This is a Tesla Model X Dakar car

Last week, Elon Musk stood outside his Tesla factory in Fremont, California, and personally oversaw the handover of the first 30 production versions of his latest and greatest Tesla, the Model 3.

It’s the car that Musk hopes will propel Tesla into the mass market. Priced at $35k in boggo form, it costs half as much as its bigger Model S brother, and with a range of 310 miles, a 0-60mph time of 5.1 seconds and seating for five, it could be the car that starts the charge from internal combustion to EVs being the everyday.

But what happens when you don’t want to go mass market but want to go niche. Very niche. Like Dakar buggy niche. Step forward Mo Aoun, and his speculative render of a nutjob Tesla.

It doesn’t use the baby Model 3 as a base, nor it’s bigger brother the Model S, but rather the biggest Tesla of them all – the Falcon-winged Model X. You may remember that’s the one with seats seven and has every other firm on the planet that builds premium SUVs in a bit of a panic. Underneath, the architecture is similar to the Model S (massive battery pack, electric motors, aluminium chassis), but all Model Xs are four-wheel drive, so have twin electric motors, one driving each axle. Perfect for the Dakar then.

We’ll scoot over the lack of electricity in the desert just for now because… LOOK AT IT. There’s a lift kit, knobbly bead-lock tyres, a bull bar, steel tow hooks, an LED lightbar and useful roof basket, and a spare wheel. And a new muddy paint job that screams ‘I love mud’.

Could this be Elon’s next grand plan? Probably not. But if Elon taught us one thing it’s to never stop dreaming. So we won’t.