Rainbow Sheikh

Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan The Rainbow Sheikh is a part of the Abu Dhabi Royal Family in the United Arab Emirates UAE. He is worth several Billion Dollars and is consequently one of the worlds richest men.

Saudi Arabia practically floats on oil, the world wide sale of which has made these Arabians very wealthy indeed. But what do you do with so many billions and billions of dollars? well the Rainbow Sheikh has spent a few million on a collection of vehicles and has a massive pyramid shaped building in Abu Dhabi to keep them in.

The collection boasts over 200 rare, exotic, expensive cars and trucks. Anyone visiting Abu Dhabi may visit this private collection during opening hours without paying any admission fees, as his Royal Highness has decided to open this collection up for the public to see, for free.

Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamdan Al Nahyan is known as the Rainbow Sheikh (which I am glad as typing out his name takes time) because he bought 7 brand new Mercedes 500 SEL's and had them painted up in the colors of the rainbow ie: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

It it believed the famous modern coach painting firm 'Styling Garage' did the paintwork. Each car also has the interior trim exactly the same color as the outside.

This web page spotlights on one of the most curious vehicles in that collection which is a replica of a 1950's Dodge Power Wagon pick-up truck as seem below.

The pick-up truck truck is 8 times larger than its counterpart and weighs over 50 tons. It comes complete with a full sized kitchen, air conditioned bedrooms, bathroom and lounge with all mod cons and a patio area in the back. The entrance to this is up a flight of stairs that comes down from below the engine area.

What is more amazing is that this truck is not a static display piece, it actually drives helped by the engine from an earthmover. All the pictures show this truck with relatively small wheels on it, but I have seen a photo of this truck out in the desert with massive earth mover type tires on it and if I find the image I will be the first to post it up.

The truck is a faithful copy and all the brakes, steering linkages, suspension arms etc are all there complete. It is of course painted up in the original colors and is also registered to be driven on the roads in Abu Dhabi, as are all his Highness's cars.

It was built to celebrate the oil boom which is why the Sheikh chose this particular vehicle to do the entire exposé on it, as the Dodge Power Wagon was one of the first vehicles used by the oil pioneers in the 1950's.

Apparently it took several months to build and was limited in size to the availability of the tires that the Sheikh could get for it. I would have thought that he would have had some tires specially built in any size for it but there you go.

Overall though, this is the world largest pick-up truck and it never fails to impress anyone who goes to see it.