Porsche has confirmed that the 911 Dakar will not be coming to India, and the manufacturer says that while there being some interest from customers, there were no allocations for the off-road-ready 911. This is surprising since many special edition and limited edition models have been available in India in the past.
- The 911 Dakar is closely related to the 911 GTS
- Off-road-ready 911 is offered with 911 Safari's tribute livery
The 911 Dakar, limited to 2,500 units, is a heavily modified version of Porsche’s flagship coupe, the 911, and is designed to offer a rapid off-road pace with minimal compromise to its abilities on the road. The 911 Dakar has been built as a tribute and a spiritual successor to the 1984 Paris-Dakar rally winner, the 911 Safari. In 2018, Autocar India was the first to report that Porsche could do a jacked-up 911.
Porsche 911 Dakar: exterior and interior
Porsche has extensively tested the 911 Dakar, and it made its debut as a prototype at the Nürburgring in 2020. Its radical exterior is modelled on the most extreme off-road vehicles. These include the red aluminium towing lugs at the front and the rear, the significantly widened wheel arches and the protective steel plates for the front, rear and side sills.
Other exterior highlights include a carbon fibre-reinforced rear spoiler, a boot lid from the GT3 and an optional roof rack with a 12V socket for the auxiliary LED lights. Porsche will offer the 911 Dakar with an exclusive Shade Green colour, but owners also have the option to select the Rally Design package – a two-tone white-blue paint scheme modelled after the Dakar winner’s famous Rothmans livery.
Inside, the 911 Dakar skips rear seats in favour of lower weight and comes with bucket seats at the front. It also gets an optional roll-over bar, six-point seat belts and a fire extinguisher.
Porsche 911 Dakar: powertrains
The 911 Dakar is more closely related to the four-wheel-drive 911 GTS and shares its 480hp, 570Nm, 3.0-litre twin-turbo flat-six engine mated to an 8-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox, which helps it sprint from 0-100kph in just 3.4 seconds. Porsche has made significant modifications to the chassis and body of the 911 Dakar, making it completely different from its standard sibling.
The off-road-ready sportscar sits 50mm higher off the ground than the standard 911 Carrera S, and can be further raised by 30mm. Porsche claims that the suspension is “not designed merely for driving over obstacles at low speed”, but can be used at speeds of up to 170kph for “ambitious off-road adventures”.
Porsche has also equipped the 911 Dakar with Pirelli Scorpion All-Terrain Plus tyres with 9mm-deep treads and reinforced sidewalls. Despite these off-road-focused tyres, Porsche claims that the 911 Dakar will have engaging on-road dynamics. Pirelli P Zero tyres will also be available as an option for everyday on-road driving.
The 911 Dakar features rear-wheel steering, engine mounts from the 911 GT3 and active roll control. The car also gets two new driving modes – Rally and Off-road. Rally sends most power to the rear axle and is designed for loose, uneven surfaces, while Off-road puts the suspension at its full height and divides the power equally between both axles. Both modes offer a new Rally Launch Control function that maximises acceleration on loose terrain.
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