By Benjamin Joffe-Walt/Riyadh

An online social network has been set up to serve enthusiasts of classic and luxury cars across the Arabian peninsula. The driving force behind the network, called Street Kings Arabia, is Paul Martin, an American entrepreneur living in Riyadh.

Martin, the proud owner of a 2009 Maserati Quattroporte he has nicknamed “Sniper”, is the co-founder of Street Kings Arabia which is still in a trial period online. Martin’s Maserati “Sniper” has already been voted number one on the site’s current list of “Street Kings Arabia”.

“awsomeeeeeeeeeeeee CAR,” writes Huzaifa Khan, one of the site’s first Saudi users.

“This car is a unique one really,” adds Mohamed Hemady from Lebanon.

“I know,” replies a humble Martin.

In an exclusive interview, Martin acknowledges that his No 1 status may be temporary. He says his Maserati has won the top ranking only because “we don’t have enough users yet”.

“We haven’t done any marketing on the site yet. We’re just waiting for the right time when the site is strong enough to sustain the traffic,” Martin says.

“I love cars, I’ve been into cars since I was a little kid.

“There is an overload of demand for something like this so the idea was to create an online community for kids to showcase their cars.”

He explains: “Kids here don’t have many entertainment outlets. There are no bars and no movie theatres, so the fun thing to do is to get a nice car, a paint job and some nice rims and just cruise down the street. This is kind of their only way to express themselves... School got out an hour ago and there were probably 50 cars on the street that I would put on the site.”

An online community of exotic car enthusiasts, Street Kings Arabia promises “eye candy” and “the true meaning of bling”, allowing users to show off 360 degree views of their cars in a virtual garage, share snapshots of other cars “Caught in the Wild” and rate the cars of others by voting for the “Street King”. The platform features luxury car events, a classified section to buy and sell that old Lamborghini and celebrity interviews in both Arabic and English.

“You’ve seen the hip hop glamour stories on shows such as MTV’s Cribs or Pimp My Ride, but please, we all know where the real opulence comes from,” the site reads. “You could spend weeks or even months travelling around the Middle East, sitting on the busiest street corners, watching all the luxury drive past you, or you could sit in front of your computer, pull up our website, and get all the entertainment!”

Designers say the site (www.streetkingsarabia.com), which is still in a trial period, will be launched with all features shortly.

“It’s almost done but we’re still testing the website,” Eli Abi Haybar, a developer at Zone Creative, the company designing the site, tells The Media Line. “The site hasn’t officially been launched yet but we hope to allow users to upload car photos, sell cars, etc. There is lots of demand for this kind of thing in all the Arab countries.”

“We’ve been getting a lot of hype,” Fotis Gerakis, the site’s co-founder, tells The Media Line. “It’s only a few weeks old and it hasn’t even been fully launched and the response has been incredible.”

“There’s a big demand for this,” he says. “We’ve seen some pretty intense cars over the past few years - chrome covered cars, vintage Mercedez and BMWs - and a bunch of us were sitting around thinking what would be the best way to have some fun while doing what we really love which is developing websites. We thought that an online forum would be a great vehicle.”

Martin says that while the site may make money, its purpose is not commercial.

“The end goal is not necessarily to make money,” he stresses. “We’re not really into that right now.”

“It’s kind of an experiment for us and we just want to see this thing grow. If it starts to pick up popularity, who knows what could happen,” he says laughing. “Maybe one day I’ll be the real “street king”... I mean, a Maserati is a pretty nice car and it has that flash factor, but it’s not a Lamborghini.” — The Media Line