Volkswagen’s rally raid champ facelifted for 2011 Dakar

With two consecutive victories on the world's toughest rally raid to its name, Volkswagen's Race Touareg is being updated for next year's event. Not so much a next generation machine, the Race Touareg is being heavily facelifted to make it go faster...
With the Race Touareg's proven reliability and unchallenged dune-busting prowess, Volkswagen has chosen not to fettle with the winning formula so much, leaving the suspension and TDI engine virtually untouched. What will be significantly altered in the chase for a third title on the trot is the exterior.
Volkswagen Motorsport will field four Race Touareg 3s with "fundamentally-updated" aerodynamics at the 2011 Dakar, which will once again run through Argentina and Chile in South America. In line with the fresh looks of the second-generation Touareg, the racing variant gains an updated exterior that offers less aerodynamic resistance than before.
"With new aerodynamics this Race Touareg will look even more spectacular than before, while quoting aspects of the design language of the new production Touareg and, in addition, receiving further detailed optimizations. Its core is well proven because we continue to bank on the consistently optimised technology package that has been giving the Race Touareg first-rate performance and maximum reliability," says Volkswagen Motorsport director Kris Nissen.

With spy photos of the new Race Touareg in the Alps already doing the rounds, the next phase of the development programme is in the Moroccan desert at the end of July. After its official launch in August, the Race Touareg 3 will compete in the Silk Way Rally through Russia (widely regarded as a serious dress rehearsal for Dakar), which starts in St. Petersburg on Septmeber 11 and ends in Sochi seven days later.