Ugly, He should hire a guy with good taste...

 

Google Sultan Ferrari and you'll see lots of 'interesting' creations. None of them are especially stunning, but I do like his Ferrari 456 sedans and wagons. He also has a fleet of Bentley SUVs!

 

For years, the Sultan of Brunei and his brother, Prince Jeffrei, were the single largest patrons of a number of automobile manufacturers. I've heard that they virtually singlehandedly kept Aston and Bentley alive. That said, Prince Jeffrei was the more profligate spender of the two.

Subsequently cut off by his brother, Jeffrei had multiple 747 private jets. He owned many Polo and race horses. He spent like a drunken sailor on steroids.

The commissioned works by Ferrari were based on existing models with such things as a 456 Shooting Brake, a Valeo clutch F40 and too many others to list. Moreover, he would order these cars in multiple colors and by the 1/2 dozen (or more) at a time. The Marconi museum has two or possibly three of the Brunei cars.

For the most part, cars like the FX turned out poorly. They contracted out the design work to firms like Pininfarina, which IMO didn't really do such a hot job. But, to each their own, and I wasn't writing the checks.

Years ago I met with a Pininfarina representative to discuss having a one-off done. It was extravagantly expensive. Too rich for my blood. I also explored one of their limited runs of 10 and even the price of modifying one of my existing cars was absurdly expensive. So, I can only imagine what the Sultan must have paid. However, money is no object to him. Or wasn't.

Anyway, many of the cars fell into a state of disrepair and due to the decision to liquidate some of the collection, the Sultan's cars became available. Just waste on a whole new scale. However, without him, it's possible that some great automotive companies wouldn't have survived.

CW

 

That actually made me LOL.