Before I go, I should tell you the story. Prodrive makes good competition cars, as you probably know. GT and rally cars, in particular. Sebastien Loeb took one of the latter to second place in the Dakar Rally in January. And it is effectively a road customer version of this car.
It’s technically a road-going prototype and registered as such, but it’s also the first 25-year-old customer car, destined for the Bahraini Royal Family’s garage that helped fund and build the racing team. Each fighter costs £1.5million (before options and including VAT), and three are accounted for so far.
Off-road rallying is a brutal form of motorsport, perhaps the most extreme of all (although I imagine Icelandic climbers might have something to say about it), and the Dakar is the event headlight.
It takes place in Saudi Arabia these days, with its original North African routes deemed too dangerous for competitors (Saudi Arabia is rather dangerous for minorities and human rights activists), but the rally itself is always incredibly demanding.
In 13 days, 2,500 miles of special stages and another 2,500 ‘liaisons’ between stages, it hammers the desert and, while certainly the most difficult for quad riders or motorcyclists, it also requires some type of special car.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-03-19 00:01:24
