The Saga Of The Rolls Royce That Went Rallying

As the New Year rolls out; one of the biggest annual rally raids – the “Dakar Rally”: formerly known as the “Paris – Dakar” rally, is right around the corner; scheduled from the 4th of January 2025 where hundreds of amateur and professional entries embark on the prescribed course:  on varying form of automobiles and motorcycles fighting for the top honours in this prestigious motorsports event.

It would be a miss not to talk about the infamous Rolls Royce “Jules” that has been doing rounds since it got on the market for auction and got sold for USD 650,000. The car in question is at large more outrageous than the value it got sold for and even more outrageous is the story of its inception.

Officially, Rolls Royce never built or commissioned a 4×4 Rolls Royce; that is until the inception of the Rolls Royce Cullinan. But the story of Rolls Royce taking part in the Dakar Rally is factual, the said Rolls Royce didn’t just have a 4×4 drivetrain but it also took part in the 1981 Dakar Rally – and surprisingly did well for a car whose sole existence revolved around chauffeuring people in utmost luxury and comfort.

The idea of crossing the Paris – Dakar route over some rough and unassuming terrain with a  Rolls Royce, took inception inside two extremely wealthy and intensely drunk French playboys: Thierry de Montcorgé and Jean-Christophe Pelletier, in one of their champagne-induced evenings, came up with an absurd scheme to take one of theirs Rolls Royce Corniche and swap its rear-wheel drive drivetrain for a 4×4 drivetrain and their intoxicated plan ended with them taking part in the Dakar Rally of 1981.

Well initially the plan was to turn one of their Rolls Royce Corniche and simply just swap the needed components to take on the challenges of the Paris – Dakar rally – but, soon the idea had to be dropped, when they realised the unibody chassis of the corniche is a bit too obese to be anywhere near competitive in the rally.

So, they came up with an idea to build an entirely new fibre body using the Rolls Royce Corniche as the mould for it. Then came the question of the chassis; capable enough to withstand the pressure of offroading adventure, but at the same time had to be symbiotic with the wheelbase of the Rolls Royce Corniche – what better than the chassis which finds home in the ever-so-capable Toyota Land Cruiser? And that’s exactly what they used, incorporating the steel ladder frame, the axles, brakes, leaf springs, transmission and transfer case.

So, now they have a body that replicates the Rolls Royce a chassis that is not only lighter than the Rolls Royce but also more capable for the journey the car was about to embark on than the original Rolls Royce Corniche but this unique offroader needed a heart more inline with the spirit of the competition it was about to indulge in; A corvette V8 was narrowed down for the purpose, the 5.7-litre corvette V8 was swapped with the stock 6.7 litres V8 – the corvette V8 produced drastically more power and torque; so perhaps there was some method to their intoxicated madness.

Rolls Royce plays the role of the party pooper.

So, not all was smooth sailing for the French partygoers; because when Rolls Royce got wind of the project they immediately took steps to shut the project down on the grounds of intellectual property rights. But the saviour was just right around the corner; the duo managed to sign Christian Dior as their sponsor, who was keen to advertise their new cologne dubbed “Jules” hence the name – Rolls Royce Jules. So as the stories go it was Christian Dior who talked Rolls Royce into backing off from their sanctions and allowing the project to go ahead.

The Rolls Royce Jules took part in the 1981 Paris-Dakar Rally, with Thierry de Montcorgé and Jean-Christophe Pelletier taking the wheel as the co-drivers of the Jules in the rally.

The car did well in the rally regularly placing among the top 20 among the 291 entries on various stages but, an accident where the Jules came to blows with a tree rendered the steering wheel to fail; naturally, this would have been a reason to disqualify the car but owing to its outrageousness and amount of attention it brought the event organisers made an exception to allow the car to finish off the rally but it would not be considered in the final results.

At the end of the day, the wealthy playboys from France got their weekend escapade sorted, Christian Dior got massive recognition from the press and public and inadvertently Rolls Royce being an unwilling accomplice and playing no hand in this project got their moment of recognition – as they got multiple calls people wanting to place an order for a Rolls Royce 4X4 they just saw in the paper.