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Porsche 911 Dakar 2023.

Only hardcore: the off-road Porsche 911 Dakar is preparing for its premiere, first photos.

Porsche has completed another long construction project and will present the cross-coupe 911 Dakar as soon as next week.

It will be able to bravely storm the rally specials, with the novelty will be legalized for public roads and will probably be the most versatile and all-weather Porsche 911 in the history of the model.

Porsche has twice won the Dakar (as they now call the legendary Paris-Dakar rally-marathon, just start and finish points are not necessarily in Paris and Dakar): in 1984 and 1986.

The first victory was won by a modified 911 coupe with the index 953, the second was won by the supercar 959 designed from scratch, but stylized as a 911.

The newly minted Porsche 911 Dakar can be considered the ideological successor of both the Porsche 953 and Porsche 959, but the press release only mentions the 1984 Dakar victory, that is, the Porsche 911 Dakar is officially associated with the Porsche 953, not the Porsche 959, which is logical from the perspective of the 911 model genealogy.

Another thing, the Porsche 953 did not have a road, «civilian» version, while the Porsche 959 did. The Porsche 911 Dakar was originally designed as a «civilian» model, so its connection to the 959, in our opinion, is also obvious.

Porsche 911 previously did not have an offroad version for ordinary buyers, although the company repeatedly tried to make such a car, has created several prototypes in different generations, but did not dare to put them into production.

Meanwhile, in recent years, the fashion for off-road Porsche 911 is gaining momentum, they offer tuning studios and small private companies, the most notable projects in this genre — Syberia RS, Ruf Rodeo and Marc Philipp Gemballa Marsien.

In general, it became clear that a separate profitable niche has matured and Porsche itself finally decided to settle in it.

The first spy shots of factory Porsche 911 off-road appeared in the network last year, but only now the development of the car is completed, it will be presented on November 16 at the auto show in Los Angeles.

Previously, it was expected that the novelty will be called 911 Safari in the spirit of the 2012 concept of the same name, but the chosen name 911 Dakar ideologically more accurate.

Today’s press release from Porsche does not provide any technical details about the 911 Dakar, and talks only about the rigors of testing this model: it was raced on gravel tracks Château de Lastours in the south of France (here are trained many participants in the Dakar Rally), in the hot sands of Dubai and Morocco, on icy ground in Sweden Aryeplog and, of course, the legendary Nürburgring.

In general, we can expect that the Porsche 911 Dakar will be a crossover in the best sense of the word, will receive markedly modified in comparison with other versions of 911 suspension, metal underbody protection and unique settings of driving electronics.

Of course, we expect all-wheel drive and a turbocharged engine, and the price will probably be the highest in the 911 range. Wealthy Porsche fans are already ringing off the phone to dealers, demanding that they reserve a copy of the 911 Dakar for any price.