Marc Philipp Gemballa: “My dad always wanted me to do this”

This is the Marc Philipp Gemballa Marsien, and it’s described by its makers as an ‘adventure sportscar’.

You’ll have recognised the maker’s name too, because Marc Philipp is the son of the late, legendary Porsche tuner Uwe Gemballa.

Now, Marc Philipp doesn’t own the rights to his father’s company, so instead he set up his own company and set about honouring his father’s legacy by creating the ultimate off-road 911. And yes, this was before his 30th birthday.

The Marsien is inspired by the original 959 Paris-Dakar cars but uses a 992 Porsche 911 Turbo S as its base. It’s then reskinned with a stunning body, fitted with supremely fancy KW suspension and given full underbody protection. Oh, and the 3.8-litre flat-six is tuned by RUF to produce 750bhp, or 830bhp if you tick the right box on the order form.

On street tyres, that means it’ll do 0-62mph in around 2.7 seconds, but when Marc Philipp invited us to have a go, we asked him to fit some knobbly tyres and headed for the dunes of the UAE.

Have a little watch of the video below, stay for the chat with Marc Philipp towards the end, and then let us know if you still fancy that standard 911 Dakar…