Georges Debussy, one of France’s well-known rally drivers in the 1970s who raced the Dakar Rally in the 1980s, died Friday after a long illness, Sud Ouest reported. He was 81 years old.

Despite being the great-nephew of the great composer Claude Debussy, he grew up interested in adventure and cars rather than the high life. He was a washer at a Parisian garage before being an off-road driver in Madagascar. After serving in the military, running a mining company, and starting a family, he opened a dealership out of his garage in 1970. From there, he converted a Willys Jeep into a 200-horsepower off-road racer nicknamed “Amatxi”, sporting a two-liter engine from an Alfa Romeo GTV.

He entered various off-road races in France throughout the 1970s, winning the 1977 Rallye des Cimes with Amatxi. Debussy also raced an actual GTV and Alfa Romeo GTA in French rallies, winning his class at the 1970 and 1974 Rallye Bayonne-Côte Basque.

In 1981, Debussy made his debut in the second Paris–Dakar Rally as a support driver for KTM. He designed a Mercedes prototype built from a G-Class, cranking the six-cylinder engine’s horsepower up to 180, reducing its weight to 350 kilograms, and using a five-speed gearbox from an Alfa. However, he and Pierre Saint-Jean failed to finish.

He enlisted French national rugby union player Roland Bertranne as his navigator for the 1982 race. Despite an early penalty for checking in at the wrong time and the engine catching fire 15 kilometers from the finish, they placed sixth overall in the Mercedes.

Debussy switched to a Mitsubishi Pajero in 1983, where he and Jacques Lelaval overcame a rollover to finish 14th outright and second in the Marathon Auto class behind fellow Pajero driver Andrew Cowan. Mitsubishi’s Japanese division gave him a new Pajero for 1985, but he bowed out because of poor-quality fuel in Niger that risked destroying the engine. Another DNF occurred the following year when his Alfa Romeo 33 broke down from the jumps while still in Europe.

He eventually did the 1988 and 1989 Dakars with Mitsubishi but retired from both. While Debussy continued to dabble in some off-road races like the 1994 Baja Aragón, he never raced Dakar again; still, he remained involved in Africa with humanitarian projects.