It’s good to plan a video shoot as much as possible. There will always be factors out of your control on the day – and hopefully some previously undiscovered revelations about the car – but knowing what you want to film and when makes the process a whole lot less stressful.

For an assortment of reasons, there wasn’t a chance to storyboard this vid as we might have liked. The flip side of that is what you’ll see here is the raw, unfiltered, and unscripted enjoyment (and fear) of driving a Porsche 911 Dakar for the first time on a very wet, extremely muddy rallycross track. Plus lots of awesome drone footage, for when the gurning and the yelping get too much.

As you’ll see, there’s a lot to like about this new Porsche. The Dakar is a more involving 911 to drive fast, a better sounding one, and, to these eyes, a cooler-looking one as well. Especially when it’s caked in mud, drawing attention away from that silly livery. While owners (there will be around 250 of them in the UK, out of 2,500 globally) should obviously endeavour to spend every possible moment pretending to be Jacky Ickx, it feels like the Dakar is going to prove adept in plenty of situations. It’s still a 911 under the grime, after all. Cleaned up for a collection it’s still going to raise a smile, and that feels pretty important when dealing with expensive cars. They should be enjoyable in as many different situations as possible.

Now, 911s on empty tracks are what video dreams are made of, however little prep you’ve been able to put in – and never more so than when the circuit in question features both a jump and water splash. An automotive steeplechase if you will, one that this Porsche was ideally suited to. But you’ve read enough words about that – time for the vid!