This ‘lion’ is hungry for the Dakar 2015

THE muscular, thoroughbred yet beastlike images of the Peugeot 2008 DKR provide a vivid indication of the new car’s serious desire for success. It is behind the wheel of this purpose-designed machine that Carlos Sainz and Cyril Despres will defend the colours of Team Peugeot Total at next January’s Dakar.

Three weeks after the exciting news that Peugeot, Red Bull and Total had decided to join forces to contest the 2015 Dakar, the car that will spearhead the team’s challenge has finally broken cover.

The 2008 DKR shares an unmistakable family resemblance with Peugeot’s road-going crossover, albeit with more muscular forms and more imposing overall proportions that have been honed to meet the challenge that lays ahead.

Its spectacular lines are the fruit of close cooperation between the experts at Peugeot’s Style Centre and their colleagues at Peugeot Sport’s design department, and the newcomer’s likeness with the production version is quite astonishing.

Peugeot Sport’s design team had to answer one particularly fundamental question at a very early stage concerning the new beast’s transmission: four-wheel or two-wheel drive?

The decision effectively influenced the car’s design in two key areas. An in-depth analysis of what already existed in the world of cross-country rallying and Peugeot weighed up the benefits of the different solutions. In the end, the design team opted for an approach that was quite different to that of the competition.

Given the off-road capability of two-wheel drive transmission and its ability to run on sand, that’s the choice Peugeot ultimately went for. It enabled them to fit bigger wheels and also to benefit from more suspension travel.

The 2008 DKR consequently sits on 37-inch diameter Michelin tyres (almost 94cm).

These considerations naturally had a significant knock-on effect with regard to the work of Peugeot’s stylists, but the four-strong design team rose enthusiastically to the challenge to pen the new “Lion” that will very soon take on the unique challenges posed by cross-country rallying.

Carrying over the road car’s styling cues to the rear of the new Dakar challenger turned out to be relatively straightforward, but the front proved more taxing for the design team, as Michaël Trouvé, Peugeot design manager relates: “Due to the off-road capability needed, the approach angle had to be very high. This meant a very short overhang, which in turn resulted in a front-end design that was quite different to that of the production version. Happily, the technical team didn’t hesitate to listen to our arguments and accepted to reposition certain parts which could have been a problem for us. That gave us a little freedom to design a front end that resembled the look of the road car as closely as possible.”

Having already contested the Dakar seven times in the colours of Red Bull, in both two wheel and four-wheel drive cars, Sainz is perfectly aware of the technical constraints that go hand-in-hand with the exacting South American stages.

What lies beneath the bodywork remains a secret for the moment, but the 2008 DKR’s breath-taking forms are sure to cause a stir even before the new car starts to kick up dust as it begins to be put through its paces in the colours of Red Bull and Total.