In the desert sands of Dubai, two legendary rally cars once again demonstrate their exceptional off-highway capabilities—now reincarnated in the Cayenne.
It’s a good thing that style points don’t count here—at any rate not for the driver. In the sands of the Arabian Desert, the rally Porsche 959 certainly moves about more gracefully than its driver can walk here: Though it’s 104 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade (40 degrees Celsius), Jacky Ickx slogs around the car as if through snow, looking it over. It’s still in the Rothmans paint job in which it won the 1986 Paris–Dakar Rally. His smile broadens. Then he makes his pronouncement: “Folks, after this test drive I can almost believe this car could win the Paris–Dakar even today!”. His assertion was impressively supported by Porsche Desert Testing with the Legends —an exclusive demo for Middle Eastern journalists, who were given the opportunity to experience the off-highway qualities of the Porsche 959 and 911 SC 4×4 in the dunes of Dubai.
A decade and a half before the new Cayenne, this duo had won the rally from Paris to Dakar, which ranks as the crowning achievement in this discipline.
Ickx’s enthusiasm stems from his expert knowledge of the subject. The Belgian knows exactly what he is talking about: He has participated in the desert rally fourteen times and won it in 1983. And three years later he took second place in the Porsche 959, behind his teammate René Metge. In those years Jacky Ickx was organizer, team captain, and driver for the Porsche factory team, all rolled into one. Above all, though, he was the initiator of the project, which was first conceived in April 1983. Ickx came up with the idea and then shared it with Professor Helmuth Bott, the head of engineering in Weissach. ““Professor”, Ickx boldly asked, “What would you think of Porsche participating in the 1984 Paris–Dakar Rally? All Porsche needs to do is come up with an allwheel drive vehicle. That’s a must. I’ll take care of things at the rally.”
At first, Bott hesitated in view of Porsche’s huge motorsports program for 1984. In the Formula One, the company was ready for the first Grand Prix start with the TAG Turbo engine in the McLaren that would carry Niki Lauda to the world championship before the season’s end. And Porsche was the key player in the new Group C sports car world championship. Le Mans had already been won with the 956. The next target was the manufacturers’ championship: The longdistance winner was Stefan Bellof.
Should Porsche, on top of all that, start in the Paris–Dakar as well—the most punishing of all off-highway events? Bott decided the answer was “yes,” because the solution was already at hand in the 911 SC Safari. And the engineering chief saw this rally as a perfect opportunity to test the first all-wheel drive system for the 911. It’s a safe bet he was also looking ahead to the 959. The desert would provide a brutal but all-themore welcome proving ground for the new technology. Getting a shot at a competitive victory would be the frosting on the cake. Metge won the Paris–Dakar with the Porsche 911 SC 4×4 in 1984 and repeated the feat with the 959 two years later.
But let’s return to the sands of the new millennium. Once again, a Porsche traversed the desert. This time it was the new Cayenne: In 2001 its off-highway capability was tested in Dubai—this time not in a rally but far away from the public. However, Stefan Ruschke, Marketing Manager of Porsche Middle East, did say this about those trials : “The tests of the Cayenne in the desert were very successful. The vehicle performed with remarkable consistency through the dunes”. These tests were merciless: The functional specifications had required from the very start that the Cayenne perform superbly, even in this terrain. And not only in trial runs. Porsche’s third model series was intended to appeal to many buyers, especially in the Arabian In this region, every other motor vehicle seems to be equipped with all-wheel drive. As Ruschke puts it : “I am convinced that the Cayenne will swiftly conquer the markets of the Middle East.”
With the 911 SC 4×4 and the 959, Porsche had already demonstrated in 1984 and 1986 that its engineers had mastered all-wheel drive technology. The electronically controlled all-wheel drive in the 959 especially set new standards for the entire auto industry. Analogies to the Cayenne extend all the way to individual experts in Weissach who participated in the development of both generations of all-wheel drive Porsches. And the winning cars of the 1980s would make a comeback before the Cayenne ever entered the market. Ruschke asked Klaus Bischof, the curator of the Porsche Museum in Zuffenhausen, whatever happened to those off-highway stars. Bischof was happy to tell him : “They’re out to pasture now, but they’re in great shape!”. Very swiftly the idea took shape to demonstrate the desert capabilities of the fastest sports cars once more—in the middle of the desert of Dubai.
The drivers? Jacky Ickx, naturally, And Mamdouh Khayyat, two-time Middle East Rally Champion. Plus of course Winfried Timo ـberschaar —everyone calls him Timo. This man really knows those rally cars. In 1978, this master assembler serviced the 911Safari. In 1984, the 911SC 4×4. And in 1986, the 959 with the 400-horsepower boxer engine. In all the major races and in all the tests! Another 959 specialist participated in the desert tests of the legends: Roland Kussmaul, the race engineer from Weissach. He knows this particular Porsche as well as Ickx does. He was the one who tuned the chassis and suspension. He drove the third Porsche in the Paris–Dakar Rally with the mission of supporting the two top teams in the contest. As versatile as he is talented, he helped out any way he could. He even used to work on the sports cars at night, because the service truck often arrived at the camp quite late at the end of a rally stage. At the finish in Dakar, Kussmaul placed sixth.
While the 959 is quite familiar to most Porsche connoisseurs, some of them might scratch their heads when they hear the number 961. That’s the 959 version for the racing circuits. In the 1986 Le Mans, Metge and Claude Ballot-Léna placed seventh overall in this version, which also featured allwheel drive, and they won by a wide margin in the IMSA GTX class. With this model, Porsche proved even then that all-wheel drive can be successful on a circuit, too.
But to get back to the sands of Dubai: During Desert Testing with the Legends, many of the invited guests experienced Porsche’s mastery of all-wheel drive engineering in the co-driver’s seat. “Felt it in their gut” may be a better way to say it. The route for the sixty journalists from forty-six print media and seven TV channels was laid out in a circuit right through the dunes—a challenging course with steep uphill and even steeper downhill grades. Each lap took six to seven minutes. Ickx spared neither himself nor the illustrious cars entrusted to him. And he confided :”Here in Dubai I’ve demanded more of the 959 than during the Dakar in 1986.” Ickx still remembers the tactics he used in that race.
“Our watchword, was slow down wherever the going gets risky. Speed up whenever you can do so safely.” But in the Dubai demo laps, he didn’t have to pay attention to any racing strategy. He had quickly memorized all the critical spots so that he could give the participants an unforgettable experience. A Lebanese journalist summed up the exhilarating ride in this question : “Why on Earth would you want to subject these cars to this kind of punishment?”. The terse answer by curator Bischof : “Because they could take it. And they still can.”.
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