The Paris-Dakar Rally is a race so crazy competitors have been taken out by land mines. To say it's grueling is like saying Carrie Prejean likes shooting video. Just what sort of vehicle is required to take on a race where normal conditions include searing heat, towering dunes, ginormous rocks and weather conditions that would give a crab boat captain pause?

Volkswagen has the answer in their new Touareg for the next Dakar.

The cars, trucks, bikes and buggies that run in the Dakar rally are tech porn of the highest order. Take a look at what VW has to offer for the 2010 running of the race, which will be run through Argentina and Chile. (The name comes from the days when the race ran from Paris to Dakar, Senegal.) The Germans made history last year by taking the checkered flag in the first diesel-powered entry in the automobile class. It entered the diesel 'Reg in the Baja 1000, too.

This time around, the Touareg features such cool features as a carbon fiber-reinforced outer skin that weighs a mere 50 kilograms, a braking system capable of exerting pressure equal to that of 700 meters below sea level and a data acquisition system that can store 250 MB of data that is read and analyzed by race engineers at the close of a days stage.

Just the run of the mill specs for the Touareg shows you how serious of a challenge the Dakar is. The VW is powered by a 2.5-liter five-cylinder TDI diesel engine with two-stage turbocharging system with exhaust turbochargers and intercooling. The mill, mounted longitudinally behind the front axle, puts out approximately 280 horsepower and more than 440 pound-feet of torque. Gotta love diesels for buckets of torque.

All that power and grunt is put to the ground – no matter what kind of ground it is, tarmac, sand, gravel, rocks, you name it – via a longitudinally mounted sequential five-speed gearbox and a permanent all-wheel-drive. More slick hardware includes selectable viscous locking mechanical differentials and an hydraulically actuated three-plate ceramic clutch. Stopping power comes from 320 mm ventilated disc brakes squeezed by aluminum calipers with six pistons up front and four out back. The Dakar Touareg even has power-assisted rack and pinion steering.

All this is done in a surprisingly lightweight package that tips the scales at just under 4,000 pounds. The Dakar Touareg can hit 100 km/hr from a standstill in 6.1 seconds on firm ground and tops out at , on hard ground, and will top out at approximately 118 mph, which may not seem like much.

Unless you're running flat-out through the desert.

*Photos: VW *