Porsche confirms 911 Dakar
The spyshots and rumours were real - there's an off-road 911 coming to the LA show
One day in the not-so-distant future, we’re going to look back on this week as one of the weirdest for car news. On Monday, Lamborghini confirmed that it would build a Huracan Sterrato, and that’ll be shown in December. Just 48 hours later, Porsche has gazumped Lambo in the off-road sports car game, announcing that, yes, a 911 Dakar is coming, and that it’ll be here as soon as November 17th.
The 911, of course, has a rich rallying heritage, stretching from the 60s all the way to more modern Tuthill R-GT GT3s and the creations of Singer and Ruf, but we’ve never seen something like this as a production model. Porsche being Porsche, it’s approached the task with total focus and commitment - this isn’t just a roof rack and big tyres on a Carrera 4. It says more than 10,000 kilometres of off-road testing has been conducted, and Porsche has brought out all the big names - Walter Rohrl, Romain Dumas, Jorg Bergmeister, Lars Kern - to muck about skidding it i… to evaluate progress and further develop the 911 Dakar. It’s been to the frozen lakes of Arjeplog in Sweden, the desert dunes of Dubai and Morocco, plus the Chateau de Lastours test track in France. The off-road stuff has been part of a test programme that’s lasted more than 500,000km, so no wonder the Dakar has been photographed out and about quite a lot.
Actual tech specs will have to wait until the LA reveal, though Porsche is promising ‘outstanding’ off-road abilities. The raised ride height and off-road tyres are plain to see, as are the overlanding goodies, but you suspect the Dakar overhaul will be more far reaching than that. The ABS has been modified for braking on loose surfaces, as an example. This is a proper go at Porsche making an off-road 911; if that doesn’t get you excited in 2022, not much will.
Maybe the words of Walter Rohrl will help. “Incredibly fun to drive”, was his verdict, which is encouraging for those who find non-GT 911s perhaps a touch distant. “Everything works so precisely and calmly. No Porsche customer will believe all the things you can do with this car before they’ve driven it themselves”, he added. The Dakar has been signed off on the tarmac too, of course, and the feedback from the Porsche pros is again positive: “I wouldn’t have thought that a vehicle with such ground clearance and all-terrain tyres would still feel like a Porsche 911 on asphalt,” said Jorg Bergmeister. If the Dakar, with less grippy tyres and a bit more movement in the suspension, can deliver that old 911 feel grumpy traditionalists love to crow on about, then Porsche really will be onto a winner.
We’ll know for certain soon enough, with the Dakar’s reveal coming on November 17th. Or the 16th, technically, as it’s LA, but the very early hours of the day after for us. It’ll be like Christmas morning as a kid all over again. The temptation is to say that a special 911 like this one might already be spoken for, but let’s be hopeful - we never thought a car like the Dakar would exist, and now it will. So maybe there’ll be a chance to buy one as well…
In all seriousness, seems a fun car. Temptation is to assume barely a handful out of the production run bar the press cars on the no-doubt partly off road launch events will even remotely be used as intended. But you can't really blame the car for that.
But in a way the off roading bit is arguably less interesting than what the thing will actually be like on the road. How much fun will it be on road, how compromised, could it actually be more rewarding and involving than a regular Carrera with all its grip and insulation from what the car is doing?
But 3.0 or 3.8 turbo is the question, it surely won't be NA will it? I suspect it'll be the 3.8 in order to help justify the presumably premium positioning and perhaps to help a bit with torque.
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