These are the main specifications:Five-cylinder in-line TDI diesel engine, two-stage turbo-charging system with two exhaust turbo chargers and inter-cooling, longitudinally mounted behind the front axle. The displacement is 2,500 cc with a power output of 300 hp. It has a Sequential five-speed racing gearbox, and It is a permanent four-wheel drive car. It goes from 0 to 100 Kph in 6.1 seconds, and its maximum speed is 190 Kph.
This is how the cockpit looks like:
This is the process of loading the service trucks with all the replacement parts that the car might need during the race:
As you can see It requires a lot of organization, preparation, and hard work to win the Dakar. Congratulations to the Volkswagen team!
This is the Touareg that you can find at your local store in the U.S. It sells for approximately $40,850.00 U.S. dollars. For more specifications go to www.vw.com/touareg/completespecs/en/us/#engineering
Pictures courtesy of http://www.volkswagen-motorsport.com/
The Volkswagen team with its Race Touareg 2 model is dominating the event by grabbing the first 3 positions with Carlos Sainz being the leader. Their main rival Stephane Peterhansel driving a BMW X3 CC model is behind them on 4th. place but 02:02:25 hours away from Sainz. Peterhansel had transmission problems in stage 5, He had to drive half of that stage in only 2WD or 4x2 mode (imagine that in the Atacama desert). He managed to finish in the 33th. position in that stage. The following is a video from that difficult stage 5.
Picture courtesy of 
