19-10-2006, 07:18
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VW Guru
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 759
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Quote:
He is famous for his vast automobile collection. In 1998, the British car magazine Autocar published undercover photographs of the Sultan's cars, which included unique conversions of Ferraris and Bentleys into station wagons. He is variously said to have owned between 1,000 and 5,000 cars; although the number purchased by his business interests and the number actually used by himself and his family differ greatly. According to Guinness World Records the Sultan's personal private collection has 200 Rolls-Royces — the largest collection of that marque in the world. During the 1990s, his family accounted for almost half of all Rolls-Royce purchases, bulk buying slightly modified vehicles for diplomats and adding unique cars to their own collection. He also owns the very last Rolls-Royce Phantom VI, a 1992 state landaulette.
Among his collection are the Lamborghini Diablo Jota, Porsche 959, Jaguar XJR-15 and six Dauer 962's. He is also the owner of 6 models of the Ferrari FX, the original red show model of the Bentley Continental R, two fully operational versions of the Ferrari Mythos concept car, both of the Ferrari 456 GT Sedans, the world's only Right hand drive Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR, seven McLaren F1's including both black LM models and three Cizeta cars. He also possesses a Formula One car as driven by every Formula 1 World Drivers Champion since the 1980 Formula One season, particularly the ones driven in the last race for each season. A prime example of this is Jacques Villeneuve's Williams FW19 which still bears the collision damage courtesy of Michael Schumacher in the 1997 European Grand Prix.
He has a special interest in buying one-of-a-kind concept cars, including the Bentley Java and Bentley Dominator 4x4, whilst leaving slightly more common race cars such as the Aston Martin AM3 or the souped-up 300SL replicas to his brother Jefri. The collection of vehicles was for the most part stored and serviced in five aircraft hangars, where specialist teams from the various manufacturers would maintain the collection. The engineer teams were recalled and the cars mothballed after it emerged Prince Jefri had stolen massive portions of government reserves.
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