Of course, very few owners will probably ever take the Porsche 911 Dakar off the beaten track
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by Brad Anderson
4 hours ago
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by Brad Anderson
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Fresh off the Porsche 911 Dakar’s unveiling at November’s Los Angeles Auto Show, the German sports car has been pictured on the open road for the first time.
The example recently snapped by our spy photographers is painted in a simple shade of silver and lacks any of the over-the-top decals that have adorned the exteriors of other 911 Dakar models shown to the public. It seems likely that this particular 911 Dakar is a pre-production model owned by Porsche itself.
Fittingly, the car was snapped while driving along a road covered in a thick layer of snow. While we suspect that the vast majority of 911 Dakar owners will never venture off city and country roads and actually take their ‘semi’ off-roaders into the wilderness, there’s no denying that the car looks right at home in the snow.
To transform one of the world’s most iconic sports cars from one that can be taken off the beaten path, Porsche has jacked up the car’s ride height by 2.0 inches (50 mm), and should owners want a little more extra clearance to get over a leaf or stick along Rodeo Drive, a rotary controller on the steering wheel can be used to activate a ‘High Level’ mode, increasing the ride by a further 1.2 inches (30 mm).
Powering the 911 Dakar is the same basic 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged flat-six of the 911 Carrera 4 GTS, now producing 473 hp and 420 lb-ft (570 Nm) of torque and mated to an eight-speed PDK transmission. The car can hit 60 mph (96 km/h) in 3.2 seconds and continue through to a 150 mph (240 km/h) top speed, limited by the off-road tires.
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