jaguar-xj220-pininfarina-custom-works-for-the-sultan-of-brunei

TopSpeed

By Javier

Published Oct 9, 2006

What exactly is hiding behind the garage-doors in the Sultan’s palace, nobody knows for sure. We heard of an Audi S8 with full chrome paint (car is banned on the national roads in at least 84 countries), custom made cars such as Ferrari TestaRossa F90 Speciale, several custom made Aston Martins, a Bentley Java, six Dauer 962 LMs, a unique right-hand-drive Mercedes CLK-GTR, Mercedes-AMG, 7 or 8 McLaren F1’s and McLaren F1 LM ‘s, Lamborghini Diablo Jota, and a Porsche 959. All of these were bought with money from the oil revenues that his family owns.

Perhaps one of the biggest treasures in the Sultan’s “Harem” is a XJ220 Pininfarina Jag, custom made for him. At its age of glory (during the ‘90’s), the XJ220 was one of the fastest but yet longest cars available on the market. It reached 60 in 3.8 seconds and it had a top speed of over 212mph. Also it was nearly 5 meters long.

Pininfarina decided to shorten the car. Along with this process, a few pounds were dropped from the 3025-lbs vehicle. The custom-builder also replaced the pop-up headlamps with fixed units. Pininfarina also added a double vane rear-wing.

What is for sure is the fact the engine and the rims are probably the only parts that weren’t modified. The engine is Twin-Turbo V6 that generates up to 550 horsepower.

The fact the rims were not changed, even dough a custom car builder starts with them is quite a trademark for the Sultan. He prefers rolling on the stock ones. Not such a big custom-rim fan.

Car-fanatics, journalists and even other custom builders estimated the car at ~1,5 million. (Pininfarina did not release any information regarding the price of the car).