2023 Porsche 911 Dakar exists because of an African race Porsche couldn't win

Why has Porsche debuted a new 911 Dakar? This isn’t Porsche hopping in on a trend, this is Porsche returning to a segment it created. Our guess on the timing is that the Stuttgart automaker has had a front-row seat watching off-road-focused builds mint stupendous amounts of money, so why not get back in with impeccable provenance and unmatchable brand equity?

It is certain the world hasn’t adequately appreciated the prowess and lore of Porsche 911s racing in the dirt. The Porsche 911 went into production in September 1964. The 911’s first factory-backed race was the Monte Carlo Rally, in January 1965, where it finished fifth. Privateers in 911s began winning rally championships as soon as 1967, and the #210 Porsche 911 T in the image above returned to the Monte Carlo Rally in 1968 and won. The co-driver was Herbert Linge, the same Porsche mechanic who helped the brand to a class win in the 1952 Carrera Panamericana in a 356. The butt-engined coupe's liftoff oversteer, which would soon turn the Porsche Turbo into "The Widowmaker," served as an Insta-Drift boon for rally drivers.

Casually, the jacked-up neun-elfers with mud-terrain tires and more fog lights than Newfoundland are called Safari Porsches. They didn't spring from a marketing confab over weisswurst and breakfast beers, nor a tuner's "What if?" Porsche birthed them with blood, sweat, and repeated, unsuccessful attempts to conquer a tiny corner of the African bush 51 years ago. So there were probably a few tears, too.

In 1971, factory engineers prepped five 911 coupes to contest Kenya's East Africa Safari Rally. A ghastly event held since 1953, this was the bloodsport side of rallying. Little-known drivers dragged meek but indestructible grocery getters like the Volkswagen Beetle, Ford Anglia, and Peugeot 404 through more than 3,000 miles of terrain ready to disembowel a car and then follow that up with fang-toothed cleaners ready to disembowel the driver and co-driver.

Engineers at Porsche's Werk I race shop started with the 911 ST and its 2.3-liter twin-plug flat-six making 240 horsepower, roughly 35 hp more than the standard 911 S. They added more oil capacity, put new gear ratios in the magnesium-cased transmission, and installed a 40-percent locking rear differential. Special dampers added four inches of ground clearance, for 10 inches in total. To meet the inevitable punishment, a reinforced bodyshell with wider rear flares carried a roll bar inside, bull bars front and back, skid plates, and strengthened jack and suspension mounting points. In the cockpit, lightweight seats mixed with Heuer stopwatches and a CB radio. Two spare tires and extra lights completed the metamorphosis. Auction house Gooding & Co says these cars were referred to as 911 ST or STR, the R for Rally, and around 16 are thought to exist today. They are listed in the rally results as the 911 S.

Because Sears ponied up money for the Safari tilt, at least one of the Light Ivory colored 911 STRs wore rebranded Sears' white-striped tires (made by Michelin), and the hoods used Sears locks. Out of 100 entries in 1971, 32 cars finished. Sobiesław Zasada and Marian Bień raced their 911 to fifth.

For the 1972 rally, Porsche switched to its 911 2.7 RS, improving the car with about 300 upgrades and finishing second. Both Carrera RS 2.7s retired in 1973, then Porsche took another second place in 1974. In 1978, the motorsport department turned to the 911 SC, its engine upped to three liters, and finished second once again, one of just 13 cars to reach the flag.

In the 1980s Porsche created dedicated rally-goers in the 953 and 959, winning Dakar with the former in 1984 and going one-two with the latter in 1986, then giving up the dirt. Legendary sponsors Rothman's and Martini were in the trenches with Porsche — literally — during this phase. So were super race team Prodrive and super racing driver Walter Röhrl. The Porsche 959 sprang from Earth's mud and loam, and Porsche's all-wheel-drive system sprang from the 959. But the East African races provided the "Safari Porsche" name.

What's made Safari Porsches the new hotness after giving up the bush in 1978? They didn't disappear. International privateers never stopped campaigning the 911 in rallies, and owners in the 1980s regularly converted their daily drivers into World War Z grocery getters. This happened so often with the G-Body 911s, built from 1973 to 1989, that enthusiasts joked the "SC" in 911 SC stood for "Safari Car."

England's Tuthill Porsche has tended the flame of Safari 911 competition since the early 1980s. Francis Tuthill lived down the road from Dave Richards — the racing impresario behind Prodrive — around the time Richards was uniting Porsche and Rothmans to create the Porsche Rothmans Rally Team. Francis' son Richard told us, "David Richards needed a show car and dad … had one. [Richards] said, 'Can I buy your car?' Dad said, 'Of course … as long as I can paint it.'"

Francis began his foray into 911 rallying by hand-painting the Rothman stripes on Richards' 911 SC RS competition cars. As Richards brought wrecked 911 racers back to England, Francis expanded his purview from paint to repairs, in the process learning how and where 911s broke when thrown into ditches and flown through the air. When historic rallying took off in the late Eighties and early Nineties, Francis decided to build a 911 for the 1993 London to Sydney Marathon car rally. He'd competed in the same event in 1977 — at 10,400 miles, the longest rally ever — in a Volkswagen Beetle, finishing 36th. In 1993, driving the 911 he built, he won. As Richard told us, "From that moment on, historic motorsport grew and the thing exploded and we were we were in the thick of it."

Richard is specific about what "it" is, however. While the term Safari has expanded to describe any luxury vehicle given an apocalyptic-looking makeover, Richard limits the term to a G-body 911 with "a 3.0-liter engine, a 915 gearbox, a beautifully strong body shell, and very, very special dampers, suspension, shock absorbers and springs." We're sure Porsche uses its own definition of "Safari," but Richards' dedication to the source material could help explain why Porsche's new car is called the Dakar — and it doesn't hurt that Porsche won the Dakar.