Porsche 911 Dakar | PH Favourite Car of 2023
Not the fastest 911 launched this year, or the most focused - but surely the most fun
It’s usually easy to predict a favourite car before decision time comes. It’ll represent the kind of thing you already like on four wheels, or introduce an entirely new concept that you never realised was so appealing. (This is PH, it’s typically the old-fashioned stuff, but you never know - there will probably be an EV in here soon enough.) What’s strange about the 911 Dakar is that I really wasn’t sold on the idea initially, and yet here it is. Time to explain.
The Dakar looked like another Heritage Design Edition, truth be told. It looked like a car for people without much imagination, plundering social media for the vaguely interesting things people were doing with 911s a few years ago (painting them green, fitting roof racks) and offering it up brand new (at more money than a Turbo S) to keep the dealer relationship sweet. Cynical, perhaps - if easily done with another new derivative of Porsche’s most famous sports car. That it would be limited (but to a hardly insignificant 2,500) and be offered with that silly Roughroads livery only strengthened the case as another retro-themed cash cow. My favourite 911s would remain manual and 4.0-litre, thanks very much. (Perhaps they still are, I haven’t driven an S/T yet - one for 2024.)
Driving any car at Lydden Hill would likely change your opinion of it. And it would likely change the car, too - there’s not much short of a Ranger Raptor or Nomad that could properly deal with a race track that’s half mud and half tarmac. A Range Rover would cruise around and be boring, a Lotus would get stuck in the mud. To be so supremely enjoyable on both surfaces is a rare set of skills; that the Dakar thrills on road and off it is what makes it such a joy to drive.
Compromise is never usually held up as a ringing endorsement of a car, but I think it’s key to the Dakar’s greatness. Because it always feels like a 911, whatever the situation: there’s great body control, probably more tyre noise than is ideal, terrific traction and great control weights. There’s surely only so far the off-road transformation can go before it doesn’t feel like a sports car anymore. Even on a boggy, muddy rallycross track, the 911 feel was coursing through. Yet such was the disdain with which the Dakar dismissed the boggy, muddy rallycross track - never squeaking, never struggling - that it’s clear the 4x4 overhaul is more than skin deep. Granted, Lydden Hill isn’t exactly the Skeleton Coast, though I’m confident nothing like the Dakar could offer up the same sense of fun on mixed surfaces. A Sterrato is a giggle, though it doesn’t feel so ready for the rough stuff.
The compromise means this remains a pretty great road car as well. In fact, one of the better 992s, because the tyres and the suspension designed for off-road use bring it to life on the public highway; the weight shift can be more keenly felt, there’s a bit of bob long since eradicated elsewhere, and the Rallye drive mode that makes you feel like a hero in the mud is also perfect for wet tarmac. This isn’t gratuitous, roly-poly fun for the sake of it, rather the Dakar makes those famous 911 attributes a little more accessible. Great news given that most of our driving, even in a car like this, isn’t on a rallycross track. There are other hugely fun new 911 experiences most certainly still out there, though precious few that make less than 60mph seem so engaging.
Our little excursion to Wales for these pictures was the ideal demonstration of what the Dakar could do. The M4 was no more taxing than in any other two-seat 911 with a cage, the B roads felt so much more appropriate with a squidgier set-up, and the sort of rufty tufty driving you’d never want to attempt in a rear-engined Porsche (sometimes just getting into a car park) could be tackled with aplomb. It’s always as much sports car and as much off-roader as could be needed, and that’s a pretty persuasive combo.
The Dakar buzzes and fizzes more than a normal 911 does, thanks to reduced sound deadening and the GT3’s carbon buckets. Far from being annoying, it’s a nice reminder that this isn’t just a jacked-up GTS in a unique colour. You don’t have to get mud up to the windows to have a good time (though that’s probably the best time). Having driven one around France recently with a Christmas tree and spare wheels on the roof, that’s a laugh as well. It still cruises, it still corners, but people point and smile and wave like they never do in a new 911.
It’s a shame that the Dakar must make do with the standard, measly PDK paddles and gear shifter - if ever an auto-only, non-GT 911 could justify the inclusion of a proper lever (or chunky paddles), it’s the rally raid replica. I think a manual could make sense, too, given it’s available on the mechanically similar GTS and the old-school vibe. Imagine what the asking price might have been then.
In broadening the remit of the most versatile sports car around, the 911 Dakar is a really easy thing to like very much indeed. There hasn’t yet been a situation on road, track or mud where it hasn’t impressed enormously. Some will argue that it’s not extreme enough, that a 911 with this name should be portal-axled and made of Kevlar and wade like a Land Cruiser. Maybe it should. But Porsche deserves credit for squeezing one more model into a packed 911 lineup and giving it a distinct, enjoyable feel of its own. As 992s become ever more serious, so one that places such an explicit focus on fun deserves to be celebrated. I’ll be sure not to judge so hastily in future…
SPECIFICATION | PORSCHE 911 DAKAR (992)
Engine: 2,981cc flat-six, twin-turbocharged
Transmission: 8-speed dual-clutch all-wheel drive
Power (hp): 480@6,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 420@2,300rpm
0-62mph: 3.4 sec
Top speed: 149mph (on all-terrain tyres)
Weight: 1,605kg (DIN)
MPG: 25
CO2: 256g/km (WLTP)
Price: £173,000 (price as standard; price as tested £179,025, comprising Shade Green Metallic for £2,207, Race-Tex interior package with extensive items in leather, Shade Green stitching for £0, Rallye Sport Package with additional road legal 1kg fire extinguisher for £3,000, Porsche Design Subsecond clock for £818)
Honourable mention | Lamborghini Revuelto
Perhaps the Revuelto will be remembered as the odd one out in future, the awkward bridge between Lamborghini’s V12 classics and whatever a fully electrified future looks like. Six miles of plug-in range does look somewhat of a token gesture, after all. I really hope it doesn’t: out of the box, this is a hugely thrilling hypercar, one that brings together the unrepeatable joy of internal combustion (at 9,500rpm!) with all the possibilities opened up by new technology. Never has a ‘standard’ Sant’Agata supercar felt so at home on circuit either, massively capable yet eminently approachable and properly engaging as well. With a thousand ruddy horsepower. I love how it looks, I love how it drives, and I love that a V12 Lamborghini of such exquisite quality can still exist. Let’s hope there’s a chance to drive one in the UK soon - first stop Instavolt.
That aside, perhaps its handling and usability and engineering is what wins the day. I mean, I absolutely love the Dakar. I would happily drive one in the way it should be, get mud on it etc. it would be my daily driver no question.
I would however be part of the 5% of owners (if that) who would ever do such a thing.
And this is where cars like this start to confuse me. I guess they become the automotive equivalent of a dive watch.
It really doesn’t matter that less than 5% of people ever use their watches deeper than 200 metres of water. It’s irrelevant. The manufacturer of the dive watch is showing you heritage and a utilitarian purpose. It’s engineered to do the rough tough stuff. You see that. You want it. But you don’t ever want to get a scratch on it. And for many it becomes an “investment”.
The Dakar is for many buyers the automotive version of this. It doesn’t matter what it will do in real life, as long as it retains that investment.
And so while I’m glad it is Car of the Year, I’m also a bit weirded out by a world where a car can be crowned despite very few people ever driving it as such. A world where things are engineered and never used to even a fraction of their potential.
I think the 911 S/T would have to be the outstanding choice this year, if it had to be Porsche.
Perhaps it’s a case of wanting to be like the music critic who chooses ‘Tusk’ instead of ‘Rumours’ as the best Fleetwood Max album, or ‘Houses of the Holy’ instead of ‘IV’ or ‘Physical Graffiti’ as the best Led Zep.
It’s all subjective at the end of the day, but I too agree there are other 911s even this year in 2023 which deserve the crown more.
But the price, ugh.
It amuses me though; for any story about a McLaren, there's complaints about the number of different models, which in reality although having different model numbers are variations of the same car (540C, 570S, 570GT, 600LT, 620R) that do slightly different things. Yet not a single criticism for all the variations of 911 that do different things: six variants of Carrera (C, C4, CS, C4S, C GTS, C4 GTS), three Targas (4, 4S, GTS), Turbo amd Turbo S, GT3 and GT3 Touring, GT3 RS, Sport Classic, Dakar, S/T. It's an utterly bewildering range of cars.
Even ignoring the sub-variants, you still have a huge array: Carrera, Targa, Turbo, GT3, GT3 RS, Sport Classic, Dakar, S/T. 8 cars to McLaren's 5... How anyone manages to buy the 911 that's right for them is beyond me.
If you look at Ferrari 512BB it had very generous tyre profiles and ride height.
This fixation with rock hard ride and track tuned suspension is detrimental to road cars.
I bet a Dakar light based on a bogo carrera with a bit of a suspension lift and higher profile tyres would be perfect. Shame Porsche don’t offer yet another 911 variant;)
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