This Bentley Was Secretly Custom-Built And Then Left To Rot In The World’s Largest Car Collection. Now It Can Be Yours

For anyone curious about the Brunei Royal Family’s car collection, it’s been an exciting past week or so. A massive leaked gallery from 2001 offered hundreds of cars to obsess over, yet it still left many questions regarding how the collection’s aged since then. Well, the past 23 years haven’t been kind to all of them, but this coachbuilt Bentley Continental sedan looks like a restoration project that’s probably worth taking on.

Wait, how did this thing end up outside of Brunei? Well, it’s for sale at DK Engineering in England, the same dealership that listed the Heuliez Intruder for sale and is Britain’s distributor of the insane McMurtry Spierling fan car. Selling this sort of stuff takes connections, the sort of connections that could lead to this ex-Brunei Bentley ending up in England. However, likely because it’s firmly in project car territory, this thing’s being auctioned with no reserve on Carhuna, so how much it’ll go for is anyone’s guess.

Let’s start with a little background on this thing, the 1994 Bentley Continental R long-wheelbase SuFaCon sedan. As the listing claims, the first collaboration between Bentley and the Royal Family was a series of high-output Continental coupes, each called a Super Fast Continental — SuFaCon for short. From there, 19 standard-wheelbase sedans were built, then 14 long-wheelbase Mulliner Park Ward coachbuilt sedans, pairing four-door functionality with Continental styling. This is one of those 14 cars, and boy, does it ever seem to need some work.

At first glance, it’s immediately apparent this Bentley’s sagging hard in the rear end, indicating the self-levelling suspension ain’t self-levelling anymore. Mercifully, the 527-horsepower “P300-specification” engine is still in place, though it’s missing some of its plumbing parts. The charge pipe, air cleaner, and passenger-side valve cover are gone, all important-enough bits that it likely requires a full rebuild. With an engine this rare, do you really want to find out the extent of neglect the hard way? Oh, and there’s another mildly concerning powertrain part that’s missing: the entire shifter. Uhh, where’d that go?

Fortunately, once you get past the scope of what would be an insanely expensive mechanical restoration, the cosmetic side of fixing this thing up doesn’t seem too bad in the grand scheme of things. Aside from a curious lack of headlights, a damaged indicator, and a cracked windshield, the exterior looks remarkably complete, while the interior doesn’t look like a biohazard.

Sure, lots of wood trim in here is wrecked, but I don’t see crazy amounts of mold on the leather, for example. Many interior parts should be able to be sourced from a wrecked Continental R coupe, but not everything. See, because this is a coachbuilt car, the missing bits on the door cards are a bit of a guessing game that’ll likely require some serious fabrication. These aren’t regular Continental R door cards because that thing’s a coupe, nor are they Turbo R or Brooklands door cards.

Still, for the right Bentley collector, this coachbuilt Continental sedan made for the Brunei Royal Family might very well be worth taking on. Considering only 14 of this particular non-armored, long-wheelbase configuration were made, chances of acquiring another are slim to none. Plus, if this thing escaped the kingdom, doesn’t it make you wonder what else is still stashed in Darussalam?

(Photo credits: DK Engineering/Carhuna)

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