Porsche 911 Dakar First Drive: Dune Diving In A Sports Car Like No Other – SlashGear

Put the 911 Dakar in its Offroad mode and the suspension raises by 1.2 inches at each end. This doesn’t happen through the use of an air suspension, by the way: Porsche took the hydraulic nose lift from other 911 models, flipped it around, and mounted it to the rear axle. In order to accomplish this, Porsche had to permanently remove the Dakar’s back seats, so no, they can’t be added back in. But hey, jettisoning the back seats saves weight. All told, at 3,552 pounds, the 911 Dakar is only 16 pounds heavier than an equivalent Carrera 4 GTS.

Porsche

Offroad mode locks the variable all-wheel-drive system into an even 50/50 front rear torque split, which is exactly what you want for shooting your way up tall dunes and maintaining stability in deep sand. You also want to turn off the traction control, which you can do by holding the PSM button on the dash for a few seconds, allowing the wheels to spin freely rather than cutting power when slip is detected. 

Porsche

The 911 Dakar comes standard with a torque-vectoring rear axle, constantly sending power side to side between the back wheels. You can totally coax this coupe into a slide in the sand, hence the major sandbox playtime out in the desert. Add in the sound of a flat-six engine wailing behind you, a transmission that holds gears in the heart of the rev range, and flickable, tossable dynamics, and the whole thing is a whale of a time.