Gadhafi Celebrates Coup with Italian Coupe

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.