Antoine Reul and his brother Benoît hope to race the 2026 Dakar Rally in a hybrid light prototype car they built. Known as the Minotor, it will be eligible for the Challenger class and specifically the T3.U subcategory for hybrids.

If development works out, they plan to debut it at the Rallye du Maroc in October. After that, it’s off to Saudi Arabia for the Dakar.

The Reul brothers have long been in the off-road industry under their ReulSport and ReulParts companies. The former was founded in 2004 to repair and service four-wheel-drive cars like Land Rovers and INEOS Grenadiers as well as UTVs, though it’s since expanded to cover IVECO vans. ReulParts is a subsidiary.

As racers, they both typically compete in Ultra4 Europe; Antoine won the 2022 championship with a victory at the King of the Britain. They’ve also done rallies with their rock crawlers like the Rallye Breslau in the Extreme class. In 2010, the brothers won the Ironman Warriors Challenge.

Quentin Schmitz is leading the Minotor’s development alongside the brothers. They are also joined by Vaison Sport, WRT Manufacturing, and Hellgeth Engineering.

Vaison, also created in 2004, is a longtime partner of Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body and previously built Mitsubishi’s factory rally raiders in the late 2000s and early 2010s. WRT Manufacturing is the engineering arm of sports car outfit W Racing Team, and is helping out by providing parts that need welding like chassis and suspension arms.

Hellgeth Engineering is a Mercedes-Benz Special Trucks partner that recently won this year’s Rallye Breslau in the Truck Small class. The company will also provide service trucks to the team.

The Minotor will be the second brand to compete in T3.U, joining the Apache line that was created in 2023 and ran Dakar for the first time this January.

Featured image credit: ReulSport