GRR

The 9 coolest Dakar cars ever

17th January 2025
Ben Miles

Taking on the Dakar rally – or the Paris-Dakar as it was – has been attempted in perhaps the most varied selection of machinery in any form of motorsport. From just having a go in a small hatchback to specially-building bespoke EVs, it has seen all sorts. Which perhaps makes a list of the coolest cars ever to take part one of the most interesting and varied we’ll ever write.

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Rolls-Royce Corniche

Starting off with a big one – in all meanings of the word. Yes, someone did once compete in the Dakar Rally with a Rolls-Royce. And it wasn’t a pair of Brits off on a booze-and-Biggles-inspired adventure. It was Thierry de Montcorgé and Jean-Christophe Pelletier who, if you can’t guess, were French.

This was some classic early Dakar madness. On the Paris-Dakar’s third-ever running in 1981 and at a time when people (mostly French) were turning up in all sorts. This Rolls-Royce project took just six months to come to fruition. Lifting the Corniche, adding some massive tyres, reinforcing it and giving it the drivetrain from a Toyota and a Chevrolet engine. But, it did have some of the wooden trim still left over to ensure it remained a Roller. “Jules”, as it was nicknamed, did complete the course – just so late that the whole competition had packed up and gone home. 

Rolls-Royce, by the way, did not approve.

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Audi RS Q e-tron

And now for the exact opposite of a garage project by two French headcases. The Audi RS Q e-tron was purpose-built to be the first EV to complete the rally – which by this time had moved to Saudi Arabia for safety/political reasons. The might of Audi went back to rallying for the first time since Group A.

It might not have the Roller’s adventurer spirit, but it’s still an astonishing thing. For one it looks kinda like an alien, for another it was an EV... that had a petrol engine. Sounds more like a hybrid, but hear us out. The RS Q e-tron was propelled solely by its electric motors, but Audi had a slight issue. Where do you charge those motors in a desert? Well, the answer was a 272PS (200kW) DTM-derived engine onboard creating power for the batteries. Those then drove a pair of 390PS (288kW) electric motors taken from Audi’s championship-winning Formula E car.

After three years, Carlos Sainz Sr. won the Dakar Rally in an Audi, and the team promptly withdrew in favour of its upcoming F1 programme.

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Porsche 959

On the surface, turning up to take part in the Paris-Dakar Rally in a supercar seems even more mad than doing it in a Roller. But not only was the 959 a sensible Dakar machine, it was a conqueror, winning the rally in the hands of the recently departed Rene Metge, whose team-mate was motorsport polymath Jacky Ickx.

In fact, the 959 wasn’t intended for Rally Raid-ing. It was going to be a Group B machine. But Porsche wanted to use Group B as a sort of test bed. The WRC pointed out that its rules only allowed cars people could actually buy, and not just a prototype, and off Porsche went. The 959 was converted to overcome harsher terrain and its now legendary four-wheel-drive system helped see it over the line. Never before or since has the rally been won by a bona fide supercar.

 

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Ford Raptor T1+

As we write this the Ford Raptor T1+ is having an up-and-down debut on the Dakar Rally. Audi convert Mattias Ekstrom ran third after three stages, but both team-mates – the aforementioned Carlos Sainz and Nani Roma – are no longer involved. If you’ve not seen the spectacular reason for Sainz’s withdrawal, or his incredible attempts to carry, you HAVE to search it out.

The Raptor makes our list for a couple of excellent reasons. Firstly it looks amazing – like someone took a Ford F150 Raptor and asked ChatGPT to update it for 40 years in the future. Even the wing mirrors are cool, mounted right up on the very top of the car. But, perhaps more importantly, it might be the best sounding car ever to go rallying. It has a 5.0-litre version of Ford’s Coyote V8 engine that’s been developed with a unique dry sump and a tuned exhaust that not only makes it faster, but loud. It screams like a wild banshee as the Raptor T1+ scrabbles for sandy grip across the Saudi Arabian dunes. And it sounded amazing at the Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard last year.

 

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Renault 4 Sinpar

If you can’t tell, we’re trying to structure this list so that we go from extreme to extreme. So here let us bring you the complete opposite of a 5.0-litre V8-engined monster. A Renault 4 with, yes, a four-wheel-drive system, but also a 1.1-litre inline-four engine which, after some fiddling, produced a whole 110PS (81kW).

But, to showcase that sometimes brute force isn’t everything, the Marreau brothers drove this tiny machine to finishes of fifth and then third in 1979 and 1980 – the rally’s first two editions. The Sinpar bit comes from a company that converted Renault to four-wheel-drive, and the only other major upgrades were some roll-over protection and upgraded shock absorbers.

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Citroen ZX Rallye Raid

How much of this mighty Citroen rallying machine was actually based on the ZX isn’t a debate. It’s none. But that doesn’t diminish how awesome the ZX Rallye Raid was and remains. The era of Dakar cars being based specifically on their road-going counterparts had gone as the ‘80s gave way to the 1990s. In fact, it is a car we will come to shortly that served as the basis for Citroen’s latest attempt at the Paris-Dakar. To make it rally stalwart Guy Frequelin took the underneath of a Peugeot 405 T16 and stretched something at least vaguely similar to a Citroen ZX body over the top.

The ZX Rallye Raid was born. Frequelin persuaded Ari Vatanen to return to Dakar competition with it, and Citroen continued Peugeot’s winning streak, taking the title in 1991. The ZX wasn’t done. A battle with Mitsubishi and its Pajero Evo ensued and over the next seven years the two cars shared every Paris-Dakar title. The ZX was always the cooler one though.

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Citroen DS 23 

In some ways you could call the Citroen DS the Rolls-Royce of the Republique. And in that sense it seems right that, yes, some hardy people had a go at the Paris-Dakar in the highest of French Luxury.

Except, a bit like the Roller, by the time they were done, it was less ready for the cobbles of Paris more set up for sand. This one started off as a Citroen DS 23 Estate, the car was sawn in half, and 70cm was removed from the middle to create a short-wheelbase DS. It was then turned into a pickup at the back for extra storage and given the standard Dakar bull bars. Another modification saw the cushioned suspension drained of its fluid, which was replaced with engine oil. Ostensibly this made it less likely to be reduced to dust by the desert heat, but we all know that having extra oil around for a classic French engine is never a bad thing.

It’s not the only DS ever to complete the Dakar rally – some more standard cars have made it across the dunes – but the fully Raid setup one has our love.

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Peugeot 405 T16

If we mention the Peugeot 405 T16, many of you will immediately think of Climb Dance, the iconic video of Ari Vataned demolishing the Pikes Peak Hillclimb while shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. But while that was a great achievement, the pair’s greatest feats were reserved for the journey from France to Senegal.

Following the success of the 205 T16, itself modified to compete on the Paris-Dakar after the end of Group B, Peugeot didn’t have any intention of stopping. But it did want to promote a new model. Underneath the latest T16 remained very similar to the 205, but on top elements of the new 405 saloon were added (albeing looking a lot shorter and rather 205-ey). It was also given some very fancy four-wheel steering and was ready for continued domination. In 1989 and 1990 Ari Vatanen added his second and third Dakar wins to the one he won in 1987 with the old 205. 

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Renault 20

Yes, back to those earlier, and in many ways cooler, days. When OEMs and drivers turned up with modified versions of very ordinary cars to attempt to get from Paris to Dakar. In this case Renault decided to follow up its successes with the 4 with another car – this time it chose an equally improbable machine: the 20 hatchback. 

Having seen the Marreau brothers successes with that 4, Renault decided to give them a 20, which they again modifed. In came a 4x4 system, and the rear suspension from... a Renault Trafic van. With a 200-litre fuel tank rather than rear seats, and an exhaust system that ran along the roof, the Renault 20 Turbo 4x4 did better than its predecessor – it won the rally outright in 1982.

Citroen DS23 and Renault 4 Sinpar photography by Joe Harding. Other images courtesy of Motorsport Images.

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