Jacked-up, offroad-friendly Porsche 911s are all the rage these days, eh? There was the Singer All-Terrain Competition Study that used a 1990 911, and recently Porsche themselves even climbed the world’s tallest volcano with a modified 911 Carrera 4S.
Now, Porsche has now announced that it’ll be unveiling a “very special variant” of the 911 at the upcoming Los Angeles Auto Show starting November 16, and if you still haven’t figured it out by now, yes – it’s a Safari 911, coming to you straight from Zuffenhausen.
It’s called the Porsche 911 Dakar, as a nod to the first overall victory by Porsche in the Paris-Dakar rally back in 1984, which was won in a modified 911 fitted – for the first time ever – with an all-wheel drive system.
To ensure that the 911 Dakar can live up to its name, then, Porsche has put the Safari model through an intensive testing regime covering over half a million kilometres – with over 10,000 of those being off-road.
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In addition to the off-road proving grounds in Weissach, the testing programme also included a variety of different loose surfaces to cover all sorts of off-road driving conditions (and climate), including the Château de Lastours test track in southern France, frozen lakes in Arjeplog, Sweden, as well as the sand dunes of Dubai and Morocco.
As usual, Porsche’s test drivers only have good things to say about the upcoming off-road 911, including bombastic keywords like “stunned”, “exhilarating driving experience”, and “incredibly fun to drive”. We don’t doubt it, but we’ll be the judge when we have the chance to drive it ourselves.
No technical specifications have been revealed just yet, but the press release does say that it’ll have a “combination of low weight, higher ground clearance, a powerful rear-mounted engine, and [a] short wheelbase”. It’ll also ride on all-terrain tyres, with the anti-lock braking system specifically optimised for braking on gravel.
Given its brief, plus the specific mention of the 1984 race-winning car, we’re guessing that it’ll also feature an all-wheel drive system. Either way, it won’t be too long more to find out.
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