Rare Holden spied in Sultan of Brunei secret car collection leak

In a secret 7000-vehicle collection of some of the world’s most expensive and exotic cars – leaked on social media – sits an Australian-made Holden Commodore V8.

A social media post showing a huge collection of cars owned by the Sultan of Brunei has revealed a slew of strange, expensive and collectible cars including Ferraris, Bugattis and one-off bespoke builds – and a Holden Commodore.

It’s not just any Commodore, though, the former top-selling model a family, police and performance car favourite. Rolling through the vehicles, nestled in front of a yellow Ferrari – with a pair of blue and red Ferraris alongside – is a 1990 HSV VN SS Group A Commodore.

The Sultan of Brunei – a tiny country in South-East Asia – is regularly reported as the world’s wealthiest royal, with the famous secret collection peaking at an estimated 7000 cars with a value of $US5 billion ($AU7.8 billion).

Images of the collection were posted to Instagram this week – as well as a full Google Drive folder – revealing an amazing number of unique, exotic and wild cars, alongside some of the most intriguing from around the world, including Australia.

The maroon Commodore – officially Durif Red – is one of only 302 ‘VN’ Group As made by HSV (Holden Special Vehicles) after the rules demanding 500 road-going examples be built to allow Holden to race them were binned, halting production in March 1991. 

That meant it was the last showroom ‘homologation special’ for Group A regulations used in Australia for Bathurst – and the touring car championship – between 1985 and 1992.

The switch to V8 regulations the following year became the forerunner to today’s V8 Supercars rules where the Chevrolet Camaro and Ford Mustang compete – to be joined by a V8-powered Toyota Supra in 2026.

Based on the mid-spec Berlina version of the VN-series Commodore, the SS Group A came with a more powerful reworked 215kW/411Nm version of Holden’s 4.9-litre V8 and was the first Australian car with a six-speed manual transmission, taken from the US-made Chevrolet Corvette.

It also had lowered suspension with Bilstein shock absorbers, unique 17-inch alloy wheels with Goodyear Eagle tyres, upgraded brakes and a limited-slip differential (LSD) helping rear-wheel traction.

The VN SS Group A was the fastest Australian production car at the time, too, with local media achieving a 0-100km/h time of 6.2 seconds, a standing quarter-mile (402m) in 14.4 seconds and a top speed of 253km/h.

Priced at $68,950 before on roads when new in 1990, VN SS Group A values have soared following the closure of Holden and subsequent end of HSV, with the most sought-after examples fetching as much as $300,000.

In March, a ‘pilot’ racing version – not part of the 302 road-car batch – run by the Holden Racing Team sold for $135,000 in March 2024, while another raced by Peter Brock at Bathurst in 1991 reached $235,000 when bidding ended at auction in September.

The Group A is not the only Holden part of the collection, with HSV records claiming to have built a single Alpine White SV5000 – a luxury VN V8 Commodore sedan made by HSV between 1989 and 1991 – for the Sultan.

In fact, in 1992 John Crennan – the boss of HSV at the time – told The Australian Financial Review the Sultan had already bought four HSVs, with up to a dozen Holdens part of the collection.

Yet the hot Holdens may no longer be there.

The Sultan of Brunei’s collection was allegedly leaked online following a dispute within the family, with these images supposedly taken in 2001.

Among the weird and wonderful is a Bentley SUV – long before the car maker introduced its Bentayga in 2015 – and oddball one-off Bentley Buccaneer.

There are also wagon, four-door sedan and convertible versions of the Ferrari 456 GT – only ever available to the public as a two-door coupe – in the massive collection.

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