Timothy Fabrizio, barn-car finder with a penchant for vehicles with pop-culture connections, set out to buy his dad’s dream car: a ’90s Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible, specifically in black-on-tan. Those are pretty rare. So rare, in fact, that Fabrizio says he ended up buying the same one once driven by legendary West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur. He went on a deep dive into the cars of Death Row Records and unearthed some pretty cool lore and imagery.
Fabrizio is the same guy who adopted Nicki Minaj’s Bentley after its pink wrap was removed. I originally thought it seemed odd that the same guy would acquire multiple cars formerly owned by famous rappers “by accident,” but Fabrizio got in touch with us and clarified that he did suspect the car was Tupac’s before collecting it—he just couldn’t completely confirm it until the car was in his possession. Anyway, since only 25 black Corniches with tan interiors were said to have existed, I guess he had a decent chance of ending up with the iconic vehicle from hip-hop history if he found one at all!
Here’s some more context Mr. Fabrizio shared with us directly over email (edited for formatting):
“I went down with my suspicions on the car, it wasn’t completely random that it happened to be Tupac’s. The Death Row cars I always kind of had in the back of my mind over the years, and figured that it was possibly the same car that my dad loved, which his friend drove regularly around the West Coast many years ago, as it matched what I remembered.”
“In my search, I found the Tupac registration, which along with the spec, details and finishes, confirmed everything, especially once I saw the car in person. After I bought it in 2024, it sparked my interest [in] hunting celebrity cars /historically significant cars.”
He shared the car on his Instagram page last year, and just recently sat down for an interview on VINwiki, getting into the specifics of how he learned about the car’s context.
As he tells the story, Fabrizio started making a Corniche registry on his quest to find one in the exact colors his father had dreamed about.
That led him to realize that a handful of those convertible Rollers were acquired by Death Row Records—Suge Knight got a red one, Tupac got a black-on-tan one, and Snoop Dogg got a white Bentley Azure—which were then driven from LA to Vegas by the rap icons.
And of course, Shakur was famously immortalized behind the wheel of a black-on-tan Corniche by that iconic 1996 Fabrice Henssens photo from Melrose Ave in LA.
Fabrizio wanted the car either way, but once he got it home, he leaped down the research rabbit hole, poring through sales and lease records, and even getting in touch with former Death Row employees to track this particular Corniche through its ownership history.
By connecting with Reggie Wright Jr., once Death Row Records’ head of security, and the original car broker, a guy named Stan, Fabrizio was able to verify the car was part of a specific multi-car delivery at Nessen Motorcars in March 1996. That was the Death Row convoy we were just talking about.
Unlike the bullet-damaged BMW in which Shakur was slain, which seems to come up for auction pretty regularly, the Rolls-Royce didn’t enjoy a vaunted status—it ended up getting shunted to what Fabrizio describes as “a regular used car dealer” in 2018, before ending up in non-running condition with the owner Fabrizio bought it from.
So it looks like Tupac didn’t directly own the Rolls-Royce—it was leased by the record label. That might be why it slid into anonymity as years went on. Still, the whole story is a pretty neat piece of rap and car culture history.
The Holy Grail of Hip Hop – Tupac's Rolls Royce is FOUND!
Got a tip? Drop us a line at tips@thedrive.com.