"Aired down a Porsche 911" has never appeared on any bingo card we've held, and yet here we are, deflating our 911 Dakar's tires before play commences on a massive Moroccan dune formation called Erg Chebbi. It's not immediately clear how we'll fare in the giant heaps of sand-a visit typically requires a rented Toyota Land Cruiser Prado or a local caravan outfitter. Thus far, we've been traversing desert hardpan and gaping like tourists at the odd meandering single-hump camels native to the area while attempting to avoid rocks and well-intended cairns hidden behind persistent hanging curtains of choking dust.
It turns out that the erg, a dead ringer for Southern California's Glamis Dunes, is literally the 911 Dakar's sandbox. After all, the Dakar is essentially a quarter-million-dollar dune buggy built from the mighty 911 Carrera 4 GTS instead of a Beetle.
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