Racing in the grueling two-week desert endurance spectacle known as the Dakar Rally is not for those weak of constitution. You have to be at the top of your game, mentally, physically, and emotionally, just to make it to the end of the race, and that’s if you have zero on-course issues. You might think you can handle the Dakar, but you just don’t have what it takes, you’re not built of tough enough stuff. Add in an extra level of complexity by running an exotic mid-engine French 4x4 rally raid machine from the late 1990s, and there’s just no way. Forget about it.
Do you think you could sit in these seats for days on end running kilometer after kilometer of open Saudi desert? Think again, chump. Your hands might be strong enough to grip this wheel or shift these gears, but you’re done, calling it quits, after day one. Your strength of will is just too low. Critical failure. You lose.
Come on, do you think you can affect repairs to that 4-liter V6 engine in the middle of a stage, just you and your co-driver? Think again, numbnuts. You could never comprehend the French mechanics who slapped this monster together, or what their intentions were when putting that fastener where you can’t reach it. It’s a mess of tubes and wires that your puny grey matter could never figure out.
Ostensibly based on a Peugeot 605, this car doesn’t seem like it has any actual 605 parts in it. Normally a regular family sedan, the 605 was jacked up on a 4x4 chassis, allegedly a modified Mercedes-Benz Gelandewagen, and the PRV V6 was wedged right into the middle. It had minimal success in-period, but was refurbished in 2021 and has since run the Dakar Classic and the World Cup of Raids. Ostensibly a continuation of Peugeot’s successful 405 Turbo 16 Rally Raid program of the 1980s, the 605 was not a true factory effort, and never really found a home. But none of that matters, because you’ll never drive it, and you definitely won’t find success in classic rally raid behind the wheel of this monster.
Prove me wrong. Buy this car and enter it in next year’s Dakar Classic. You won’t. Coward.