How Queen Elizabeth once taught the King of Saudi Arabia a lesson by getting behind the wheel herself

Elizabeth II

Before we tell the story, it’s good to know that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth loved cars. Land Rover was her favorite brand and she even trained as a mechanic during World War II. During The Blitz , she crawled behind the wheel of an ambulance herself. Over sixty years later, she used her (driving) experience as an ambulance driver to show the King of Saudi Arabia that women do belong behind the wheel.

Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud

The story takes place in 1998, when Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud was regent of Saudi Arabia. He visited the British royals that year and was allowed to visit Balmoral Castle in Scotland: the summer residence of the British royal family and the castle where Elizabeth died at the age of 96.

Estate

During lunch, the Queen thought it would be a nice idea to show the King of Saudi Arabia the estate. King Abdullah was not keen on this, but his finance minister managed to convince him. You don’t say no, to the queen. The castle in the Scottish Highlands has about two hundred square meters of garden, so the royal Land Rovers were set up in front of the castle. The interpreter had to sit in the back and the Saudi king was instructed to sit in the front passenger seat.

As he waited for the driver, the driver’s door suddenly swung open and, to his surprise, the queen herself took a seat behind the wheel, started the car and drove off. Why the queen was so eager to drive Abdullah around herself? In his country, women were not allowed to drive. Abdullah was not used to being driven by a woman, let alone a queen. It was not until 2018 that the ban on women driving cars was lifted in Saudi Arabia.

Full throttle

Elizabeth had no intention of making it a leisurely ride. As mentioned, she was an army driver during the war and even in old age she knew how to get behind the wheel. As she continued to talk to Abdullah, she gave the Land Rover Defender a good spur and began to drive faster and faster down the narrow, winding Scottish country roads. According to the ambassador, who later heard the story from both sides, the Middle Eastern king started sweating profusely. Through his interpreter, he urged the queen to slow down and concentrate on the road ahead. It was probably a good thing he didn’t know that Queen Elizabeth II didn’t even have a driver’s license. As queen, she didn’t need one.

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