We Took A Close Look At The New Porsche 911 Dakar And We’ve Got Some Questions About Off-Road Capability And Aerodynamics

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Porsche just debuted the 2023 Porsche 911 Dakar, a “safari’d” (i.e. lifted, off-road-oriented) Porsche 911, and while I think the mere fact that it exists is awesome, looking at one here at the LA Auto Show leaves me with a few technical questions. Particularly, I’m confused about a few cooling system and off-road-related engineering decisions. Let’s talk about them.

With Porsche releasing a story about two portal axle-equipped 911s climbing a big volcano in Chile, and with a press release for the production version of the safari’d 911 reading “Taking Inspiration From The Rally Stages: The 2023 Porsche 911 Dakar,” you might think the Stuttgart-based sports car brand was building a genuine off-road beast. But a look at the production car here at LA Auto Show, where the vehicle made its global debut a few days ago, makes it clear that this thing is really meant to look cool and do some light dune bashing, but it won’t blast through tough off-road trails.

It’s Not Exactly Going To Be A Beast Off-Road

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Obviously, just looking at the outside of the car makes it clear that it’s geometrically challenged as an off-roader. With a steel coil spring suspension, the car’s approach angle is a low 14.2 degrees, the departure angle is an also-low 16.4 degrees, and the breakover angle is a suboptimal 16.2 degrees, with ground clearance maxing out at only 6.3 inches. Add the adjustable suspension, and the ground clearance goes to about 7.5 inches, while the approach figure goes up to 16.1 degrees and the breakover angle goes to 19 degrees, per CNET. (I don’t have a departure figure, oddly).

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Start looking underneath the Dakar, and the vehicle’s off-roading limitations become even more apparent:

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Up front, the body-in-white (the bottom of the frunk) is exposed and lacking a skid-plate; that’s probably fine, though I’d be curious how that’d handle being bashed by big rocks on a rally course.

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The underbody is flat, but largely covered by plastic shields. I won’t conjecture how well this will hold up when dragged over rocks, but I will guess how well these heat shields will stay in place, and that is: Poorly:

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More importantly, look at that nylon engine oil pan just sitting right behind that rear axle, completely exposed — not a single skid plate in sight. Imagine bashing that on a rock and draining oil all over the terrain; yikes. There’s a reason why the Jeep Wrangler JL went from a nylon transmission oil pan (found on some prototypes) to a steel one for production cars.

Before I conclude this section about off-road capability, I have to make you all aware that someone wrote an absolutely astronomically detailed story about plastic oil pans. The article, titled “Autocomposites Update: Engine oil pans — As thermoplastic composites makes inroads into these complex, modular parts, weight and cost go down, functionality goes up” comes to us from Composites World, and the depth of this piece is unbelievably impressive to the point where, if you were to just click on the link and read that article instead of this one here, I honestly wouldn’t even be mad.

Look at the detailed description of the history of composite oil pan development:

As work got underway at DaimlerChrysler in 2007, a parallel program involving BASF and Dana started at Ford Motor Co. (Dearborn, MI, US) on the automaker’s 5.4L/3V (three-valve) V-8 engine for Ford’s F-150 pickups. This three-year effort yielded a 56- by 28- by 20-cm pan that, minus hardware, weighed only 2.24 kg. Also approved for implementation, this effort led to the team’s first North American commercial opportunity, on the 6.7L power-stroke turbo-diesel Scorpion engine in heavy-duty F-250 and F-350 pickups. The Scorpion engine was selected because Ford engineers wanted to integrate an oil level/temperature sensor in this engine’s 38 by 25 by 10 cm, 1.5-kg (fully dressed with hardware) nonstructural pan ― something that would’ve been difficult in stamped steel but straightforward in composites.

Launched in 2009, it was reportedly the first composite oil pan designed for exposed use (typical of North American vehicles without full underbody shields) thanks to a new material (Ultramid B3ZG7 OSI 35%-short-glass/PA 6) and a new waffle-rib configuration. The latter, for which BASF has patents pending, was developed and validated via extensive computer-aided engineering (CAE) analysis and impact testing. A proprietary modification package optimized the resin for stone impacts to -40°C and stabilized it against long-term heat aging in hot oil, bio-diesel and calcium chloride road salts (which normally attack polyamide).

Here’s why composite oil pans have become so popular these days:

Metal pans are heavy, prone to corrosion/rust and denting, feature numerous subassemblies (e.g., oil pick-up tube, windage tray, filter, pump, etc.) and require secondary machining, welding and painting. This is, therefore, just the kind of application where composites can integrate subcomponents, reduce assembly costs and roughly halve pan weight at a time when there is great pressure to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. Further, composites naturally dampen noise/vibration/harshness (NVH) values.

And here’s a look at the future of composite oil pans:

Engine oil pans, at least in North America, appear to be evolving from nonstructural to structural designs. A development project underway between Ford, the US Department of Energy (DoE, Washington, DC, US), and the Vehma Engineering and Prototype Div. (Troy, MI, US) of Magna Exteriors (Aurora, ONT, Canada) is investigating a multi-material lightweight vehicle (MMLV) based on a C/D segment sedan where the goal is to produce a drivable prototype weighing 25% less than the benchmark (Mach I), and then create a “virtual” concept vehicle that is 50% lighter than the benchmark (Mach II). One target area for lightweighting on this program is a V6 structural oil pan that will contribute to overall powertrain stiffness. The Mach I design is  a two-piece, glass-reinforced PA pan with a carbon fiber-reinforced composite bracket.

Anyway, my point is that nylon oil pans are actually quite sturdy, they’re just not ideal for off-road applications, just as exposed stamped steel ones aren’t. You want the pan to either be somewhere that’s unlikely to see an impact (like just above the front axle, in the case of the Jeep Wrangler JL) or protected with a skid plate. The Porsche’s pan is just aft of the rear subframe; drag the vehicle’s (plastic-covered) belly over a rock, and that pan will likely see some action. Clearly, this vehicle wasn’t built for that kind of action, even if you have read headlines like “The $222,000 Porsche 911 Dakar Will Take You (Almost) Anywhere.” Keep it on gravel roads and snow-covered lakes; or, more likely, in a garage in a fancy zipcode.

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The old-school Porsche 911 Safari, on the other hand? This thing is legit. Look at how high it is off the ground, and look at how much better the approach, departure, and breakover angles are. Plus, check out all the underbody protection:

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A Question About Aerodynamics

When I see a new car, the first thing I like to check out is the cooling system, as I used to get paid to stare at them and assess them. On the 911 Dakar, one thing has me a little confused.

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See that grille opening below that black blanking plate to the right of the red tow hook? That opening doesn’t feed a heat exchanger — there’s nothing behind it:

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In fact, if you stick your fingers into that opening, you find that it feeds the two vents in the hood, which is shared with the 911 GT3. Allow Jason to show you while looking really special:

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What’s going on here? Why is a big cooling opening just feeding some vents in the hood? On a 911 GT3, there’s a heat exchanger behind that opening:

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And on the 911T, that area is actually completely blocked off. Here’s the 911T:

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So why does the Dakar have the opening that vents out the hood, but no heat exchanger? Porsche’s rep wasn’t sure, but implied that it might have just been a styling thing. Could there be an aero advantage? Seems unlikely to me, but maybe.

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Anyway, I’ll conclude this by showing you this custom 1991 “Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Baja” made by Russell Built and currently on display at The Autopian’s booth at the LA Auto Show. With its high ground clearance, absurdly knobby tires, high-clearance fenders, and aluminum, sheet-steel, and carbon fiber skid plate treatment, the thing is clearly designed to be an off-road monster:

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48 thoughts on “We Took A Close Look At The New Porsche 911 Dakar And We’ve Got Some Questions About Off-Road Capability And Aerodynamics

  1. honestly outside of hooning around in a desert until they have to be drug out by a camel, these are just the mall parking lot fodder for the Jeep guys with too many ducks and flush with cash from the parental units passing away.

  2. On a normal day, Armor All is just terrible. It accomplishes nothing other than some temporary, and in my entirely subjective opinion, unattractive – gloss that later ends up flung off your tires at high speed onto your paint.

    On these safari examples it’s worse. All the effort the designers went through to give these vehicles a visual sense of purpose, and they tart them up like a garage queen? Come on!

    Say no to Armor All.

  3. Your comparison for the “Dakar” themed Porsche is a little off base. You are comparing a dedicated trail runner like a Jeep JL/JK, typically built and modified for off-road trail running and rock climbing (where approach and departure angles matter along with heavy duty bash plates) to a vehicle themed for rally. In this case the Dakar rally. There isn’t a single stage in the current of past Dakar rally(s) that have any rock climbing. It’s always been mud trails and sand dunes. Now it is apparent, that this is basically an appearance package for the Porsche 911 (much akin to the VW Beetle Dune). More on, the 84 Porsche 911 Carrera 4×4 you also compare it to is a full fledged race car that won the 1984 Dakar rally. The other, the 91 Carrera 4 Baja, is a Safari spec-ish clone of the Tuthill Porsche Safari Classic rally cars and also non-production based. This is like comparing the standard Subaru WRX STI (VA) with the Vermont Sports Car ARA spec rally car. One is rally inspired and the other is a true race car. I personally like the rally styled cars (started by the air cooled Porsche 911 community) and hope to see more production designs based on these styles (Nissan if you’re listening, make a Safari-rally themed 400Z!). This car is built for sand dunes, hard gravel road driving, and maybe some light overlanding and that’s it. If I could buy one, I would invest in some skid protection as a good precaution but you are right, these will likely end up in some rich person’s garage and never seeing the use it was intended for……………except for maybe in Saudi Arabia. But the same is mostly true for the air cooled safari Porsche 911 crowd anyway.

  4. This is particularly amusing because when Porsche did those 996 softroaders to show off the Carrera 4 they did put skidplates on it and I’m pretty sure they sold them as something you could buy.

  5. Just by looking at the article’s second photo (the 911 Dakar in profile), one can tell that this car’s ability to overcome obstacles is probably on par with a Mazda CX-3. Not terrible, but not ready for off-road racing as the name would imply. Seeing the damage on the Rothmans safari car’s skid plates doesn’t bode well for the current offering. Porsche stuff usually does what it says on the box, so this is a significant let-down.
    More importantly, looking at the last photo (specifically at the green thing above the white slant-nose) led me to learn that Aston Martin made a few custom station wagons called the Virage Vacances in the ’90s. It’s not brown, not diesel, and nowhere near as pretty as most Astons, but apparently has a 6.3l V8, manual trans and a rear-facing 3rd row of seats. That’s a rare bit of longroof lore that I’d love to hear more about. The deep-dive on composite oil pans was an interesting surprise, too… the kind of practical geekery that sets this site apart.

  6. Let’s see….slightly taller version of an existing car that costs more. Oh right, another crossover! What made them think anyone would buy such a thing?!

  7. Non-sequitur: Recent events have guaranteed that I will never buy a Tesla, never fly a SpaceX rocket, and never read or write a tweet.

    I’m fairly certain no one really cares.

  8. To the beaches of California, and back. These cars were designed to get sandy. Maybe do a moderate jump here and there in the desert, but nothing more. Porsche knows its audience, and while it is sad to see the lack of proper engineering, or more like the intent to make this any tougher, the 911s will be grand on broken tarmac. Which is where these will be driven, if ever.

  9. I can see a use case on gravel/dirt/graded fire roads that exist in rural areas. Hauling ass, drifting & general hooning about…..until MOOSE!! And we know a YTuber WILL destroy one ASAP.

  10. It looks to me like the aftermarket could do a bumper replace with front and rear designed to increase departure angles and add the steel plates in the necessary areas. Of course, it wouldn’t be stock, but most likely Porsche needs to keep the front bumper for the necessary pedestrian crash regs without having to do a lot of work. It still wouldn’t be for rock crawling, and I certainly would want to get some extra sidewall on those tires, but you then could get the speed up without worrying as much about digging the front end in when the terrain gets unsettled.

  11. On the vents, my guess is that they wanted to use the GT3 trunk lid for weight savings (and styling), but didn’t want to fit the heat exchangers because they didn’t need them and to save weight. So, you end up with vents to nothing.

  12. “On the 911T, that area is actually completely blocked off.”

    I love the photo accompanying that. It warms the cockles of my heart to know that six-figure supercars also sometimes come with plastic blanking plates that just have a bit of texture molded in to provide visual interest and make it look intentional to the casual observer. Do they also have those little plastic fastener covers with the little notch where you can stick a screwdriver to pop ’em out?

  13. “This thing is really meant to look cool and do some light dune bashing…”

    Only half right. It’s meant to look cool and sit in a climate-controlled garage/gallery for 20 years until it can go up for auction at four times the original price. Taking it to the dunes might damage the paint, and that would be just terrible for the owner’s investment.

  14. On that last car: I’m no composite material expert but isn’t carbon fiber more known for its, I guess I’ll call it lateral strength? It’s impact strength is quite low from what I understand. Someone help me out here.

    1. Carbon bash plates have been a thing on motorcycles for a while now. I have one on my KTM and I bash it into rocks and logs for hours at a time. So far , so good.

  15. This vehicle is intended for the middle-east & other moneyed markets where it will sell out just for it’s novelty. It’s purpose is to make $$$ for Porsche, not to be a good off-roader for Joe Lunchpail – he can’t afford it & it’s not for him anyway so why bother making it capable? Porsche is cashing in on the “overlander” craze, where looks matter more than capability, and as a business case it makes sense. If you want a factory built vehicle for crawling around off-road it’s called the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon. And you can buy a six-pack for the price of the Porsche (because, of course, you will option out the Porsche and quickly blow through the base price).

  16. I hate this. I don’t like when people turn perfectly good 911s into “safari” 911s, and I don’t like the factory version either. This isn’t what 911s were designed for.

    1. Porsches have proven themselves to be a rather durable and competent machine in off-road racing. I disagree and can see the appeal of the safari 911s.

      The problem with Porsche’s factory effort is it just feels… half-baked. They seemed to settle for a high performance car that’ll handle some light duty trails rather than putting a focus on off-roadability at the expense of performance. Now if they’d aimed to build a car that (with a roll cage installed aftermarket + a few other safety things) was equipped to handle the Baja 1000 stock, then we’d have a special car here.

      As it is… I spent more time lusting over the older safari 911s in this article.

  17. What it this even for? They took an exceptional road car and turned it into a poor off roader? Who’s going to buy this thing ( asking as the line forms around the block).

    1. Rich people who happen to live somewhere with less than perfect roads. I’m guessing that some Porsche execs took a US vacation, were shocked at the shitty roads encountered along the way, and figured this would be a way to sell more of these models to US buyers.

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