Currently reading: Meeting Michael Fux - the collector with a fuchsia McLaren 720S and Rolls-Royce Dawn

The millionaire mattress magnate has more than 160 super cars in his collections - with many in some rather bright colours

Self-made millionaire Michael Fux owns more luridly coloured luxury cars than he knows what to do with, but he admits that his obsession shows no sign of abating.

The American made his money from selling mattresses and has a penchant for Rolls-Royces and McLarens in matching colours. 

He is a man with a lot of cars. He’s not sure exactly how many, but at one point he had 160 and needed three hangar-sized garages to keep them in. What’s arriving next? Take a breath, reader. Incoming this year are three Porsches, a Ferrari 812 Superfast, a Pagani Huayra, a Dodge Demon, a Mercedes-AMG GT R plus the roadster and coupeà versions of the GT C Edition 50. Oh, and then there are two S65s on order. “One for Florida, one for California,” he says. 

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Fux says he does sell cars when his garages became too full, but how does he decide what to get rid of? “It’s very difficult. I look at the ones I haven’t driven for a long while. I had Michael Schumacher’s winning F1 Ferrari from the 2002 season and an Aston Martin DBR9, but I wasn’t racing any more, so I
 sold both of them.” 

His fancy of
 matching Rolls-Royce 
and McLaren models
 started in 2013: “My
 first Rolls was born
 at the Pebble Beach
 Concours d’Elegance.
 I was at the Rolls-
Royce house [rented
 during the week of
 the event to entertain
 customers] and I saw
 a purple pansy. I said
 to them 'make me a paint in this colour', and so they did. That car [a Phantom Drophead CoupeÃ] has 19 coats of paint.” Then he decided he’d like a matching McLaren 12C Spider. Rolls-Royce agreed to share the paint formula with McLaren on the proviso that the colour could not be shared with anyone else. 

It’s a similar story with Fux’s complementary cars – a Rolls-Royce Dawn and McLaren 720S – at this year’s Pebble Beach. Fux saw an orchid he liked and asked Rolls to “match it” for the Dawn. Then he saw the 720S and wanted one. The rest is gaudy history. 

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Same again next year, then? Perhaps not, but he’s lined up for McLaren’s forthcoming Ultimate Series car, the hybrid BP23. He is one of 106 customers for the £2m hypercar and, predictably, Fux
 says he wants to get “a BP23 in a special colour”. It’ll be a suitable replacement for his emerald green P1, which he auctioned for charity at Pebble Beach last year. 

He describes car collecting as an addiction: “At least if I had an addiction to drugs I’d spend a lot less money!” 

It’s hard to fathom how anyone can drive all these cars, but drive them he does. But surely he can’t have a favourite car with this many to choose from? “The first car I fell in love with when I started collecting in 2001 was a BMW Z8. I still love the styling and the performance.” But his actual first car was a 1949 Dodge coupeÃ. He picked it up not long after arriving in the US from Cuba in 1958 as an impoverished teenager. 

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We’ve talked a lot about fast, glamorous cars, but surely a man with this many vehicles must have delved into the world of SUVs? Indeed, he has a Porsche Cayenne, a Mercedes G550 4x42 and a Land Rover. The Bentley Bentayga seems an obvious model for Fux but he says: “No, I’m going to get the Rolls-Royce [Cullinan SUV] when it comes out.” 

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In the meantime, his car of choice for being chauffeured in during visits to New York is a white Phantom. He impatiently loads his Instagram account (which has 94,000 followers) to show me the car and explains the pictures “don’t do it justice”. The car’s paint has a hint of “green sparkles” running through it, apparently. 

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Fux is clearly a busy man. Not only is he running a mattress empire and driving any one of his 160-plus cars, but he has properties in New York, New Jersey, Idaho, Florida and California. The list trailed off after that, but there’s certainly more. 

So does he ever find the time for a good road trip? “My favourite road trip ever was going through Yosemite National Park from Las Vegas on the way to Pebble Beach in an Aston Martin DB9 Zagato convertible.” How the other half live. 


Fux collection stand-outs

Mercedes G550 4X4²

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Fux took delivery of a matt black Mercedes G550 4x4² in March. He describes the £195,000 extreme SUV as a “beautiful beast”. 

Ferrari LaFerrari

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No supercar garage is complete without a red LaFerrari. Fux also has an open-topped LaFerrari Aperta in a matching colour, obviously. 

Related stories:

Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance 

McLaren 720S review 

Mercedes G550 4x4² review 

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Comments
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si73 9 September 2017

Colours

Some awful colour schemes there, especially the green interior in the Rolls, but if he likes it then that's all that matters. Awesome collection, I too would want to do the same in his position.

bol 9 September 2017

Good on him

I guess he also gives millions to combat hunger and disasters around the world. If not, a bit of a selfish fuxtard. 

Beastie_Boy 9 September 2017

Not that it's anyone's business what he does with his money, but

Good on him

www.michaelfuxfoundation.org/index.html

hardshoulder 9 September 2017

Not sure the colour's right

It could be the fact it's a picture on the internet viewed via a computer monitor. But that McLaren looks purple to me. I always thought fuchsia, was a strong pink colour