Riyadh: Saudi Arabia has launched the first car made locally. The 4.8-metre long and 1.9-metre wide four-wheel drive named Ghazal-1 was unveiled by King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz on Monday.
The king unveiled the car while receiving in Jeddah the Higher Education Minister, Khalid Al Anqari, and President of King Saud University (KSU) in Riyadh Dr Abdullah Al Othman.
The car was designed by Saudi engineers at KSU.
King Abdullah studied pictures of the various stages of its assembly and pressed a button signalling the official inauguration of the first Saudi-made car which is expected to be commercially produced next year.
The car was designed by a specialised scientific team at KSU.
"This is a turning point in the path of the kingdom towards becoming a car-manufacturing country similar to other industrialised nations of the world," Al Othman told the king.
A Ghazal-1 prototype was shown at the Geneva International Car Exhibition in March.
Professor Saeed Darwish, a lecturer in industrial engineering at the university and a member of the manufacturing team, said the project began in April 2009 and needs an investment of 400 million euros (Dh1.79 billion) to produce 20,000 Ghazal-1 cars over the next three years.
He said the car is modelled after Mercedes C-series and is designed to use all roads and terrain under difficult conditions.
The Saudi engineers who designed the car made a deep and lengthy analysis of many mechanical specifications before choosing the characteristics of the Mercedes Benz C model cars for their strong performance, easy driving and comfort.
