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Ah, something that looks like a Mini, but probably isn't.
Bang on. In fact inside the only bit I can spot that seems to have had some previous Mini-related life is the throttle pedal. The bodywork itself? Well, that's made of carbon fibre and is precisely 1.75 per cent larger all round than the panels fitted to a standard Countryman.
Aren't you getting a bit ahead of yourself? What's it actually for?
Racing the Dakar Rally. The epic 15-day cross-country endurance rally starts in central Argentina on the 5th January and runs northwards into Bolivia, then swings south through Chile, covering a total of 9,374km. Well, the cars do, the trucks, quads and bikes do a few kilometres less. Either way, it's an immensely serious and hardcore event that makes up in spectacle what it's lost a little in adventure since its relocation from Africa.
The terrain looks pretty Saharan in the pictures.
For various reasons, not least geographical proximity, the mostly European teams that compete in the Dakar still do their testing in Morocco, so use the area south of the Atlas Mountains to do their pre-season checks and set-up. I went out to join the privateer X-Raid team that, with a bit of BMW backing, is entering this very Mini you see here in the Dakar.
OK, crack on, what's it like to drive?
Now I'm going to tell you to hold your horses while I point out that it's the car driven to victory for the past two years on the trot by a chap called Stephane Peterhansel. He's a genuine Dakar legend, having won the race eleven times in total, six on a motorbike, five in a car. There's probably never been a better rally raid driver.
And they let you drive his car?
Well, if it's tough enough for Dakar it should be able to cope with a couple of hours of TopGear cack-handedness, shouldn't it? Particularly since both the team and Peterhansel himself tell me the car is way tougher than the chap driving it. Stephane told me that it used to be that if you hit a big hole the front suspension would break, the wheel would be smashed, the damper would pop, but now it's just the driver that gets beaten up. Humans are the weakest link.
Tell me you didn't break it.
I didn't break it.
Good. Now tell me what it was like.
For starters it uses a 3.0-litre BMW diesel, pretty much the same as the one in the 530d, only largely unsilenced. This means it sounds more like a Challenger battle tank on the move, all shrill turbo whistle and guttural engine clatter. It has pretty much the same usable rev range and table top torque curve as a diesel road car, although there's no super-slick eight speed auto here to round off any rough edges. Instead drive goes to all four wheels through a six-speed sequential manual gearbox. It's quick enough. X-Raid won't reveal exact power figures, but will say the numbers quoted on their website (311bhp and 523lb ft) are broadly accurate. I reckon it's about 6.0secs-to-60mph quick. It would be much faster if it didn't have to run a slender 38mm air restrictor and was allowed to weigh less than 1925kg. Plus drivers. Plus fuel. All up weight (with 400 litres of fuel on board) must be close to 2.5 tonnes.
Written By:- Ollie Marriage
More of this article on the Top gear website
