Kasaragod: The first owner of Skoda's next SUV to be launched in 2025 will be Mohammed Ziyad, a 24-year-old Quran teacher in Kasaragod, for he named the sub-four-metre car. In an Instagram post, Skoda India announced the winner's name.

"Congratulations to Mr. Mohammed Ziyad from Kerala for winning the all-new #SkodaKylaq. He will be the first owner when it is launched next year," said the post. Around 2 lakh people took part in the contest to name the car. In another video, Skoda India said Kylaq is a Sanskrit word that means 'crystal' and is inspired by the word peak.

Ziyad, an English graduate from the University of Calicut, has been teaching the Quran at Najath Quran Academy in Kasaragod for the past two years and a half. "I don't have a car craze. I just wanted to own a car but my family situation is not good enough to buy one," said Ziyad.

When he came across Skoda's contest to name the next SUV in February, he thought of giving it a shot. Skoda's condition was that the name should start with K and end with Q. "I pondered over it for a few days and made a list of names starting with K and Q and then finalised on Kylaq," said Ziyad, who did a seven-year Islamic education at al Marjan Institute for Hafazath al Quran at Chemmad in Malappuram district. He also did a one-year Islamic degree education at Jamia Yamaniyya Arabic College at Kuttikatoor in Kozhikode.

Last week, Skoda India put out eight names for voting: Kwiq, Kylaq, Kosmiq, Kyroq, Kariq, Karmiq, Kliq and Kayaq.
Based on the voting, five names were selected: Kwiq, Kylaq, Kosmiq, Kliq and Kayaq.

Two days ago, Ziyad got a call from Skoda India saying his name was selected. "Why? You can't believe it," the executive asked him. "Check the Skoda India Instagram account," the executive told him.
"When I checked I saw my name. Mohammed Ziyad, Kerala," he said.

Kylaq will jostle for space alongside the Suzuki Brezza, Tata Nexon, KIA Sonet, and Mahindra XUV300. Skoda India is also taking 10 fans on a trip to Prague as part of the contest. One of them, Rajesh Sudhakaran, is from Kottayam.

The other nine are Varun Vasisht (Instagram: Varun_Solotraveller), Elaine B (FB: elainesue.baptista), Santhosh Joghee (X: Santhoshjoghee), Charan from Hyderabad, Arcchana Chalavadi from Chennai, Jaydeep Sarahiya (Insta: Jaydeepsarahiya), Saurabh Tandon (FB: Saurabh.tandon.311), Akilesh Srikantaiah (X: AkileshNrn), and Priyanka Chinchorkar from Pune.