts later this month.