Just a few pics

[935k3]

From this years Dakar Rally. If you ain't watching the daily highlights on VS channel you are missing some awsome video. This event is insane. I wish they made models of some of these cars and trucks.

Edited January 12, 2011 by 935k3

[RodneyBad]

I can Only Wish I had that Channel.

I'd love to watch those Rallys..

[ra7c7er]

It surprises me Dakar vehicles are not kitted. If you are into 1/32 though you can get lots of them as slot cars and scratch build.

[Greg Cullinan]

Awesome pictures and I agree insane is

a dead on description.

[sjordan2]

Interesting to note that the Porsche 959 was initially built for a Paris-Dakar run. Pity the poor civilians who bought the street versions (as one magazine put it, you need a full-time staff or aerospace mechanics to get it running after every trip to the supermarket).

[Modelmartin]

You can get almost any Paris-Dakar vehicle in 1/43rd. There is a French outfit that does a lot of the big trucks, too. Tamiya and Protar have done several big scale P-D bike kits. Tamiya has done several of the Peugeot entries in 1/24. Esci did several in 1/24th but they were not accurate at all but did have good Cartograph decals. They did a Boss sponsored Mercedes coupe which was quite cool.

[CAL]

Interesting to note that the Porsche 959 was initially built for a Paris-Dakar run. Pity the poor civilians who bought the street versions (as one magazine put it, you need a full-time staff or aerospace mechanics to get it running after every trip to the supermarket).

The 959 was not built for Paris Dakar. It was built for Group B, which was eliminated before the 959 was fully developed and put into production. The Paris Dakar was a test for the 959 in 1986-87. Porsche had nowhere near the 200 completed production cars to meet the FIA Group B requirements. Group B was canceled at the end of the 1986 season after several tragic crashes that killed several drivers, co-drivers and spectators, and the 959 never got to race in Group B what it was really intended for.

The drive train is brilliant and is very similar to my 964 AWD system. Yes it's a bit of a complex system of high pressure hydraulics controlling mechanical diffs, and was brutally reliable.

It was the water-cooled flat six that was twin asymmetrical sequential turbocharged motor that add much more complication to the 959. Also brilliant for it's day but more problematic than the AWD system. It was probably the most advanced and complex car to day for not only Porsche but in the entire world. It had a Aluminum/Kevlar composit shell, Nomex floors and other advanced hi-tech features.

Most of the 200 US 959 were never delivered to there original owners and spent decades lock in a port warehouse in California IIRC. The main problem is the NTSB wanted 4 cars to crash test and Porsche said NO! Many of these were re-sold and shipped back to Europe. Only a few hard core guys in the states including Bill Gates who I think may own two and spent a long hard expensive fight to make them legal here, which he finally succeded in doing. However, that does involved additonal complicated modifications to pass emission standards.