Drawing Lines in the Sand

Even more than its far-distant cousin the VW Beetle, the Porsche 911 makes one helluva dune buggy.

- DAN EDMUNDS P

"Aired down a Porsche 911" has never appeared on any bingo card we've held, and yet here we are, deflating our 911 Dakar's tires before play commences on a massive Moroccan dune formation called Erg Chebbi. It's not immediately clear how we'll fare in the giant heaps of sand-a visit typically requires a rented Toyota Land Cruiser Prado or a local caravan outfitter. Thus far, we've been traversing desert hardpan and gaping like tourists at the odd meandering single-hump camels native to the area while attempting to avoid rocks and well-intended cairns hidden behind persistent hanging curtains of choking dust.

It turns out that the erg, a dead ringer for Southern California's Glamis Dunes, is literally the 911 Dakar's sandbox. After all, the Dakar is essentially a quarter-million-dollar dune buggy built from the mighty 911 Carrera 4 GTS instead of a Beetle.