2023 Porsche 911 Dakar First Drive: Not a Bunch of Marketing Bulls**t

Technology is amazing. I'm standing in the middle of the Moroccan Sahara Desert on the phone with my boss in Los Angeles. He wants to make sure I put the screws to the engineers I'm about to see: Make sure the 2023 Porsche 911 Dakar "isn't a bunch of marketing bullshit," in his words. Good news: It's not.

I don't have to ask the engineers (I do, anyway) because I just spent the day tearing down desert two-tracks and surfing dunes … in a factory Porsche 911. It's so preposterous, all we could do was laugh like a kid the entire way. It's an actual dream come true, something you've always thought could be fun but never dared try. What if an off-roader drove like a 911? Wouldn't that be cool as hell? Turns out, it is. Who would've guessed?

As rally cars have long demonstrated, a car with good on-limit behavior on a paved road will drive just as well off-road, where you're always at or over the limit. The 2023 Porsche 911 Dakar (click here for a deeper rundown of its hardware package) is the ultimate proof of this theorem. Yes, 911s drive great on the road. All of them. There's not one variant of the more than two dozen Porsche builds that doesn't set the bar for sports cars. All that greatness translates beautifully to the dirt.

Leaving the pavement just north of Merzouga, we didn't so much as air down the tires. Instead, we twirled the steering-wheel-mounted selector to the first of two new drive modes, Rallye, and activated off-road launch control. (Of course there's off-road launch control, this is Porsche. )  It allows more wheelslip so the purpose-built Pirelli Scorpion all-terrain tires can dig and scrape for maximum traction, and it feels for all the world like launching the car on asphalt except it's way more exciting. Porsche says the 911 Dakar will hit 60 mph in 3.2 seconds on pavement, just 0.1 second behind the most recent 911 Carrera GTS we tested. Makes sense, since Porsche also claims the car is only 22 pounds heavier than a Carrera 4 GTS with a twin-clutch transmission. It's only slightly slower on dirt, per the butt dyno.

Ripping down desert two-tracks, the 911 Dakar feels entirely worthy of its name. Its recalibrated suspension isn't pillowy-soft like a Ford Raptor, but it deals with bumps surprisingly well. The biggest ones slam the dampers into their internal bumpstops with a noise that makes you wish for hydraulic jounce absorbers, but the car just takes it and keeps going.

These special all-terrains certainly make a case for themselves. Rear weight bias, rear steering, and loose gravel be damned, there are no widowmaker tendencies here. We're exceeding interstate speeds on dirt and thinking nothing of it—no fear, no stress. Even so, and while Porsche says the car will reach a computer-limited (but really tire-limited) 150 mph, we're not about to find the top speed here. Still, the 911's low center of gravity gives us a confidence you don't always have in off-road trucks where rollover crashes are a more serious possibility.

All the time we made crossing the hard pack is repaid when we finally air down the tires to 17.5 psi for the soft stuff. Until now, we'd used Rallye mode and standard ride height. The former is programmed for more drifty stuff, and the latter rides a bit better. Now we're in Off-Road mode, and the suspension is in moon buggy spec. This mode is for traction, be it deep sand, soggy mud, or climbing up loose hillsides. The extra ground clearance the ride height affords helps keep you from beaching the car or smashing its nose quite as easily (you'll still do both if you're not careful; more on that later). However, it limits you to 105 mph before it lowers automatically. Consider it a badge of courage if you compel the car to lower automatically off-road.

We'll climb a steep, rocky hill later, but right now it's all about the sand. Dune surfing is one of off-roading's great joys, running up and down the slopes while hanging out the tail and throwing sand everywhere. It's exactly the kind of thing you'd never expect to do in a 911, and possibly the most fun you can have in one. The 911 Dakar power oversteers so nicely, you kick it sideways at every opportunity just because it makes you giggle.

The twin turbos come on at incredibly low revs, so it never feels like you're out of the boost window. There's always torque, though I still preferred to keep the revs up rather than risk being without power at the wrong time. As far as I can tell, the new transmission programming won't ever let that happen, but old habits die hard. I even shift manually occasionally in the dunes to keep the revs high just to make myself feel better, but most of the time it's perfectly fine left to its own devices.

With all the weight in back and an unremarkable breakover angle, you avoid cresting dunes and stick to the valleys between them. When you do need to get over a saddle, you keep your foot in it until the whole car is over rather than lifting as soon as the front goes over as you would in a nose-heavy truck. Any excuse to keep the throttle pedal planted is a good one in this car, so don't think too hard about it. The Dakar simply loves this stuff.

Merely to prove it can be done, we take a break from the dunes to climb a rocky hill. Traction is no issue—it's simply a matter of maneuvering carefully around all the big rocks threatening grievous body damage. Rear steering is your friend here. The extra ride height is, too, when you need to come up a steep transition or put a tire directly on a large rock. This isn't where the 911 Dakar wants to be, but if this kind of terrain is between you and the fun stuff, it can handle it.

Never mind all that slow-speed action. We're back in the dunes one more time because this never gets old. The novelty never wears off. The car is so light and nimble compared to your average SUV or truck, it just dances through the dunes like a buggy. Anytime you want, you just kick out the rear end, bring it back the other way, and do it again. The Porsche even jumps well, as we discover inadvertently. Everyone should experience joy like this behind the wheel.

All too soon (any time would be too soon), it's over and we're aired up and back on the street headed for the airport in Errachidia. Normally, you expect an off-road suspension will translate to a driving-on-clouds ride on the street, but not here. Despite its extra height, despite its off-road tires, despite its soft suspension, it still drives like a 911 on the street. The PDCC active anti-roll bars firm up, and the whole package just feels like a tall Carrera. Any squirm in the blocky rubber tread isn't evident in the steering. It may not handle quite as well as the Carrera 4 GTS it gets its powertrain from, but it isn't that far off. If anything, it rides surprisingly firmly for an off-road-capable vehicle, especially over small bumps.

Everything great about the 2023 Porsche 911 Dakar comes with one big caveat summed up neatly by one of our Of The Year criteria: performance of intended function. The car is absolutely brilliant so long as you understand and drive within its capabilities. With 6.3 inches of ground clearance standard and 7.5 inches in its high setting, the Dakar has less clearance than your average Subaru. Even on trails appropriate for the car, you'll drag the belly pan on something sooner or later. I lost count of how many times I did. There's no avoiding it.

In fact, even set to its highest ride height, the 911 Dakar's off-road stats struggle to match a Subaru Crosstrek's. A 16.1-degree approach angle is certainly better than a standard 911's 8 degrees, but it's 2 degrees shy of the Crosstrek. The 18.2-degree departure angle at least guarantees you won't drag the ass on anything the nose didn't hit first, but it's nowhere near the Subaru's 28.6-degree departure angle. At least the 19.0-degree breakover angle is only 0.7 degree worse than the Subaru's.

A superb rule of thumb is to not take the 2023 Porsche 911 Dakar anywhere you don't think a (473-hp) Subaru could go. It's not a Raptor, and you shouldn't drive it like one. You should approach steep ramps and steps cautiously, attack dunes with care, and entirely avoid large rocks. There's an enormous amount of fun to be had off-road in a 911 Dakar; you don't need to try to conquer every kind of terrain on earth.

It's understandable you don't want to hurt a car for which you paid $223,450 to start (and probably more like $300,000—or even more—after options and dealer markups), but shame be upon anyone who buys the 2023 Porsche 911 Dakar and never takes it off-road even once. People like that will miss the entire point and the entirety of the fun. Modern automakers don't build vehicles like this. It's completely irrational and totally juvenile, and it's better for it. Porsche will sell every damn one (if it hasn't already), and every one that never sees a spec of dirt will represent unbridled joy forsaken in the name of soulless resale value. Any Dakar owner who makes that trade should consult their inner child and ask where it all went wrong.