There's a G-Class in The Porsche Museum, and It Has the 928's Engine

It all has to do with the creation of Group B, which wasn't just a motorsport group of rally cars, but also race cars. Porsche thought that track cars would be far more relevant, which is ironic because the 959's significant racing victories were in the middle of the desert.

Porsche wasn't just happy with the Dakar, so it entered something called the Pharaoh’s Rally, held in Egypt under similar conditions.

The 959 needed a support vehicle, a sidekick if you will. And because this was nearly two decades before the Cayenne arrived, they bought the Mercedes G-Class and converted it into a desert rally car.

Back in 1985, The G-Class wasn't the ultimate luxury bruises with a twin-turbo V8, like all the Kardashians use. So Porsche took the Mercedes 280 G, lobbed out the inline-6 lump and fitted one of its V8s, borrowed from the 928.

It's ironic because Porsche believed the 928 would replace the 911, which it never did. People were still demanding their sports cars be rear-engined, so the company took advantage of Group B and make the ultimate rear-engined car, the 959

The Porsche-powered G-Class not only kept up with the car it was supposed to support, but thanks to its 316 horsepower heat, the truck had a top speed of 180 km/h (112 mph). It managed to finish the Pharaoh’s Rally, right after the 928.

It is currently on display in Porsche’s Stuttgart museum after being hidden at a secret storage facility. The cool thing is that they kept the full array of spares and dirt, so it's like a time capsule from the 80's.

The G-Wagen continued to support a trio of Porsche 959 cars through the 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally with a driver line-up included Jacky Ickx This legend coincidentally won the fifth-ever Dakar back in ’83 driving a 280 G.