July 24: The Sultan's Cars

Brunei........what do you think of when the word Brunei comes up? Probably not much, since this tiny little country on the island of Borneo, home to less than 400,000 people, seldom, if ever makes the news. But if you are a car guy, the Sultan of Brunei and his car collection are mythical.

Rumour has it (and there are lots of rumours and some facts) that the sultan of this extremely oil rich mini-state has a personal car collection of at least 5000 cars, Obviously good taste is not necessarily a prerequisite for ruling this country, if you take this official Rolls-Royce as an example, but things get better. The sultan loves Rollers and reportedly has about 500 of them, some custom like these two......

 I once read that Rolls and Ferrari sent mechanics (technicians sounds better) to Brunei for 3 months at a time to tend to the fleet. Ferrari would also go to the sultan with a custom design, say a wagon or a sedan, to see if the he was interested. Often he was and would order one in each colour, like this reportedly one of six, 456 wagon version........

Price? Guesstimate about $1.5m per car. Wouldn't this be every car guy's dream, to have an exotic made especially for them. Actually, there is a Ferrari collector in New York, who has had exactly this done for him.

The extent of this collection is quite secret, so it surprises me that this pic was even taken, but I've included it anyway  -  some very mundane Phantoms and 7 series Bimmers.

So the next time you see something like this custom Rolls-Royce woody wagon in your town, you can assume that the Sultan of Brunei is visiting. Sweet dreams!

Until next time.........