The Sultan of Brunei’s car collection is the stuff of legend, with the numbers of cars in it ranging from 6,000 to over 7,000 at an estimated value over $15 billion! Part of the charm of the collection is the secrecy surrounding some of the cars, the completely outrageous custom-built cars in the collection, and even a mix of the two. The Sultan’s secret Ferrari F90 is just one of those. A custom Ferrari so secret that Maranello didn’t even know they were being built right under their noses.
As the story goes, the Sultan’s brother, Prince Jeffri, approached the then-head of Pininfarina Design, Enrico Fumia, in 1989 to design a car around the Ferrari Testarossa. The only condition was that it must be built from the ground up and not be any existing design.
The Prince had reportedly already placed an order for a dozen custom Testarossa Spiders through the Ferrari importer for Singapore. Those were signed off and even tested by Ferrari itself. This new project was to be kept a secret. Fumia couldn’t even refuse, as this single order was raking in more money than most of Pininfarina’s work with manufacturers directly, thus keeping the company afloat. It’s a storyline the Sultan has taken part in before, by the way.
So Fumia, as the father of the Ferrari F90, would spend his free time after hours sketching up an out-of-this-world design for the Prince. The deal was simple. If the Prince liked the concept, he would order more.
As some would say, the rest is history, since the Prince ended up ordering six of the fully-custom Ferraris in the end. The design, testing, and production process was kept secret. Up until some pictures of the F90 leaked in 2002, thoug,h it wasn’t until 2005 that Ferrari was officially made aware of the Sultan’s F90 project.
In 2006, Ferrari officials recognised the F90 as its own product, even without ever seeing the car in the flesh. It’s a previous few who have seen the car, in fact. The half-dozen custom Ferrari F90s are reportedly still in the Sultan’s possession, but it’s unlikely we’ll ever see a secret project Ferrari on this scale ever again.
