[6][7] In 1971, ex-Cream drummer Ginger Baker used the unproven Range Rover to drive from Algeria to Lagos, Nigeria to set up a recording studio and jam with Fela Kuti.

[9] The privateer spirit of early racers tackling the event with limited resources encouraged such entrants as Thierry de Montcorgé in a Rolls-Royce and Formula 1 driver Jacky Ickx with actor Claude Brasseur in a Citroën CX, in the 1981 race won by two-time winner Hubert Auriol.

For the 1992 event, the finish line moved to Cape Town, South Africa in a bid to combat a declining number of competitors, where GPS technology was used for the first time.

With the finish line now back in its traditional location of Dakar, Bruno Saby won a third title for Mitsubishi and Peterhansel took a third straight success in the motorcycle category.

The 2002 began in the French town of Arras and long-time Dakar participant Hiroshi Masuoka won the event for Mitsubishi (Masouka had led for much of the previous year's rally.)

Nissan pulled out having failed to provide effective opposition to Mitsubishi, who took a sixth consecutive victory, this time with former skiing champion Luc Alphand after Peterhansel committed a series of errors late in the rally.

[13] Peterhansel made amends in 2007, however, taking his third title in the car category for Mitsubishi after a close contest with Alphand after the increasingly competitive Volkswagens retired with mechanical problems.

In what would be the final African event of the Dakar, Despres took his second title in the bikes category, having conceded victory in 2006 to Marc Coma after suffering an injury.

[18][19] The 2009 event, the first held in South America with a respectable 501 competitors, saw Volkswagen take its first win in the Dakar as a works entrant courtesy of Giniel de Villiers.

Following Volkswagen's withdrawal, Peterhansel was able to secure his fourth win in the car category and his tenth in total, his main opposition coming from within his own team.

Despres also racked up a further two wins for KTM in the bikes class in 2012 and 2013, bringing his tally to five, aided by Coma's absence due to injury in the latter year.

[21] Peugeot returned for the 2015 event with an all-new, diesel-powered, two-wheel drive contender, but failed to make an impact as X-raid's Minis once more dominated.

Al-Attiyah won the event in his second year for the team, while Coma racked up a fifth title in the bikes after the defection of long-time rival Despres to the car class and Peugeot.

Following the ASO's increasingly deteriorating relationships with South American governments, which culminated in the controversial 2019 disqualification of Bolivian quad rider Juan Carlos Salvatierra,[22] the rally has been held in Saudi Arabia since 2020.

The organization provides assistance for this category with 4 people dedicated to the transportation of the competitors' gear between bivouac sites plus any additional equipment or belongings.

[29] Mini have been the most successful marque in the car category in recent years, thanks to the efforts of the non-factory X-raid team, with limited involvement currently coming from Toyota, Ford and Haval.

The truck event was not run in 1989 after it was decided the vehicles, by this stage with twin engines generating in excess of 1000 horsepower, were too dangerous following the death of a DAF crew member in an accident during the 1988 rally.

[9] Kamaz has dominated the truck category since the turn of the century, although it has come under increasing pressure from rivals such as Iveco, MAN, Renault, and Tatra, which enjoyed much success in the 1990s.

The organiser of the rally, Thierry Sabine, was killed when his Ecureuil helicopter ("Squirrel-copter") crashed at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday 14 January 1986, into a dune at Mali during a sudden sand-storm.

[41] In 2003, French driver Daniel Nebot both rolled and crashed his Toyota heavily at high speed killing his co-driver Bruno Cauvy.

Italian motorcyclist Fabrizio Meoni, a two-time winner of the event, became the second Dakar Rally rider to die in two days, following Pérez on 11 January on stage 11.

On 13 January a five-year-old Senegalese girl was hit and killed by a service lorry after wandering onto a main road, bringing the total deaths to five.

In 2006, 41-year-old Australian KTM motorcyclist Andy Caldecott, in his third time in the Dakar, died on 9 January as a result of neck injuries sustained in a crash approximately 250 kilometres (160 mi) into stage 9, between Nouakchott and Kiffa, only a few kilometers (miles) from the location where Meoni had his fatal wreck the year before.

The cause of death was initially believed to be a heart attack,[46] but it was later suggested that Aubijoux had died of internal injuries sustained in a crash earlier that day while competing in the 14th stage of the race.

The French-based Amaury Sport Organisation in charge of the 6,000-kilometre (3,700 mi) rally said in a statement that they had been advised by the French government to cancel the race, which had been due to begin on 5 January 2008 from Lisbon.

He had been missing for three days and his body lay on a remote part of the second stage between Santa Rosa de la Pampa and Puerto Madryn.

On 4 January 2010, a woman watching the Dakar Rally was killed when a vehicle taking part in the race veered off the course and hit her during the opening stage.

[50] On 12 January 2020, Portuguese motorcycle rider Paulo Gonçalves died after suffering a heart attack due to a crash on the seventh stage.

The Vatican City newspaper L'Osservatore Romano called the race a "vulgar display of power and wealth in places where men continue to die from hunger and thirst.

[54] The rally was criticised before 2000 for crossing through the disputed territory of Western Sahara, which has been occupied by Morocco since 1975, without the approval of the Polisario Front independence movement, which considers itself the representative of the indigenous Sahrawi people.