Dirty Love Test: Is the Porsche 911 Dakar a Gimmick or the Real Deal?

No one who pays even a quantum of attention to Porsche zeitgeist is unaware of the past decade’s proliferation of hot rodding, restomodding, and just plain modding old air-cooled 911s. From eye-wateringly expensive coupes and roadsters, to “outlaws,” to off-road safari interpretations, the collective culture offers a 911 interpretation for practically any taste, sensible or otherwise. So if there’s any surprise regarding the factory-built and sold Porsche 911 Dakar—Stuttgart’s own safari-style creation—it’s merely the fact it took Porsche proper as long as it did to cash in on the action.  

A Quick Reminder 

With a base price of $223,450 and demand exceeding supply (take a look at the going rate well into the $300,000 bracket on the secondhand market), the Porsche 911 Dakar has done its job from a business standpoint. That’s no shock given its somewhat limited-edition nature (2,500 units), but how much substance is there to the car once you get past its unique looks—and the looks and grins it elicits as you drive it down the road or park it in a prime position at your local cars and coffee get-together?  

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A fair amount, it turns out. As we reported in our First Drive story, the Porsche 911 Dakar isn’t just a brilliant piece of marketing BS. Its most obvious visual distinction compared to a regular 911 is its 50-millimeter- (nearly 2.0-inch-) taller, 6.3-inch standard air-suspension ride height, with the ability to raise another 1.2 inches and stay there until the car exceeds 105 mph. However, while those are tall measurements for a 911, they still fall short of, say, a typical Subaru model, so your off-road routes better not include deep ruts unless you don’t care about smashing the underside repeatedly. 

The Dakar’s 3.0-liter twin-turbo flat-six engine comes from the 911 Carrera GTS and makes 473 hp and 420 lb-ft of torque. There’s a locking center differential and all-wheel drive, of course, including Off-Road and Rallye modes that replace a typical Carrera’s Sport+ and Individual drive modes. Porsche says Off-Road is intended for slow-speed, low-traction and crawling scenarios, and Rallye best for fast driving on loose dirt or gravel. The software tuning includes a launch-control function for quick getaways on low-grip surfaces.   

Other details include the 911 GT3-sourced engine mounts, rear-wheel steering, and carbon-fiber hood, plus Porsche’s Dynamic Chassis Control as standard equipment. As you want with an off-roader intended to spend time sucking on sandy summer air, the cooling system outdoes that of Carrera models thanks to being yanked from the 911 Turbo/Turbo S build sheet. To keep the 911 Dakar’s weight in check, Porsche deleted the rear seats found in most other 911s and equipped it with carbon-fiber front seats and lightweight glass. The company claims a base curb weight of 3,552 pounds, just 16 pounds more than its official weight for a dual-clutch-transmission 911 Carrera 4 GTS. However, our scales said our 2023 911 Dakar test car came in at 3,655 pounds, though we weighed it with the optional rally-lights-equipped roof-basket cargo-carrying system in place. (More on that shortly.)  

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The MotorTrend Numbers Test: Acceleration (and More on Pricing) 

Another notable number: $257,730, or the “official” as-tested price of the car we evaluated. (The base price is $223,650.) That figure includes the $28,470 Rallye Design package that mimics the famous Rothmans tobacco livery seen on the Porsche 953 that won the 1984 Paris-Dakar Rally. Hence the made-you-look “Roughroads” wordplay, as tobacco advertising isn’t going to fly as a factory option. Other options are the $3,340 Extended Rallye Design pack (some Porsche Exclusive interior trim, like six-point harnesses and fire extinguisher), the tachometer and Sport Chrono stopwatch in white ($420 each), and surround-view camera system ($1,430).  

A big asterisk: The rally-light-equipped roof basket’s $7,550 price isn’t included on the car’s official window sticker because it’s purchased and installed as a dealer-supplied accessory. The car we tested also included an additional $2,442 of similar safari-style items like fuel cans, recovery boards, and a shovel. We’ve included all these “non-factory” costs in the ultimate $267,722 as-tested price listed in the spec panel at the end of this story.    

But let’s get to the performance numbers enthusiasts really want to know. Porsche cites an official 0–60-mph time for the Dakar of 3.2 seconds. Unlike what we usually find with Porsches when comparing our achieved acceleration times to the factory’s typically conservative claims, we couldn’t match that figure—almost certainly because Porsche conducted its in-house testing without the roof basket and related accessories installed, all of which add more than 100 pounds to the top of the car along with additional aerodynamic drag. We achieved our best run of 3.5 seconds on pavement, naturally, using launch control, and we noted the system works in all the car’s drive modes. That means you can launch in Off-Road mode when the Dakar is at its highest ride height, and it’s quite amusing to do in a 911 while feeling like you’re on stilts. For comparison, a 2022 911 Carrera 4 GTS we tested recorded a quickest time of 2.8 seconds. 

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We cite the fact our best time came on pavement because we were also compelled to perform some full-bore acceleration blasts on dirt—something we don’t normally include in our official test regimen—just for fun. Talk about Sideways City: This car liked to point to the right coming off the line and then demanded countersteering and corrections all throughout the run. If you’re gunning it on loose surfaces, it seems to put out way more power than is necessary. It’s sketchy at first, but it quickly becomes oh so much fun once you’re comfortable doing it. In this scenario, the Dakar is the most wild and inconsistent 911 you’ll ever launch, but we noted that using Rallye mode was usually quicker than Off-Road mode by a tenth or so. For the record, 4.7 seconds was the best we could do to 60 mph in the dirt, but of course such a time will always vary due to the type of dirt and its depth, as well as other difficult-to-replicate factors related to, well, running on dirt.  

Handling Business, and Braking 

The Porsche 911 Dakar’s relatively high-sidewall Pirelli Scorpion All Season Terrain Plus NA0 tires (245/45 19-inchers in front, 295/40 in back) felt squishy compared to the ultra-grippy, lower-profile rubber we’re used to on Carreras and the like, with the Dakar even sliding slightly to the left during one of our hard-braking tests from 60 to 0 mph. One of our drivers jokingly asked, “What is this, a Toyota Tundra?” But everyone who took a shot behind the wheel also described it all as “hugely fun times.” Our shortest braking distance registered 115 feet, or 16 additional feet than we needed in the Carrera 4 GTS. Then, once again, we decided to try the exercise on dirt. All we can say is it felt like driving a curling stone, with the car stopping, eventually, in 220 feet. Hey, it at least managed to remain pointed straight while doing so. Oh, and one other note about the tires: They’re limited to a top speed of 149 mph, so Porsche speed-limits the Dakar to not exceed that velocity even if you select the option to equip the car with pure pavement-oriented performance rubber.   

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Moving to our skidpad and figure-eight handling course, the Dakar put up a 0.93 g (average) around the former and ran a best lap of 24.9 seconds at 0.78 g (average) on the latter. Compared to that Carrera 4 GTS, well, if you ever needed a lesson in the power of grippier tires, a lower center of gravity, and even slightly less weight (the C4 GTS weighed 78 pounds less), look no further: The GTS delivered an average lateral load of 1.09 g on the skidpad and lapped the figure eight in 22.7 seconds at an average of 0.91 g.  

Here’s the Potential Surprise 

Sure, all these numbers represent a pure-performance gulf versus what 911 drivers are accustomed to—but the more we drove the 2023 Porsche 911 Dakar and pushed it to its limits, plenty of our drivers realized they didn’t much care that those limits were lower. Why? We were all having too much fun behind the wheel.   

The Dakar indeed feels exactly like we imagined a Carrera 4 GTS would feel like with off-road-capable tires and a lift kit. Of all the performance metrics we evaluate and value, the compromised raw braking capability is the only one that gives us any pause, though the 911 Dakar still stops as well or better than loads of cars on the road. And on the upside, the braking feel is improved. Another positive for experienced drivers who possess some skill and seek fun above most everything else: There’s a greater chance of entry oversteer with these tires, but if you’re ready for it, you can use the rotation to your advantage going around corners. Similarly, you can choose between understeer and oversteer with a throttle lift or stab, and the all-wheel drive lets you apply power early on corner exits.  

The Dakar is just loads of fun in a very Porsche 911 way, simply with its limits being much lower due to the overall setup’s compromises. But in 90-something percent of real-world situations, there’s a case to be made this is the 911 to have for daily driving on the street and certainly come rain, shine, or snow, and for trips to the store or the backwoods cabin on the lake—let alone overcoming the urban jungle’s steep driveways and imperfect roads. And if you’re the sort who craves attention thanks to the car you drive, it more than checks that box, too. When it comes down to it, our biggest gripes about the 911 Dakar are that it isn’t an ongoing production model and its K2-high price of admission. That aside, it’s a big winner.

*2024 Pricing