The recommissioning has been carried out over the past few months by the Porsche Heritage and Museum team together with their colleagues from Porsche Classic.
A car that can survive 14,000 kilometres in the deserts and savannahs of Africa can go anywhere in the world. The Porsche 959 Paris-Dakar mastered the gruelling rally from France to West Africa in 1986. The 959, in which Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur finished second behind the winning French team of René Metge and Dominique Lemoyne – in an identical car – is now ready to by driven once again. The recommissioning has been carried out over the past few months by the Porsche Heritage and Museum team together with their colleagues from Porsche Classic. The multi-part documentary "959 Paris-Dakar" on the Porsche YouTube channel offers exciting insights into the recommissioning process.
The 959 Paris Dakar Race History
The starting line-up of the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1986 was dominated by trucks and all-terrain vehicles. The three Porsche 959 cars from Zuffenhausen stood out – the third, a service car driven by project manager Roland Kussmaul and Wolf-Hendrik Unger, took sixth place. To this day, the Porsche Museum has preserved the complete trio as part of its collection. “The winning car remains untouched and we keep it in a kind of time capsule, so to speak, with all of the physical traces of the rally preserved for as long as possible,” explains Kuno Werner, Head of the Museum Workshop.
In the 1980s, the team spent two years transforming the 959 into a rally car. The engineers reinforced the suspension with double shock absorbers on the front axle and fitted all-terrain tyres. If the surface didn’t require all-wheel drive, the electro-hydraulically controlled centre differential distributed the power variably between the front and rear axles. As a result, the Porsche is able to reach speeds of up to 210 km/h.
Racing director Peter Falk recalls the first three rallies: 1984 with the Porsche 953 and the following two years with the 959 Paris-Dakar: “It was really great that we got all the cars across the finish line and won the race at our first attempt. Then Mr Bott said: ‘We have to go again, once isn’t enough.’ Then, in 1985, all three of our cars dropped out of the race. That was devastating. After that we were determined to race again. Even though we were all a bit sick of the whole thing after losing everything. Then in 1986 we did it again. All three cars finished and we had a 1-2 victory.”
Overhaul: telling the story of the car authentically
“We want to keep the original condition and only lightly overhaul the car while eliminating any technical flaws,” says Werner. Because the second-placed car from 1986 was still in very good shape, those responsible for the recommissioning managed to replace as little as possible while keeping the maximum number of original parts. There were around 18,000 kilometres on the clock of the 959 Paris-Dakar – the length of the rally plus a few thousand kilometres on top. Like its series production counterpart, the rally car was also powered by an air-/water-cooled flat-six engine with compound turbocharging. Due to the low-quality fuel, the output of the six-cylinder engine was reduced to 294 kW (400 PS).
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A car that can survive 14,000 kilometres in the deserts and savannahs of Africa can go anywhere in the world. The Porsche 959 Paris-Dakar mastered the gruelling rally from France to West Africa in 1986. The 959, in which Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur finished second behind the winning French team of René Metge and Dominique Lemoyne – in an identical car – is now ready to by driven once again. The recommissioning has been carried out over the past few months by the Porsche Heritage and Museum team together with their colleagues from Porsche Classic. The multi-part documentary "959 Paris-Dakar" on the Porsche YouTube channel offers exciting insights into the recommissioning process.
The 959 Paris Dakar Race History
The starting line-up of the Paris-Dakar Rally in 1986 was dominated by trucks and all-terrain vehicles. The three Porsche 959 cars from Zuffenhausen stood out – the third, a service car driven by project manager Roland Kussmaul and Wolf-Hendrik Unger, took sixth place. To this day, the Porsche Museum has preserved the complete trio as part of its collection. “The winning car remains untouched and we keep it in a kind of time capsule, so to speak, with all of the physical traces of the rally preserved for as long as possible,” explains Kuno Werner, Head of the Museum Workshop.
In the 1980s, the team spent two years transforming the 959 into a rally car. The engineers reinforced the suspension with double shock absorbers on the front axle and fitted all-terrain tyres. If the surface didn’t require all-wheel drive, the electro-hydraulically controlled centre differential distributed the power variably between the front and rear axles. As a result, the Porsche is able to reach speeds of up to 210 km/h.
Racing director Peter Falk recalls the first three rallies: 1984 with the Porsche 953 and the following two years with the 959 Paris-Dakar: “It was really great that we got all the cars across the finish line and won the race at our first attempt. Then Mr Bott said: ‘We have to go again, once isn’t enough.’ Then, in 1985, all three of our cars dropped out of the race. That was devastating. After that we were determined to race again. Even though we were all a bit sick of the whole thing after losing everything. Then in 1986 we did it again. All three cars finished and we had a 1-2 victory.”
Overhaul: telling the story of the car authentically
“We want to keep the original condition and only lightly overhaul the car while eliminating any technical flaws,” says Werner. Because the second-placed car from 1986 was still in very good shape, those responsible for the recommissioning managed to replace as little as possible while keeping the maximum number of original parts. There were around 18,000 kilometres on the clock of the 959 Paris-Dakar – the length of the rally plus a few thousand kilometres on top. Like its series production counterpart, the rally car was also powered by an air-/water-cooled flat-six engine with compound turbocharging. Due to the low-quality fuel, the output of the six-cylinder engine was reduced to 294 kW (400 PS).
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