The British Excite Rally Raid Team has taken delivery of the new Range Rover Evoque based Desert Warrior 3 off-road race car.
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Under the skin, the Evoque is not exactly a Land Rover but gets its power from a 3.0 litre BMW twin-turbo diesel with 275bhp (or 350bhp when unrestricted) and 479lb/ft of torque which runs through a six-speed ZF sequential ‘box.
The chassis of the Desert Warrior 3 is completely bespoke and made from T45 tubes and all designed in-house and tested over the last three Dakars. It has a 260 litre fuel tank – good for 800 miles – and designed for comfort over rally stages – although not exactly the same sort of comfort as a road-going Evoque.
Despite the BMW engine and custom chassis, a high proportion of the parts do come from Land Rover, so although the Desert Warrior 3 is a real custom job it does look just like a rally Evoque and that will do Land Rover sales no harm if it performs well.
Mile Jones of RaBe Race Cars (who actually built the Desert Warrior Evoque), said:
We have worked hard to get the handling and reliability perfect but also keeping fantastic dune-driving ability, which is all too easily lost when designing such cars.
Just about everything on the car is bespoke, but of the OEM parts we do use, a very high proportion are from Land Rover. It took Volkswagen hundreds of millions of Euros and 5 years to win the Dakar, but being British we will do things our own way. Mark my words: we have produced a winning car!
Which all sounds very promising. But this being a Brit effort from men in a shed, funds are not exactly flowing at a rate that makes it easy. So if you’re looking for an exciting way to highlight your business, the guys are looking for a title sponsor to ease their burden.
Which, if they’re successful, should be a very good way to go.
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