After four years away, CX Rally Team will return to the Dakar Classic in 2027. The team will field a Citroën CX based on the car that Jacky Ickx raced in 1981 at his Dakar Rally debut.

CX Rally Team is a Dutch-based team led by Cornelis “Kees” Lambert Kamp, who entered the 2022 and 2023 Dakar Classics with his Citroën CX. He finished 128th overall on debut, then improved to 76th outright and seventh in the H0 class the following year.

Both efforts were done on low budgets since he and his wife Jacobine, who serves as navigator, covered the costs out of their own pocket. The couple also used the two races to raise money for Stichting Bright Future, a charity supporting disadvantaged children in Dakar, Senegal.

To build their 2027 Classic car, the team converted a Citroën CX 25 GTi Turbo into a 2400 GTi like what Ickx drove. The body was stripped, straightened, and sanded before being coated in paint by late May. The body was completed in time for the 2026 Dakar Rally presentation in Eersel last Saturday, where the car was put on display alongside the original CX that Kamp raced.

Ickx is best known for his Formula One career and six Le Mans victories, but also has 14 Dakar Rally starts to his name from 1981 to 2000. He and Claude Brasseur entered the 1981 Paris–Dakar Rally in a CX but did not finish. Two years later, Ickx and Brasseur won in a Mercedes 280GE.

Featured image credit: CX Rally Team