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I realize I am long overdue for this post but hopefully having owned the car for some months now I can put together something more informative/entertaining to comb through then a quick blurb about what i have came to believe is absolute peak 911. My Goal is that I can look back on this thread years from now and spark up all the amazing memories i'm generating with the car now.
Some years ago i remember seeing some spy shots of a 911 with offroad tires and some light body cladding. Aware of Porsche's experiences in off road motorsports over the years the idea of a factory off road capable 911 caught my interest even more so than all the rock solid GT products the brand is known for as i'm somewhat a little obsessed with being out in about in the wilderness offroading with friends and family & absolute freedom that accompanies these activities. In 2021 my local dealer reluctantly they took a deposit from me for "The first Offroad 911" as i wasn't sure what it would be called this early and i didn't want to lose the spot on a naming technicality. As time elapsed i saw more and more of the prototypes testing and became more and more sure this was going to become reality.
Fast forward to Nov 16nth 2022 at the LA Auto show Porsche unveiled the Dakar.
Finally it was real and I know i had the #1 spot on my dealers list a few weeks went by and i got the call to up my initial deposit amount and SPEC THE CAR!! Overwhelmed at this point that this was happening i carefully went through all the PTS colors and arrived at Rubystar, I figured not only is the color period correct for the years when Porsche first went Rally racing with the 911 but the playful color would compliment the Stainless steel and plastic cladding well enough so that it enhances the car instead of the cladding being lost next to a super dark color. Unfortunately PTS was suspended shortly after my order went in so i chose the Launch color Shade Green Metallic as it was the most interesting choice imo for the car. The Rothmans livery although well executed didn't seem like something i want to look at every day.
When i was speccing the car i wanted to to be more daily drivable so i opted for the 18way sofas instead of carbon buckets. I'm not a narrow framed fella myself so the extra room in the sofas certainly makes the car more usable for my intended uses. I also specced the Burmeister as i didn't want plastic speaker grills in a numbered 911.
I spent the next few months starting my mornings off with Coffee and checking the build tracker finally the car arrived at the dealership early August 2023 I was beyond excited! the link for the delivery vid my guys made is below.
Finally! This was a surreal moment, my first 911! Well that's the goal anyways KInda crazy they won[t just make unlimited of these to be enjoyed Oscar has no idea what sort of adventures he's in for
Once I took delivery of the Dakar i waited till traffic to die down then drove it back to GlasWerks so we could get the first round of protection done before doing any real driving.
Initial impression on that very first short lived drive from Porsche Chantilly to GlasWerks: Everything that was done to this thing to make it capable off road results in the most comfortable 911 to ever leave ZuffenHausen! The extra suspension travel means breaks in pavement and undulations that would normally cause a full body oh **** clinch moment in a GT car are hardly noticeable. The taller sidewalls, off road rubber & softer spring rates equate to a car that not only feels far more analog then the other 992 variants i have driven. The extra movements you get from the car combined with the much louder interior compared to anything but a GT car makes it hard not to draw comparisons with older generations of 911 back before everything had a layer of programming applied over it. Is this the ultimate forever 911? Time will tell.
We Performed what we call level 5 texture removal over all the painted surfaces. this involves both dry and wet sanding the paint to reduce and in many instances eliminate altogether the factory Orange peel. Modern P cars are painted very well but all have some peel in the paintwork these days. most people don't care about these things but i want this thing to look as awesome as it possibly can. This process looks crazy in person but as bad as it looks we're removing very little clear coat. Everything is metered before and after to ensure minimal amount of clear coat is removed to get the results we're after. Still editing the video for this process but i'll update this thread once it's complete. The difference on the Shade green metallic was wild. The metallic flake became more apparent as we reduced the distortions in reflexions and got closer to mirror like reflection levels.
Once this was done to satisfaction the entire car was wrapped in STEK DynoMight 10mil thick PPF with a few areas (quarter panels specifically receiving 2X layers of PPF) This was installed and hand cut as opposed to kitwork. No edges anywhere for dirt to get trapped and absolute maximum amount of paint coverage possible. We removed front and rear lighting as well as rear wing and Mirrors to make installation easier (This is how we do all 992's)
Dry sanding first then wet sanding to remove all the factory texture/Orange peel. THis looks very invasive but we're actually removing less than .01-.02 microns of clear coat. 911's typically have anywhere between 1.5-1.7 total microns of Clear coat so really not removing much. More on this process when the video is done.
Heres the video on our process we performed to my car and many other special P cars!
Once the level 5 is done we move onto prep Some things removed to make prepwork easier as well as ensure no visible edges of PPF After the level 5 texture removal its imperative we ensure no dust/clear coat residue remains anywhere THis PPF is THICK! obviously not quite as simple as installing the standard 8mil thick films. Satisfying This is why we pull the lighting Quarter panel reflections look crisp!
Once the PPF was done we Ceramic coated it in 2 layers of Gyeon PPF ceramic and topped that with Gyeon cancoat pro. All the exterior plastics and stainless steel cladding also received various applications of Gyeon Ceramic coatings to make everything as easy to clean as possible. We pulled the wheels and coated them and the brakes as well as all suspension components. This car is going to get dirty and i want it to clean up as easy as possible.
Little video of the Gyeon coating getting installed on the STEK PPF
Once everything was done i did the honorary first trip to Katie's cars and coffee. Regarded as one of the best C&C's on the east coast. I believe i was the first Dakar at Katies. Kinda cool! Still waiting on Roof rack and mudflaps, No idea why these didn't ship with the car. The reflections from the painted surfaces are amazing. hard to capture on camera!
1K miles later and my roof rack, mudflaps and real Licence plate arrived! about 10 mins from the shop one my new favorite spots to enjoy my coffee. Nice views from the top of this construction pile lol The lighting is ridiculous. I have never seen auxiliary lighting this bright. Well done Porsche. My boy loves this thing. Constantly wants to play with it.
Me and my buddy did a fun run on some of our favorite roads, The Dakar is very very capable on road as well. Obviously it doesn't grip like a GT car but the AWD and power it makes means its no slouch on backroads. You can also clip apex's and dip wheels off the road at speed so.....thats fun! DAKAR on a hill at a winery GT3 Touring and Dakar on a hill at a winery
************************************************************************ ****************************************************Peters Mill Run********************************************************************* ***********************************************************
When i got to about 1200 miles i planned a trip to a local Jeep trail called Peters mill run. I had ran this in my Bronco before but it didn't really challenge Shrek at all (The Bronco) I figured this would be an excellent trail to see what the car could really do! I Arranged for my video team to come with and shoot out of my RIvian R1T (Excellent support rig for Dakar)
Shrek for context and bc i think it's an epic shot Fun fact, Recently a friend in a Sterrato couldn't make it up the entrance to this trail lol Nothing ever looks serious offroad but this trail def pushed the car and my spotting skills as i had a friend drive allot so i could spot the car over the various obstacles we encountered Yeah...This is normal right? Something so incredibly special about this car! Spotting is important This was right before a pretty sketchy 42 degree downgrade section. had to break out the traction boards towards the end of this obstacle to not smash the front bumper up Seriously if you have one of these and you don't do this stuff you're missing out bigtime! Rivian with 17" of clearance...maybe i need Portals on the Dakar...hrmmmm Safe and sound back on the road on the way back to GlasWerks. I completed the whole trail and didn't need to take any bypass! Now when i hear jeep guys talk about an area they had difficulty on this trail im going ruthlessly troll them!
When we got back to GLasWerks the car got cleaned up and inspected for damage. the wheels took a few rock strikes and i smashed a hole in a mud flap but other then that all was well! Dakar mud flaps, great feeler gauges for rocks!! Also if your going to do this don't trust the factory mounting, We ended up Riveting them into the plastic cladding after this trip so they didn't come off when getting dragged/hit.
My buddies got me something This is rad! Complete with roof rack!
The car is certainly more capable then any sports car has any rights to be in an offroad environment like this. I would caution any other owners not to send it down a jeep trail though unless your very comfortable offroad and have a lot of experience spotting/selecting lines. many times on this trail we could have done real damage to the car if it was an inch in a different direction. Overall i was very very impressed with this first outing! Any other Dakar owners around us wanna do an outing im game just to instruct/spot! This is an excellent trail for the car. Challenging but doable.
Finally the new exhaust showed up! Im a huge fan of Kline exhaust , specifically their Inconel systems and they are our preferred exhaust partner for Porsche and most exotics. We replaced all the sections of the exhaust with Kline inconel components. Heres the breakdown for inconel sections VS factory.
Porsche 992 Carrera Valvetronic silencer section: 6.95 Kg / OEM 13.3 Kg Porsche 992 Carrera 100cell cat pipe set: 4.90 Kg / set / OEM 8.5 Kg Porsche 992 Carrera 200cell cat pipe set: 5.10 Kg / set / OEM 8.5 Kg
Porsche 992 Carrera 3.0 manifolds: 3.10 Kg / set / OEM 7.5 Kg
Total weight loss 31.19# from the full inconel system with 200Cel cats
nice underbelly shot Drool Absolutely beautiful It changed colors very rapidly...can't imagine why.... ALl the flow and POWERRRR
We loaded the car up a few weeks prior to SEMA and arranged to be out there a week early so we could actually run the Dakar in the place is was designed for. Desert!!!!!! I was so excited about this. I made some flags and some custom flag holders to integrate into the roof rack as the sand dunes require flags for visibility (Also they make the car look like an RC car and it makes me happy) Flags for SEMA Shenanigans Hard to see in this picture but there 2X 4' Fiberglass whip antennas coming off the roof rack.
Me and my buddies arrived in Vegas Thursday the week before SEMA. had a quick bite to eat and passed out. We got up at 5am Friday morning to go meet STEK at their Airbnb they rented to garage the Dakar. Friday was an amazing day! we spent the morning bouncing between a packed itinerary of locations they wanted to shoot. I did my best impressions of a professional driver and tried to get the whole shot list knocked out with only a few shots that required more than a dozen passes to nail lol. The car actually made very good grip on these surfaces making it difficult to get the angles and rotation we wanted. turns out they made the car TOO GOOD at finding traction lol. Even with everything turned off I had to fully commit to something to get the rotation i wanted. Told ya the Flags look cool! Absolutely stunning! This was on Roach dry lake bed Yes the dirt is real...yes it was immensely fun adding it to the car Real life on a safAree Yeah...we got stuck a few times on the sand dunes, thank god we had a Raptor with us lol This is how STEK displayed the car at SEMA, COmpletely filthy and i couldnt be more proud! What an incredible day with the guys. Once of the most amazing automotive adventures I have ever done!
Here's a link to the Video we made out in Vegas! Big thank you to STEK for getting the car out there and planning this craziness.
As we finish more media and do more mini adventures I'll update this regularly.
We currently have more media in production from these trips. I can't wait to share it all with you all!
Thankyou all for reading!
Correction:
Thankyou member Wilder for asking about the exhaust weight, i got the system weights mixed up in my notes with the 812superfast. Weights have been updated to reflect actual in the above post but heres a breakdown.
Porsche 992 Carrera Valvetronic silencer section: 6.95 Kg / OEM 13.3 Kg Porsche 992 Carrera 100cell cat pipe set: 4.90 Kg / set / OEM 8.5 Kg Porsche 992 Carrera 200cell cat pipe set: 5.10 Kg / set / OEM 8.5 Kg
Porsche 992 Carrera 3.0 manifolds: 3.10 Kg / set / OEM 7.5 Kg
Total weight loss 31.19# from the full inconel system with 200Cel cats
Young man, I hope you are counting your blessings. Almost 80 now, the Dakar & this post are a dream I will never see. I was in the backcountry a lot in my youth, but respiratory issues prevent that today. I can think of a few spots that if I ever “parked” , I may never return. :-) Thrilled that at least one of these will be driven for it’s designed purpose. Enjoy each & every mile & maybe, just maybe, hoist a toast for Bob as you watch a sunset from a remote overlook.
Young man, I hope you are counting your blessings. Almost 80 now, the Dakar & this post are a dream I will never see. I was in the backcountry a lot in my youth, but respiratory issues prevent that today. I can think of a few spots that if I ever “parked” , I may never return. :-) Thrilled that at least one of these will be driven for it’s designed purpose. Enjoy each & every mile & maybe, just maybe, hoist a toast for Bob as you watch a sunset from a remote overlook.
Damn…gorgeous car. As much as I enjoy my occasional trips to the sand dunes at Pismo beach on a rented Can-am, I can’t imagine how much fun it’d be to rip off-road on a Dakar. Congrats on a beautiful car. Looking forward to more vids.
I’ll be honest, as I was reading about how much work you were putting in to correct the paint and protect it, I said there’s no way he’s going to thrash it.
I don't believe in having vehicles and never using them for what they were built for, GT cars go on tracks, Dakar goes in dirt Thank You for following along!
Thanks for sharing, What an absolute awesome write up and video history. Looks like you've got an amazing car and a proper outlook on how to enjoy it..
I've run Peter's Mill many times on ATV's and BMW GS1250's, it has some seriously nasty rocks on the trail. Did you get any underbody damage? Are there stout skidplates on the Dakar?
12-10-2023, 05:14 PM
My Dakar Adventures
Thank You for following along! 
