Would you get a load of this absolute unit. In an period when all the pieces from chintzy “Sports activities Exercise Automobiles” to classic Porsches has been lifted, thrown on knobbies, and packaged for mall-crawling responsibility, it is refreshing to know that actual heroes existed earlier than the hype.
That is one such hero: A Rolls-Royce Corniche commissioned by a French playboy for a full-frontal assault on the Paris-Dakar rally.
Picture by: Aguttes
Thierry de Montcorgé commissioned this ’70s Rolls for the 1981 occasion that, as ever, traced a route from Paris to Dakar, Senegal’s capital. The Corniche’s silken coronary heart was swapped for five.7 liters of grumbly Chevy V-8 energy, boosting output by roughly 100 horses, whereas the chassis was refitted with sturdy bits from a up to date Toyota Land Cruiser.
Maybe essentially the most spectacular: the bodywork was changed with light-weight plastic panels, then coated in upper-crust sponsorships. Christian Dior’s “Jules” perfume bestowed it is identify and likeness to the automotive, which met its destiny towards the top of the occasion, when… properly who put that damned tree out within the desert anyway?
Picture by: Aguttes
Rolls-Royce Paris-Dakar Rally Raid
The Dior sponsorship was secured by way of a lunch with Dior himself, in response to de Montcorgé. Motorsport Journal has an exquisite little profile of de Montcorgé, which you’ll learn right here, that is stuffed with little tidbits like that one. It is stuffed with particulars about how the automotive was conceived, constructed, and paid for. Go give it a learn.
At a current public sale, Jules bought for an astonishing $630,000, definitely making it the most-valuable rally raid Rolls on planet earth. What a automotive.
Picture by: Aguttes
