2024 Porsche 911 Dakar Road Test: Where’s this been all our lives?
The 2024 Porsche 911 Dakar is quite simply the most fun 911 I’ve had the pleasure to drive on the road. Yes, even more so than a GT3. It’s such a revelation of a sports car that it’s truly a shame Porsche is limiting production to only 2,500 examples. I’d run out tomorrow and buy one as my daily driver if I had a spare quarter-million laying around.
I’ll also admit to a healthy dose of skepticism when the idea of a lifted 911 on all-terrains was first broached. It’s not as though there isn’t precedent for off-road-capable Porsches, but it was hard to imagine Porsche taking on such a niche project and nailing it on the first try. In reality, the Dakar is akin to what Apple’s done in the tech space over and over again. Introduce a product that few think they want, only for it to become a product that everyone desires after getting a taste.
It may seem obvious, but the Dakar’s secret sauce is that underneath all of its off-road add-ons, it’s still a 911, specifically a 911 Carrera 4 GTS. One of the best engines in any new sports car – Porsche’s 3.0-liter twin-turbo flat-six – lives in the rear. The eight-speed PDK is the same transmission that continues to set the bar for shifting excellence in other 911s. Its brakes are typical Porsche, or in other words, another standard-setting feature. Even in the suspension’s high-clearance mode, you can sit down low in a traditional sports car setting with the usual 911 fixings around you. But it’s everything added to the Dakar equation that makes this 911 one of the greatest of all time.
It’s typically necessary to exercise extreme caution around curbs, speed bumps or roadkill when you drive a 911. Not so with the Dakar, as it offers up to 6.3 inches of ground clearance in its maximum height mode – simply press a button, and the suspension will raise 1.18 inches. That’s plenty to make it a stress-free daily driver. The super-steep driveway at your buddy’s place? Who cares. Massive pothole coming up (a frequent Michigan occurrence) out of nowhere? Just send it through, and don’t think twice. Being able to drive a 911 like you would a typical crossover is freeing in the best way.
Plus, the suspension setup itself makes for the best-riding and most comfortable 911 out there when you’re just popping around town. It uses longer spring struts that offer greater compression and extension travel all around, and the spring rates themselves are also lower than a regular 911. Don’t think that makes the Dakar waft down the road like a Mercedes-Benz on air suspension, but it does make it the most agreeable 911 to soak up miles in on rough roads.
One of the most brilliant aspects of the Dakar, though, is its bespoke, engineered-for-Dakar Pirelli Scorpion All-Terrain Plus tires. Fitting all-terrain tires to a car is a pretty easy way to kill any aspirations of sports car-like handling, and I went into driving the Dakar with the expectation that it would deeply compromise the 911’s traditionally superb handling dynamics and steering. That assumption was proven wrong from the first corner. Pirelli says this new tire for the Dakar has a significantly strengthened structure to improve the contact patch. The tread pattern is also specially designed for dry asphalt performance, which makes it suitable even for circuit use. It’s an oxymoron of a tire, because no chunky all-terrain with nine-millimeter-deep tread should feel the way it does when you hustle it around paved roads.
Despite having the all-terrain capability that we tested on the Dakar’s first drive, the tires never roll over when you start pushing hard. Nor does the Dakar feel like it suffers from a lack of road-holding grip. Of course, the steering isn’t the same as a 911 on its usual summer tires (it’s completely reworked for the Dakar), but it’s still very 911-like with a surprising amount of feel coming back from the road and impressive straight-line stability at highway speeds. Unlike most cars on off-road tires, the Dakar’s are sports car-like to the point that they encourage you to swing it through corners faster and faster with a confidence I wasn’t expecting to feel. Of course, they’re still nothing like a high-performance summer tire (which Pirelli also specially developed for the Dakar alongside a winter tire option, too). But having driven the car on these all-terrains, I could hardly care for running it on anything else in the dry.
Some of the Pirelli all-terrain’s allure is comparable to when the Subaru BRZ/Scion FR-S/Toyota 86 shipped with low-grip Prius tires. With limits so low for a sports car, the 911 becomes far more approachable and easy to toy around with on the street at civil speeds. Goose the throttle, and its re-tuned traction and stability control systems let you swing its rear end around with very little provocation and surprising casualness. The 911’s typically straight-laced and buttoned-up demeanor is thrown out the window to a degree, and it’s all thanks to “worse” tires. It’s just one of the many reasons why the Dakar is the most amusing 911 you can drive on the street – no racetrack is necessary to experience its brilliant chassis at its best.
The Dakar shines even brighter away from paved roads. The many dirt and gravel roads of southeast Michigan will make anyone feel like an amateur rally driver from behind the wheel of this Porsche. “Rallye” mode is best used in this environment, as it loosens traction control allowing for more slip angle through turns, which is abundantly easy to induce with the 473 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque on tap. The best part, though, is the fact that you’re driving a Porsche 911! We (and the rest of the off-road world) are accustomed to doing this sort of thing with pickups and SUVs. And sure, it’s a blast to swing around vehicles like the Colorado ZR2 or F-150 Raptor R, but doing the same in a car only weighing 3,552 pounds with the 911’s beloved rear-engine dynamics is another level of fun entirely. You’re subject to the ripping engine and exhaust note, its razor-sharp reflexes and a chassis that makes you never want to leave the driver’s seat. No off-road truck or sporty SUV can come close to being its equal.
There are protective elements all around and under the Dakar to ensure kicking up gravel, sending it flying and bounding through rough roads is a safe activity. Even all of its grille openings are specially designed for this model to ensure you don’t cause damage to the radiators and more in extreme off-road conditions. And trust me, you’re going to be flinging rocks everywhere as soon as you realize what silly fun it is to experience a lifted 911 on dirt. Even the model-specific Rallye Launch Control is a hoot, as it allows for even more slippage (by 20%) before rocketing you forward with grip you most certainly weren’t expecting to have. The extra “dig” it does into the road surface before jetting you away is going to make you laugh and smile every single time. It goes 0-60 in 3.2 seconds on pavement, but sure doesn’t feel much behind that on dirt.
The most impressive thing about the 911 Dakar is that there aren’t any glaring problems or compromises made in the pursuit of such an outlandish vehicle. It’s an engineering exercise that proves once again how competent Porsche is and its ability to screw together cars to make those who care about driving happy. We saw it yet again recently with the new 2025 Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid, as that car proved hybridizing the 911 does nothing to tarnish its pure driving experience. The only big-ticket item I wish the Dakar could provide are rear seats, which are deleted and impossible to add back in since the space is needed for the suspension lift system. Besides that omission, I can’t think of a better daily driver for the well-off Porsche enthusiast.
It’s almost ironic that so many years ago Porsche introduced the Cayenne so folks could drive a Porsche product in any given scenario (and for the company to print money). Now, there’s a 911 that can fill the same purpose, provided you don’t need the extra seating and cargo capacity. It can be your camping vehicle and easily traverse rough terrain into the wilderness. You can road trip it in perfect comfort and not worry about the valet scraping up your front splitter in a parking garage. The possibilities for sheer fun are greater than any other 911, and you can do all the same things that other variants excel at – hitting the canyons or attending a track day – without needing to swap cars. The Dakar is the Swiss Army knife of the sports car world, and the worst thing about it is that Porsche is only building 2,500 of them. We can only hope that changes one day.
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