The 10 Most Exclusive Cars That The Sultan Of Brunei Owns

Hassanal Bolkiah ibni Omar Ali Saifuddien III, also known as the 29th Sultan of Brunei, is one of the richest men in the world. The tiny Asian nation he presides over has some of the world's largest oil and gas reserves, and his control over this valuable resource is the reason for his immense wealth. His personal net worth is estimated to be around $30 billion, and a significant portion of that value is held in his car collection. It's thought that the Sultan has over 7,000 cars under his ownership, with a combined value of around $5 billion, although it's difficult to calculate precise numbers as the Sultan and his family are notoriously secretive with their purchases. During his peak car-buying period in the '90s, the Sultan was well-known for buying multiple examples of a car at the same time, to the point where his purchases reportedly accounted for nearly half of Rolls-Royce's entire output during the decade.

In 1998, Brunei's ruler began to run out of money, and had to sell off some of his assets to pay his debts. Since then, his buying power has decreased significantly, although many of the exclusive cars acquired during his heyday still remain under his family's ownership. Occasionally, a few cars are released from the collection and sold on the open market, some with zero mileage on their odometers. But, there are plenty more that remain in storage facilities in Brunei having never been seen in public, with only a few grainy photos that confirm their existence. The Sultan might not be as influential as he once was in the automotive world, but his collection of ultra-exclusive cars still remains unmatched.

This mid-engined V12 supercar is the closest that BMW ever got to making a direct successor to the M1. Debuting in 1991, the Nazca M12 was only intended to be a concept, but the Sultan saw the car and wanted one of his own. He convinced Italdesign, the famed Italian studio that was responsible for the car's design, to make a production car just for him. The car featured the 5.0L V12 engine from the 750i and 850i of the same era, and produced around 300 horsepower.

It remains unknown whether the Sultan ordered one or several of the cars, but only one is confirmed to exist. The car was finished in blue and stayed under the Sultan's ownership until 2011, when a dealership listed several of his cars for sale, including the M12. The price of the car was strictly upon request only, and it's not known whether the car was actually sold or whether it remains in Brunei.

Another special commission that remains shrouded in secrecy is the Aston Martin AM3, a car that looks very different from other Aston Martins of its era. It used the chassis of a Vantage and borrowed its supercharged 5.3L V8 engine, but it was styled by Pininfarina, then coach-built at Coggiola, near Turin. According to Aston Martins, Pininfarina is believed to have supplied the Brunei Royal family with five different designs, AM1 through AM5, but only the third and fourth designs were approved for production. It's thought that three examples of the AM3 were built in total.

None of those three cars have ever been seen in public and the only known images of them are thought to have been taken in and around Pininfarina's factory at the time the car was first built. Considering how many of the Sultan's cars have appeared for sale with virtually zero mileage on them, there's a good chance that all three AM3s may never have been driven.

There are only a handful of performance cars in the world that have ever been fitted with a V16 engine, and the Cizeta V16T is one of the rarest. Cizeta was a startup supercar maker that was founded in 1988 by a team of ex-Lamborghini engineers, led by engineer-turned-businessman Claudio Zampolli. The design of the car bears resemblance to the Lamborghini Diablo, and this is no coincidence, as both were designed by Marcello Gandini. It's not clear exactly how many production Cizetas were built between 1988 and 2003, but Business Insider puts the number at "less than 20." Two of those cars were sold to the Sultan of Brunei, and one was listed for $725,000 in 2020.

The listed car was imported to Singapore, and never actually reached Brunei, according to Business Insider. At the time of listing in 2020, it had 600 miles on the odometer but was never registered. The car is in as-new condition, with even the original tires fitted from when the car left the production line in 1993. Strangely enough, despite the last Cizeta being produced in 2003, in 2018 Zampolli confirmed in an interview that the car was still for sale, and could be ordered on commission. So, although it's technically been out of production for close to 20 years, the V16T could still be ordered as a 2022 model year car, making it the only V16-engined car currently on sale.

In 1994, Bentley wowed attendees at the Geneva Motor Show with the Java concept, which was a "junior Bentley with Cosworth V8 power" according to Autocar. The car was designed with a more modern audience in mind than the company's other cars, but it was never intended to be for production, instead merely as a design study that would influence future production models. However, the Sultan attended the 1994 show and decided he wanted to own the car himself. He approached Bentley about making a small production run, and they agreed, eventually making six coupes, six wagons, and six convertible examples.

According to RRSilverspirit, the car was based on a BMW 5 Series platform and featured a 4.0L V8 BMW engine. Each car was built by MGA Developments in Coventry rather than by Bentley themselves, and each was finished slightly differently according to the Sultan's specifications. However, each car received a production Bentley chassis number, with "H" in the fifth position in the number to designate it as a non-standard car. While the Java itself never made its way to dealerships, many of its styling innovations were carried over to production models like the Continental and the Azure.

Only five examples of the McLaren F1 LM were ever produced, built to honor the five F1 race cars that finished the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Sultan bought three of them, alongside a one-of-three McLaren F1 GT. McLaren says the cars were designed to be as close to the GTR race car as possible, with the minimum modifications required to make them road legal. The LM is also the most powerful of any F1, road-legal or race-built, as it uses a de-restricted version of the competition GTR's engine.

Every LM was finished in Papaya Orange, according to McLaren, and featured a minimalist carbon fiber interior with race seats. Due to its rarity and status as one of the ultimate iterations of such a legendary car, the F1 LM is among the most valuable cars in the world. One example sold at auction in 2019 for $19.8 million, so assuming the Sultan has kept all three of his F1 LMs in good condition, they are worth roughly $60 million. However, reports suggest that much of the collection is now unsalvageable thanks to its years of sitting in the jungle, so there's no guarantee that even these high-value specials would still be in a serviceable state.