This 1989 Turbo R Custom Is How a 15-Year-Old Brunei Prince Saved Bentley Motors

The absolute ruler of the tiny petrodollar-rich state from the equatorial Pacific is said to have a personal collection of more than 7,000 automobiles. One of the wealthiest people on Planet Piston (and Planet Earth, for that matter), the Sultan is not the abyssal gearhead one might be tempted to believe after hearing about the gigantic garage.

Quite the opposite – most of that immense collection is the work of the Sultan's brother, Brunei's former Ministry of Finances, Prince Jefri Bolkiah. Even more interesting is that the avid motorist curated a significant portion of this vast selection of automobiles between 1986 and 1997.

Following a complicated chain of events, the car enthusiast with too much money on hand was sacked by his brother. The scandal surrounding the royal family of Brunei can best be summed up by its financial value – said to be around $15 billion (in 1997 money!). Prince Jefri was accused of embezzling the said amount – with a considerable share of the sum washed up to carmakers' bank accounts.

The occidental aura of London heavily influenced Brunei, a former British protectorate (until 1984). The prince and his brother, the Sultan, received an English education and probably acquired a taste for the country's luxury cars during their stay in England.

Most notably, Rolls-Royce and Bentley were the U.K. brands of choice for the avid spender Prince Jefri. The high-end carmakers were very affable when fulfilling all Brunei-originated orders – some bespoke one-offs.

Hearsay – malevolent or documented – has it that the Brunei money was so critical to Rolls-Royce and Bentley that the two brands wouldn't even exist today were it not for the limitless expenditures from the Asian nation.

But even an assortment of megalithic proportions had to start somewhere. In the case of Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei, his Bentley collection began – by chance – in 1988. All with the assistance, courtesy, service, and help from a pair of London-based brokers, Rafi and Vatche Manoukian.

Ironically, the royal gearhead wasn't even involved in that event. His son, Prince Hakim, triggered the Brunei-Bentley affair in a gesture of affection toward his father, the Brunei Ministry (and big-time spender) of Finances.

The year is 1988, and His Royal Highness Prince Hakim is exploring the world's intricate facets and temptations. At 15 years old, he takes a trip to the United States and, while staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel (owned by his family), he decides to buy his father a present.

A thoughtful decision, especially for a teenager accustomed to opulence, lavishness, and utter and immediate obedience from everyone. With Rafi Manoukian by his side, the Brunei Richie Rich enters the Gregg Motors Rolls-Royce dealership from Beverly Hills.

History shows that the salesman was more than indifferent to his client's lack of a driver's license. Given the flooding number of U.S. Presidents' Federal Reserve legal-tendering photographs that accompanied the flamboyant youth, I can see why the dealership chose to dismiss that minor detail.

The young prince was impressed by the new 1989 Bentley Turbo R model. As with most blue-blooded characters, he didn't want to mingle with the crowd of commoners that would buy the same car. He wanted his to be fit for a wealthy king's relative.

In short, he asked if Bentley could build a two-door version of the luxury sedan. Now, with the prospect of some hundreds of thousands of dollars blown away through the back doors of the Turbo R, the dealer instantly promised to have the custom Bentley created.

If you wave millions like flyswatters, a pompous carmaker will pull a non-existent version of its car out of thin air. And that's precisely what happened in 1989 – Bentley delivered a two-door version of the Turbo R. Needless to point out, the Brits did not produce coupes then.

There was a loophole, however. Even if Bentley did not build such bodies, it had a coachbuilder to convey such requests for the uber-rich. Called Hooper, the company had been in the coachbuilding business for 181 years when the young Bruneian royal customer ordered his Bentleys.

Plural, because he wanted not one, but two custom-made two-door sedans. One for himself and the other one for his funding father. The order was placed on July 18th, 1988. The car was delivered on March 29th of the following year.

It took Bentley and Hooper eight-and-a-half months to make two particular Turbo Rs – according to the documents that can be seen in the gallery. And even after such a patience-testing period, the teenager's car wasn't up to standards.

A two-page document contains a 25-point modifications list requested by Rafi Manoukian on behalf of his Brunei benefactor. What's unbelievable is that many of those address build quality issues that would have made a Soviet car factory blush in shame.

Realign doors, remove the dent from hood center chrome, check driver side mirror, reset doors windows frames due to excessive wind noise. Refit the front spoiler correctly, fix non-functional central locking, fix the passenger door (it opens by itself), realign the brake light, realign the console to the dash panel, and make the A.C. blow colder air.

Not exactly the pride of British luxury car manufacturing, especially when the car is for a very wealthy royal family. We can assume the defects were addressed and corrected – the vehicles were eventually delivered to the customer. One of them – the first build – is finished in white over a red interior, and the list of extras is three pages long. It's also in the gallery, should you wish to scroll through it.

Leather, wood, lambswool, and whatnot solve the "luxury" aspects of the problem. The unique two-door Brunei 1989 Bentley Turbo R features the archetypal six-and-three-quarters-of-a-liter V8 on the mechanical business end. A General Motors Turbo-Hydramatic TH-400 three-speed automatic gearbox put 328 hp and close to 516 lb-ft (333 ps/700 Nm) to the rear wheels.

After a careful restoration, the 9,955-mile (16,017 kilometers) Brunei-ordered 1989 Bentley Turbo R is for sale. The $198,500 price tag is a bargain, considering that the initial price would have climbed to an obscenely high value (in pounds sterling) in 1988.

Like many other details regarding the Brunei royal family, the initial purchase price is a matter of confidentiality between the motoring and coachwork companies and the beneficiary. The cold hard fact is that a rich teenager's shopping spree from the summer of '88 sparked a long-lasting relationship with the British motoring icon. An impulse-driven acquisition that eventually saw Bentley and Rolls-Royce get out of their late '80s financial tight spot.