In this new series of articles, I want to take a look at the details of the world’s largest car collection. The car collection of the Sultan of Brunei, namely: the ruler Hassanal Bolkiah.
Brunei is located on the island of Borneo in the Pacific Ocean and its only mainland neighbour is Malaysia. It gained independence from Britain in 1984. The country is extremely rich in mineral resources, especially oil and natural gas. This brings us to the point that explains the monarch’s vast wealth and luxurious lifestyle.
Bolkiah’s wealth is estimated to be between 20 and 24 billion dollars. Over the decades of his reign, he amassed an astonishing collection of cars. The collection consists of some 7,000 cars and is estimated to be worth $5 billion. It includes rarities such as the Ferrari F40, one of a kind from Mclaren’s Formula 1 stable. Or an array of Bentleys and Rolls-Royces that were made personally for the monarch and never appeared in production anywhere. An example is the Bentley Dominator, which was released 20 years before the Bentley Bentayga, the company’s first official SUV.

The importance of the collection is well illustrated by the fact that the Sultan’s wishes saved the Bentley factory from virtual bankruptcy in the 1990s. There were years when more than half of the factory’s orders were custom orders from the Sultan!
As of 2011, Rollse-Royce’s collection is officially in the Guinness Book of World Records with over 500 cars.
The Ferrari F40 collection, which has been customized by Pininfarina.
The McLaren F1 was a mid-engined sports car built between 1992 and 1998, with a total of 106 cars produced. Due to the extremely limited production numbers, the cars are extremely rare, with a value of between $8 million and $13.5 million. Well, of these, the ruler managed to acquire around 10.
The Bugatti EB 110 stock is also very striking. The Bugatti EB 110 was a rear mid-engined sports car produced between 1991 and 1995. The royal family ordered “a few” EB 110s for the collection, including 4 EB 110 SS models with production codes 01, 02, 03, 13. SS01 was sold to the UK in the early 2000s. SS02, SS03 and SS13 are still in the Royal Family garages in 2010.
I will cover each of them in detail in the following episodes, for now I have started the series with this summary.
Adam Gubán