RETURN to DAKAR

Porsche recalls one of its most enduring classies with the cool new 911 Dakar

- DUNCAN QUINN

A private jet, bespoke bedouin camp, and one of the very first examples of the brand new 911 Dakar to play with in the greatest sandpit on Earth. This seemed to be an adventure I shouldn’t pass up. I threw my raw white-linen two piece, two-tone herringbone tweed and the obligatory mohair tuxedo into my DQ luggage and headed for Europe to catch the PJ to Morocco. North Africa. The land of derring-do and adventure, and the Sahara Desert. Mourad “Momo” Mazouz’s Arabesque album from the epic Kemia Bar in London playing in my ears as I considered some time swanning around a Riad or two, inhaling strong martinis while pondering bedazzled belly buttons. A trip of Lawrence of Arabia and the War Magician proportions was afoot.

In the late 1970s a crazy Frenchman was enticing an ever-increasing media and motoring circus to life in the form of his madcap race from the Place de la Concorde in Paris to Dakar in Senegal. Eight thousand miles of rallying over and through some of the most challenging terrain on Earth. Entered by adventurers, scallywags, and adrenaline seekers. First with their own privateer machines in a truly amateur fashion. And then, as the legend and attention grew, with increasing support and wizardry from manufacturers keen to show that their kit was the best. Into this breach stepped Mercedes-Benz and a racing driver with the pedigree of a Triple-Crown winner: Jacky Ickx. Ickx and his co-pilot, French actor Claude Brasseur won the fifth Paris-Dakar in 1983 in a modified G-Wagen.