With only 6.5” of ground clearance, Mini’s Countryman may seem an odd choice for the basis of an off-road vehicle, though when X-Raid, needed a machine to shuttle its support team members from bivouac to bivouac on the rugged and untamed roads surrounding the Dakar rally’s route, the five-time winners of the elite off-road event turned to the Countryman.
Since 2010 X-Raid has utilized the Countryman for this purpose at each Dakar Rally, and the thousands of treacherous miles the Minis have endured — which includes long stints on gravel roads and mountainous stretches in the Andes between Argentina and Chile —have enabled the renowned rally team to increasingly dial-in the compact car for off-road transport duties. X-Raid now offers this Mini — known as the “Mini-6” — as a complete package or in a la carte pieces. This includes an aluminum roof-rack, supplementary LED lighting, beefier, custom rims with higher tire sidewalls that protect the wheels, and a rim ring that can be individually replaced should it get damaged. In addition to a custom race-inspired livery, the Mini-6 also gets a 2cm (0.78″) lift kit, that gives the car an additional 4cm (1.57”) of ground clearance. For pricing or additional information, you can check out the X-Raid website.
