Sultan of Brunei's cars - the best bits

He’s got a private aeroplane with gold-plated furniture, lives in a house with 1,788 rooms, and has one of the world’s largest and most extravagant car collections.

There’s barely enough space on the internet to list the Sultan of Brunei’s cars – one of the world’s richest men owns between 3,000 and 6,000 of the world’s most sought after motors.

His car collection has now become the stuff of legend – nobody knows exactly how many cars the wealthy Sultan owns. He may not even know himself.

Born in 1946, Hassanal Bolkiah received a private education in Brunei, before enrolling at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, and he was also awarded an Honorary Doctor of Law degree from Oxford.

Before his graduation from Sandhurst, the heir to the throne flew home to be crowned as Sultan, and began his planet-shredding car collection.

Roll on, roll on

Think of any manufacturer – Aston Martin, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota – and the Sultan will most probably have the ENTIRE RANGE in his collection.

But among the Audi Quattros, the BMW 8 Series’, the Ferrari F355s, the Ford Mondeos, and the Honda NSXs, the Sultan has some interesting motors.

Take, for example, his one-off £500,000 modified Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit Mk IV customised by Indian firm DC Designs – which now looks like an extra from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The custom Roller boasts upwards-opening ‘scissor’ doors a-la Lamborghini and a heavily tapered coupe body.

What does the Sultan drive? Find out in our image gallery NOW

Sa-loony Ferrari

And the Sultan (pictured right) likes unique bodystyles – famed design house Pininfarina built just TWO ludicrously rare Ferrari 456 GT saloons for the gazillionaire monarch.

These are the only known Fezza 456 four-doors in existence, apparently.

The Sultan is a keen Ferrari fan, but likes to keep his cars a secret.

Word on the street however, reveals a Ferrari dubbed the ‘FX’ – just seven were made by Ferrari and Pininfarina for the Sultan, of which six eventually found their way into his car-park garage.

The FX reportedly features a custom-built body bolted on to the base of a Ferrari 512M, a seven-speed transmission from British F1 team Williams and the V12 from the old Testarossa…

Which of the Sultan's cars would YOU like to blag? Have your say on the Auto Trader Blog

The Sultan's got a Bentley GT Continental - but what did we think of it? Watch our road test:

GTR-rrrrrrr

And speaking of V12’s…

The Sultan owns the world’s ONLY right-hand-drive version of a car designed to do one thing – rearrange internal organs. Who needs invasive surgery when you’ve got a Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR?

Mercedes-Benz built the CLK GTR in 1997 to race in the FIA GT Championship, and as part of the entry rules, had to build some for road use. Which probably meant the stripped-out, track-legal monster got a tax disc slapped on the windscreen. Or not.

The GTR houses a mammoth 6.9-litre V12 engine producing around 612bhp – 0-62mph takes the-blink-of-an-eye, while topped out, you probably should be on a private runway.

Rumour has it Mercedes-Benz took apart a McLaren F1 to see how it’s really done, and then set to work on building their own CLK GTR.

And speaking of the McLaren F1 – the Sultan has five. That’s FIVE.

But what else has the world’s biggest petrolhead got?

We’ve tried to round up as many of his unique motors as possible - including his rare Ferrari 'FX' - but the team didn't seem too keen on spending the-rest-of-time chronicling the Sultan’s garage, so here goes…