Leaked Photos Show the Sultan of Brunei’s Insane Car Collection
Brunei, a country that’s barely bigger than the state of Delaware, is home to one of the largest car collections in the world. It’s owned by the Sultan of Brunei, and thus, it’s not the kind of place you can wander around in after paying $5 and getting your hand stamped. The collection is off-limits to the public and the press, but a large batch of leaked images allegedly captured in 2001 has revealed the fascinating cars inside.
The backstory behind these pictures is cloudier than a 250,000-mile Toyota Tundra’s headlights. What’s certain is that, starting yesterday, an Instagram account called Brunei_Cars_2001 started posting never-before-seen shots of the cars in the Sultan of Brunei’s collection. The account was seemingly opened with the sole purpose of sharing these pictures. The anonymous person behind the account also posted a link to a Google Drive folder that includes nearly 2000 additional pictures.
And holy moly, there’s a lot to take in here. Even the Rainbow Sheikh’s collection on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates pales in comparison to the Sultan of Brunei’s hoard. He’s got multiple examples of some of the most valuable supercars released in the past couple of decades. Ferrari F40? We count at least eight of them. Porsche 959? An entire row of these German supercars, each finished in a different color. Bugatti EB110? Check, times four, including one with one hell of a funky interior. McLaren built 106 examples of the F1, and eight of them live in this collection. (A little back-of-the-napkin math: Average #2-condition McLaren F1s are worth $23.5M, for a total of $188M.) We can’t even count all of the Jaguar XJ220s in the lot.
Still, these are far from the most interesting cars in the collection. What really fascinates us are the one-off and few-off models built specifically for the Sultan of Brunei, including some that we’ve never seen before. He’s a huge Bentley fan: There’s a station wagon called Val d’Isère, a big SUV known as the Dominator that predates the Bentayga by well over a decade, another wagon called Java, and so on.
Ferrari is well represented, too. There’s a futuristic-looking coupe called F90, a 456-based wagon, a 456-based sedan, a 456-based Spyder (notice a pattern?), and even a 456 with what looks like a primitive night-vision system. You’ll find quite a few oddities as well, such as a GMT400-generation Chevrolet Suburban with a camouflage livery and Pininfarina emblems, a Fiat Cinquecento converted into a beach car, and another GMT400-generation Suburban with a rear-seat entertainment system and a moldy interior.
These cars are just… there. Who knows what the case is now, but as of 2001 they appear to be stored in garages and parked close to each other like you’d hang up your nice shirts in your closet. All appear to be registered (or at least wearing plates), and they’re all very dusty.
Given the chance, which car would you take home?
The downside is that by all reports of people who have personally inspected the cars is that the majority of them are pretty much scrap/parts. They weren’t kept up, many of those garages aren’t climate controlled (in a hot tropical environment), etc. Michael Sheehan wrote an article some years ago talking about the massive mold problems in most cars (which you can see in the pictures on the IG account – all that grey dusty looking stuff), various interior parts basically melted away, etc. Out of the collection, at the time only a couple/few hundred were financially viable cars…given the recent increase in prices on some vehicles, that may have changed a bit, but the cars are also another decade (or two) decayed from the photos you see.
100% – having inspected several, most of them won’t be in good condition. Low miles, but never seen the light of day, and it’s a car. Be prepared to spend $1000s on anything from this collection
I always love these articles because I think they miss the point. Is it a shame that all these cars are sitting in Brunei rotting when they could be enjoyed elsewhere? Yes. But what people forget is that the Sultan’s money not only paid for these cars to be made, but also helped prop up these companies in the ’90s when sales were abysmal. Paolo Garella, the head of Pininfarina Special Projects at the time, believe that if it weren’t for the Sultan’s money Rolls, Bentley, Aston Martin, and maybe even Ferrari wouldn’t be in business today. I personally think its worth the sacrifice of a few rare cars to have everything great that’s come from here companies since.
I heard this about some of the Aston’s he had built at a time Aston were not selling cars anywhere else
Seems to only mostly Yellow cars. The Bentley custom cars are interesting. All these cars are getting no love it seems, just collecting dust.
While many of these cars have obviously been sitting for quite awhile this is not a new phenomenon. I recall reading an article sometime ago in a nonautomotive magazine showing the same as this as an example of wretched excess. In that case they were talking about motorcycles as well that were just being dumped to make room for more new motorcycles, in all available colors, that would soon enough suffer the same fate. This isn’t ‘you can never have enough’ it’s hoarding, wrong thinking.
What tiny fraction of the amounts he spent on these cars would appropriate climate-controlled storage cost? What slightly larger fraction would a regular rotation of these cars onto the street or a closed track and appropriate maintenance cost? Still small amounts compared to the incredible amounts of capital dumped to rot in sweltering warehouses… because as with so many “collectors”, the thrill of owning overpowers sense, prudence, financial rationality, and function. Ahhh, dopamine…
Appalling, really. Sickening. It is painful to any car nut to see these cars rotting.
But ultimately my reaction is: poor old rich man — he is as much a hoarder as a penniless retiree in a single-wide crammed with newspapers in a dirt trailer park.
How cool would you be with it if someone took unauthorized pictures of your car collection and published them? It seems privacy is another outmoded concept in today’s world.
Most of those exotic nameplates rolled (so to speak) right by me, until the author mentioned a “Fiat Cinquecento converted into a beach car.” Then my ears perked up. Which Cinquecento? The original Topolino (1936-55)? Never seen one of them converted (I have two Topos); a Nuova 500–from 1957 until the early 80s? Ghia built a bunch of Jollys using 600 and 500 rear engine cars as the basis (plus some Renault 4CV Beach Buggies). Or perhaps the current 500? Never seen one of those either.
Any pictures?
2001? These images are as useless as this article.
Tons of Checker A-10 Marathon’s in there.