Martin Macík Jr. will attempt to defend his Dakar Rally victory with a brand new IVECO from his MM Know-how staff dubbed the EVO 4, which was revealed on Monday. Mitchel van den Brink and a 3rd driver but to be revealed can even race the truck.
The EVO 4 replaces the EVO 3 that gained the most recent Dakar within the Truck class with Macík. The successful truck, nicknamed Cenda, was bought to Firemen Dakarteam in June. Macík has one other truck dubbed Frank, with which he gained the Baja España Aragón in June and can maintain in reserve for different occasions.
“The principle focus within the improvement of the EVO 4 was to extend the reliability and sturdiness of the person components, which is essential in a Dakar-type race,” Macík’s father Martin Sr., the staff head of improvement, defined. “You don’t have round the clock upkeep, and it’s fascinating that the components can face up to as a lot stress as attainable for so long as attainable, each mechanically and by way of temperature fluctuations.
“One other essential side for us was the consolation of the crew and general stability. Our platform is reasonably low, and we use sturdy springs, which, whereas offering excessive stability for your complete truck, restrict the consolation stage within the cabin. Consolation is one thing you’ll admire over lots of of kilometres of tough terrain, as a result of for those who bodily overload the crew instantly after the primary stage, the entire race turns into much more difficult.”
The truck is 6,950 millimetres lengthy by 2,550 mm extensive and three,300 mm tall whereas weighing in at roughly 8,760 kilograms when empty. The chassis was designed in-house utilizing 3D building and constructed to be a “light-weight but extremely sturdy body”.
FPT Industrial’s Cursor 13 engine, which is meant for industrial heavy-duty vans, sits on the coronary heart of the truck. It’s a thirteen-litre, six-cylinder motor with 12,966cc of engine displacement and may produce over 1,050 horsepower and 5,000 Nm of torque. The engine accommodates each frequent rail and pump diesel gasoline injection methods, the previous for extra gasoline effectivity whereas the latter is to extend energy. MM first used the Cursor 13 with Cenda.
Whereas the inside workings are totally different, the EVO 4’s exterior is usually the identical as its predecessor save for minute adjustments like cabin lighting and sidewall mounting.
As its title suggests, the EVO 4 is the fourth technology of vans from MM Know-how. The EVO sequence was first constructed as a part of the LIAZ household in 2007; Frank, made in 2016, is a LIAZ EVO 4. The staff switched to IVECO in 2019 and restarted the numbering sample with the IVECO EVO 1. The EVO 2 took place in 2021 adopted by Cenda two years later.
Van den Brink and his household’s Eurol Rally Sport partnered with MM in early September, switching over from Staff de Rooy’s IVECOs. He and his father Martin van den Brink respectively completed third and nineteenth in school on the 2024 Dakar.
The 2025 Dakar Rally is scheduled for 3–17 January.
