Prince Jefri’s 1988 Ferrari Testa Rossa F90 Speciale was just one of hundreds of unused Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and McLarens rotting away in the tropical heat and humidity of Brunei.
IMAGINE SEEING HUNDREDS of deluxe Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and McLarens—many with hardly any miles on the odometer—rotting away in tropical heat and humidity.
Although much has been written of the Sultan of Brunei’s car collection—and there is no lack of spy photos of his collection on the Internet—the estimated 2,500 cars are actually not the Sultan’s—they were the property of Prince Jefri, the Sultan’s third brother. As the minister of finance for Brunei (until 1997), Prince Jefri controlled the revenue from oil and gas through the BIA, or Brunei Investment Authority, and a network of companies under the name Amadeo.
The 1997 Asian financial crisis depressed oil prices and triggered a financial crisis in Brunei. The sultan ordered Arthur Andersen to audit the BIA books, which revealed that between 1983 and mid-1998, some $40 billion in “special transfers” were made by the BIA and that Prince Jefri had personally squandered $14.8 billion. In July 1998 Prince Jefri’s Amadeo investment group collapsed under $10 billion in debt.
In 2000 Prince Jefri settled with the government of Brunei and began returning assets. Those assets included more than five hundred properties in Brunei and abroad, more than two thousand cars, a hundred paintings, five yachts, and nine world-class aircraft. According to court documents, the prince spent $78 million at Pininfarina Spa for coachbuilt right-hand-drive Ferraris, $475 million at Rolls-Royce, and $900 million at British jeweler Asprey.
In early 2002 I was offered a package of 13 very special Ferraris and McLaren F1s from the collection of a Brunei importer. After the usual negotiations, I agreed to buy two McLarens (a Ferraro F40 LM and a 288 GTO Evoluzione for clients), with an option to buy another 16 McLarens and Ferraris.
In May 2002 I flew to Brunei and stayed at the Empire Hotel. Commissioned by Prince Jefri and built at a cost of $1.1 billion, the Empire Hotel is beyond opulent. The Empire was built to accommodate over a thousand guests, but I never saw more than a dozen people anywhere in the hotel at any time. I also visited Jerudong Park, the largest and most expensive amusement park in Southeast Asia, which was also commissioned by Prince Jefri for a modest $1 billion. Like the Empire hotel, it was empty. A strict Muslim country, Brunei has no alcohol, virtually no nightlife, and thus no tourists.
Prince Jefri’s 1988 Ferrari Testa Rossa F90 Speciale was just one of hundreds of unused Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and McLarens rotting away in the tropical heat and humidity of Brunei.
I was picked up by an ex–New Zealand Special Forces (SAS) officer working as a bodyguard for the Brunei royal family. The car collection was a few kilometers down the coast and housed in a large compound surrounded by a high wall topped with razor wire, further protected by a bombproof front gate. Once inside, we had to turn in our cameras and passports and stay with our guide, as armed Gurkhas with very serious German shepherds patrolled the compound.
We first went through eight two-story buildings—each about 250 feet long by 60 feet wide—with each level holding about 120 cars. Each level had a semblance of a theme, with the first building filled with Porsches from 959s up to the late 1990s. Another floor held mainly black-on-black 1996–1997 Mercedes-Benz 500 sedans. Yet another building held coachbuilt Rolls-Royces, Bentleys, and Aston Martins, while the next one housed mainly 1990s-model Ferraris, including a few dozen 456s and 550s. Several 550s were fitted with experimental XTRAC automatic gearboxes. About a half a dozen were coated in radar-reflective matte black coatings and fitted with infrared cameras for night driving—high-tech stuff for the late 1990s.
A lower floor revealed rows of right-hand-drive Testarossas, 512 TRs, and 512 Ms. Another building contained mainly coachbuilt Ferraris, with four 456 four-doors, four 456 Venice Cabriolets, more 456 Venice station wagons, five FXs, a pair of Mythoi, and an incredibly ugly one-off called an F90. The token Enzo-era Ferrari was a right-hand-drive 275 GTS, serial number 7795.
Between the eight large buildings was a glass-walled showroom with three McLaren F1s, a 288 GTO Evo, an F50, and an F40 LM. The F40 LM was black with a black leather interior, red piping, air conditioning, and power windows. As in the other buildings, the air conditioning was off, rendering the showroom a very efficient greenhouse. Inside, the cars were cooking away. A windowless theater sat beneath the building, filled with rows of right-hand-drive F40s, 288 GTOs, and other exotics.
At the back of the compound were two long two-story buildings about 50 feet apart. A corrugated tin roof between them offered some protection from the blistering sun—but not from the rain. Under the shade were another three hundred or so 1995–1997 500 SELs and SLs, all black/black, many with the windows down, all rotting into oblivion. Millions of dollars of beautiful and rare collector vehicles were virtually open to anything the Southeast Asian weather decided to throw at them—from humid, tropical heat to the whirling winds and rain of monsoon season. Many of the vehicles were AMG specials with wood- or carbon-fiber-trimmed interiors, big motors, etc. We called this group “the reef,” as turning them into an artificial ocean reef was probably their best use.
Prince Jefri—the Sultan of Brunei’s third brother—took this Ferrari 550 Spider to Monaco.
A late-1090s Rolls-Royce convertible was near the Mercedes-Benz fleet, but it was under a real roof and better protected. The Rolls had become so hot with the windows up that the steering wheel’s foam padding had melted into a puddle on the driver’s seat and the leather wrap hung from the barren steel rim like a used condom. The entire interior was fuzzy with mold from the heat and humidity, rendering the interior a gray, furry blanket.
A single-story building held 60 or so truly unique cars, most in a very bright yellow—including a row of four-wheel-drive Bentley station wagons and a dozen late-model Lamborghinis. A few non-yellow cars, such as a black 456 Venice wagon with mirrored side windows, were also in this building. A side room was filled with high-end motorcycles, whereas another room was filled with hundreds of empty Rolex, Cartier, and Patek Philippe watch presentation boxes.
Behind one of the buildings was a row of “lesser” cars, including the collection’s token Corvette—all destroyed by the sun and rain. The mechanics deserted the collection in 1998, and nothing was in drivable condition. What had once been the planet’s largest collection of coachbuilt and high-end exotics was now a vast automotive tomb, patrolled only by a few Gurkhas with dogs.
There were fewer than a hundred Ferraris, and only a few hundred cars in total were commercially viable. All had minimal mileage—but all were also poster children for deferred maintenance.
The lesser cars were beyond saving. None had been started in five years. Our offer was cheerfully accepted by the importer who offered the cars, but none of them came with any service records. Even worse, none had titles, and attaining a bill of sale or export documents was almost impossible, as the mid-level bureaucrats were paralyzed by indecision of the fear of making a political mistake and issuing export paperwork.
Although my trip to Brunei was an amazing cultural and automotive experience, we were never able to get a car out of the collection. Eight more years in a steamy tropical rain forest has certainly not helped any of those former beauties.
The local officials have no plans to save or to sell the collection, and the cost to turn it into a tourist attraction would be staggering. Over the last eight years, fewer than a dozen significant cars have been removed as gifts to well-connected expats. Another few hundred pedestrian Mercedes-Benzes have been given to Brunei locals, but the bulk of the collection is still there, where it will die and then rot into oblivion.