DESERT RIDER

In 1986, one privateer tackled the Paris-Dakar in his own very special Range Rover Audi Quattro Proto. This is its story

- Massimo Delbo 

DAKAR! IN THE 1980s, just to hear the name of the Senegal capital was enough to make car-lovers drool. These were the golden years of the Paris-Dakar Rally, a die hard’ desert race conceived by French driver Thierry Sabine to be the ultimate challenge.

Born in 1949 into a wealthy family his father was a dentist and hobbyist rally driver), Sabine started racing in 1969. In 1974 he won the French GT title; he also took part in several Tours de France, mostly with privately entered Porsche 911 RS and RSRs, and raced at Le Mans for three consecutive years from 1975, finishing 13th in 76. He last raced in 1983, driving a BMW 635CSiat the 24 Hours of Spa Francor champs. But it was in the mid-1970s that he discovered motorcycle desert racing. And it was this diversion that changed his life.

In 1975, between Abidjan and Nice during the Rallye Céte-Céte, Sabine get lost on the Tchigai Plateau, near the isolated mountain of Emi Fezzan, while crossing the Ténéré desert. It took the organisers fully three days to rescue him. There came his epiphany: he would create a new rally, across the desert of all deserts.

On 25 December 1978 the first Paris-Dakar left from Trocadéro in Paris, a 12,000km 7460-mile) odyssey for 167 competitors. Finishing fourth overall, and first among the cars, was Alain Génestier in a Range Rover V8. The following year, Swede Freddy Kottulinsky won in a Volkwagen Iltis; in 1981 it was René Metzge in a Range Rover V8, then Claude Marreau in a Renault 20 Turbo, and, in 1983, Jacky Ickx in a Mercedes-Benz 280GE.

The Paris-Dakar was an amateur race. Ickx’s 1983 victory was the first for a professional team, backed by a manufacturer and major sponsors. And the game really changed in 1984, when Porsche entered its 911 SC-RS 4x4 predecessor of the 959), winning the race and setting a new standard for competitors.