Libya's Gadhafi orders/co-designs car of the future: The Rocket(TM)

[Syt]

AP: Italian firm makes 'rocket' car for Gadhafi

ROME — How do you celebrate a coup that gave you 40 years in power? For Moammar Gadhafi, the answer is simple: Order a rocket car.

An Italian engineering company said Wednesday that the Libyan leader wanted an ultra-safe car as sleek as a rocket to celebrate the anniversary of the 1969 coup that brought him to power — so that's what they made for him.

The "Rocket" — as the prototype has been dubbed — is described as an "elegant sedan" 17 feet (5.5 meters) long, more than six feet (1.8 meters) wide, with a 3-liter, V-6 gasoline engine.

In an added bonus, it can go hundreds of miles (kilometers) on a flat tire — a feature could come in handy while driving in the vast Libyan desert. Other safety features include a device to cut off the fuel supply to avoid a fire in case of accident.

Domenico Morali, CEO of Tesco TS SpA, an automotive design company based in Turin, Italy, said Gadhafi joined in discussions about the car's styling and asked for an original car using Libyan materials including marble, leather and fabric.

The car was unveiled earlier this week in Tripoli at the end of an African Union summit.

"The first thing (Gadhafi wanted) was safety in how you drive," Morali said in a telephone interview. "The second was developing the automotive sector in Libya."

It was unclear, however, what automotive sector the Libyan leader envisioned for his arid, oil-and-gas rich country. There appears to be no immediate plans to churn out the rocket car on a mass scale for Libyan commuters.

Gadhafi already owns one rocket car, which he bought 10 years ago when he marked 30 years in power. At the time, Libya boasted the vehicle was the safest in the world.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

so now the whole world knows that Kaddhafi has a small dick.

[Valmy]

An all young female body guard now this.  Gadhafi is like what would happen if some suburbanite American slob became a dictator.

[Zanza]

Pff, the safest car in the world is this:


The Mercedes-Benz 2009 experimental safety car.



Run flat tires and cutting the fuel supply is really not the height of car safety engineering. That's 1990s stuff.

[Sheilbh]

I really recommend this great Vanity Fair slideshow:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/qaddafi-slideshow200908#slide=1

Colonel Qaddafi—A Life in Fashion
Since completing his transition from international pariah to statesman, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi—the longest-serving leader in both Africa and the Arab world—has brought color and his own eccentric panache to the drab circuit of international summits and conferences. Drawing upon the influences of Lacroix, Liberace, Phil Spector (for hair), Snoopy, and Idi Amin, Libya's leader—now in his 60s—is simply the most unabashed dresser on the world stage. We pay homage to a sartorial genius of our time.

[Syt]

He truly is the rockstar among dictators.

[Monoriu]

If I became dictator for life, I still want a Toyota Corolla.

[Tamas]

If I became dictator for life, I still want a Toyota Corolla.

[Ed Anger]

I wish he'd go back to funding movies. Lion of the Desert was faboo.

[DGuller]

Oooh, wow, a 3-liter V6.  What a rocket.

[DGuller]

Run flat tires and cutting the fuel supply is really not the height of car safety engineering. That's 1990s stuff.

Did you have to ruin it for those guys in Turin?  They really had a good sell going.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

That doesn't look like it can fly. Non flying Rocket Car = FAIL