Behind the scenes with Peugeot’s Dakar monster

In under a month, three Peugeot 2008 DKRs will cross the start line of the 2015 Dakar Rally. For the preceding two weeks, they'll be subjected to a torturous slog as they compete in the world's most epic cross-country endurance rally.

The not-at-all-based-on-the-road-car 2008 DKR is the French firm's first rally raid car since the legendary 205 T16 GR and the equally iconic 405 T16 GR, two cars that handed Peugeot outright Dakar wins four years on the bounce from 1987 to 1990.

No pressure, then.

Pictures: Rowan Horncastle

So, on initial inspection, the fact that its development car is currently sitting stationary in a boulderous stretch of Moroccan desert, bonnet up, boot open and toolbox out is concerning. Especially as TG spent many, many hours in the back of an old Mercedes W123 taxi trying to get to the remotest, Dakar-esque part of Morocco to see its new beast in action.

"Don't worry," Peugeot Dakar pilot and off-road legend Stephan Peterhansel says when we approach to lend a hand, "it's not a big problem and I was driving so it would break."

Thirty minutes later back at base, a warped and very much broken part of suspension arrives. It's wielded around as spectacles are adorned to French noses and techy types analyse the damage.

After 8,000km of torture, this part finally gave in to the abuse so that Peugeot now knows its life expectancy. They jot down its time of death, fit a new one and send the car out to try and break something else.

This is testing, Dakar style. Where breaking things is part of the process as it's better to do it here, in a garage attached to a hotel in southern Morocco with a spread of garlic cloves (no, really) and cheese that's constantly topped up, than in a remote part of the desert during the race.

TopGear had a front-row seat for a day at Peugeot's final test session before the big day in Buenos Aires next month. And boy was it fascinating.

The Dakar Rally, to give it its full name, is an annual 5,500-mile trek that, confusingly, doesn't actually take place anywhere near Dakar any more.

It originated when a bloke called Thierry Sabine got lost on his motorbike in the Libyan desert during the Abidjan-Nice rally and returned to France with a new route. This then became an annual event. But since racing cars off-road around that part of the world has got a little bit sketchy post-millennia, the Dakar packed its bag and migrated to South America six years ago to continue its legacy. 

This year, the epic two-week cross-country endurance rally starts in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 4 January and runs northwards into Bolivia, then swings south through Chile, covering pretty much every kind of terrain you can imagine.

Only the hardest of the hardcore even consider applying. Which, this year, includes the return of Peugeot. A Good Thing considering the race is a French invention, as there's now someone to represent the ‘home' team. 

Since Peugeot last competed in the Dakar 25 years ago, the race has changed significantly. Aside from taking place in a completely different part of the planet, it's now taken a lot more seriously. With big brands pumping more more money into it, better drivers competing and now being beamed to a global audience of over a billion viewers. So, y'know, it's quite a big deal.

By no means was the African edition a doddle, but if it were a videogame it'd have a difficulty level of Hardened. South America, on the other hand, with its much more varied terrain, weather and altitude, is Veteran spec. It tests the cars and drivers a lot more, so everything needs to be fit for purpose, tested and then tested again. A battle Peugeot's currently fighting... and losing.

The specially built 2008 DKR is the car tasked with bringing glory back to Paris. Using all the nous from Peugeot Sport's portfolio of previous projects - WRC, Le Mans and Pikes Peak - a new mindset, philosophy and design has been applied to create the ultimate Dakar competitor.

Unlike most top-level competitors, Peugeot has not opted for a four-wheel-drive layout. Instead, all the power from the ridiculously mid-mounted 340bhp, V6 twin-turbodiesel engine goes to the rear wheels. This means there are less ‘driving bits' (TG technical term) to break but also puts the 2008 DKR into a different class, loosening up the restricting regulations that dominant four-wheel-drive competitors face in the process. It also means it can do massive skids, which TG likes.

Technically being a buggy, compared to the four-wheel-drive cars Peugeot are allowed a hell of a lot more suspension travel (460mm plays 250mm), bigger wheels, less minimum weight and a trick inboard remote tyre-pressure system that allows the car to inflate/deflate its rubber on the move. That last bit saves precious minutes on the stages as it negates the need to hop out and shove a 20p coin in the tyre valve to lose a bar of pressure for sandier stages.

With the carbon clamshell, spare wheels and carbon hub-mounted toolbox removed, you can really get into the gizzards of the car. It's a masterpiece. With double-wishbone suspension with twin adjustable dampers on each corner, the thing is sprawling with high-end metal.

Because of the buggies smaller-than-normal proportions, the packaging is pretty special. Borrowing ideas from the 908 Le Mans car, the gearbox is actually part of the chassis as the suspension is mounted directly to it. The engine is as far in the middle of the car, webbed with wires, exhausts and surrounded with six fans that cool the dampers, radiators and an intercooler.

"I'm not 100 per cent sure our concept of a two-wheel-drive buggy is the best option," Peugeot Sport director Bruno Famin tells TopGear. "But I'm convinced that this concept has a lot of potential that nobody has tried to explore."

So how do you taken an unproven concept and make it Dakar ready within eight months? Lots of testing.

June was the first time the car jumped out of the digital world of theory and CAD designs and hit the dirty, physical ground of Freneuse, France. With two-time WRC champ, Dakar winner and The Other Guy from Colin McRae PlayStation games Carlos Sainz behind the wheel, it was strapped with sensors and set free.

It worked! But there were problems.

With its unique dimensions and jacked-up ride height, there was a centre of gravity issue that made the car a bit top heavy and unstable. That's now been rectified by lowering the ride height, as has an issue with the spaceframe that meant it'd crack after whopping jumps and an irksome transmission issue has been ironed out.

Once the major mechanicals are sorted, testing moves on to tweaking the set up to extract the best performance.

The area of most work is setting up the suspension. It's an endless task of trying to balance the compromise of a harder set up for road stages versus a soft set-up for deserts and dunes.

Then, all the electronics need to be mapped to cope with different terrains and have a default set so if there is a mechanical problem the car has a limp home mode to finish the stage.

Finally, the smaller set ups need to be sorted; things like toe and camber angles to work out best balance for endurance and speed.

Once the drivers and team are happy with the package, it's all about putting as many kilometres on the car as possible. Typically, to be Dakar ready, a team would look to put 12,500 miles on a car pre-Dakar to test all components, see what breaks and then reevaluate.

Because of difficulties and a tight time schedule, at the end of the final test in Morocco Peugeot will have done just less than half that - hence the raised sense of urgency in the makeshift garage.

Seeing the DKR up close in its race-ready warpaint and pounding along the Morroccan desert for the first time is quite an experience. The thing is an absolute beast.

With its unrestricted, diesel engine chuntering along, being masked by the noise of the suck and blow of big turbos, it looks and sounds like something from out of space. The only shared part with a road-going 2008 is the windscreen, that's it. The new bulging carbon bodywork creates an overpowering silhouette that looks more like something from Halo than anything else. The fact it can trounce over pretty much anything at a ridiculous rate also doesn't help.

Seriously, I couldn't quite believe how much speed it can carry as its suspension worked overtime to react and soak up the horrendously bobbled, broken and rutted desert surface.

On the road, a quick left-right shuffle with the steering wheel showcased the softness of the set-up. It kicked the rear wheel in the air and shimmied the whole chassis into a wibble-wobble only ever seen on Earth when Gemma Collins hula hooped on a Power Plate.

But on dirt, that setup in conjunction with trench-sized tread-depths was a formidable force. Scurrying for grip, the tyres rake up football-sized boulders and spit them out behind at a horrendously violent rate. Just ask Hertz, they're currently pulling one out of our hire car's windscreen that was parked 30 feet from where the car passed.

Watching the DKR's damping is equally mind-blowing. It's so reactive and independent that each corner is doing something completely different and so effectively that the cabin stays completely flat. Both Sainz and Peterhansel told us that the DKR is the most comfortable car they've ever driven. This allows them to drive faster for longer. Plus, it gives Stephan Peterhansel's aging bones a bit of a break, something we're sure they're thankful for after competing in 24 Dakars.

But what's it like to drive? Not being allowed to have a go ourselves (don't worry, it's on our Christmas list) we spoke to 11-time Dakar winner Stephan Peterhansel after he squeezed himself out of the sweaty cockpit.

"I've never driven a two-wheel-drive race car before," Stephan admits. "It's completely different and I'm still learning. But you know what? It's more fun."

In order to be quick, Stephan and gang need to always be sliding. But slide too much and they'll be slower than competitive. So they'll have to drive a lot cleaner than a four-wheel-drive car, anticipating what's coming so they're not too aggressive with their inputs as that'll kill their speed. 

However, with power only going to the rear wheels, the car is not as nimble as its four-wheel-drive competitors on twistier WRC-style stages. But with that monstrous suspension travel and super shock absorbers, it can attack the lumpier stages and dunes at a rate Stephan's never experienced.

"I'm having to rewire my brain," the off-road vet says, "usually I see a big hole, rock or jump and have to slow down. But with this suspension I can just hit them. For instance, in a four-wheel-drive car I would take some parts at 100kmh, but in this car I can do the same parts at 140kmh."

The Dakar project was born from Peugeot Sport's last endeavor - conquering Pikes Peak. The team flew back to France with an incredible return on investment and hard evidence that using motorsport as a marketing tool works.

So, this time, everybody including the board of management will be expecting a repeat performance. Will they see one? No. And that's the word from the Top Dog, Peugeot Sport director Bruno Famin.

"Just forget about thinking about victory in the first year," he tells us after a hard day of testing. "Are we Dakar ready now? No. Will we be at the end of testing? No. We will not be ready for the Dakar 2015 - the project started too late."

Not exactly the most positive of statements, but an honest, level-headed one. But the truth is that Peugeot haven't done enough testing. To be Dakar competitive the car needs to have been tested relentlessly through different climates, terrains and altitudes and have a lot more miles on the clock. This is the problem with a blank-page project. All their competitors have evolved their cars over years to make them winners; Famin plans to do the same

Peugeot Sport director Bruno Famin continues. "We're investing a lot of money and energy into this cross country programme (the car will compete in more off-road races than the Dakar) and we know that you can't get your money back in one year, you need experience.

"We'll be doing the Dakar for at least three years, but the target for this one is to compete with humility, get as far as possible and acquire experience for the next rally."

Still, you never know, the car could go out and smash it. We'll just have to wait for the New Year and see. Until then, scroll the gallery above for our behind-the-scenes pics of the Dakar-bound monster mini-SUV-buggy.