A Small French Company Creates a Nearly Perfect Machine…
This week I stumbled upon a photo of a truck I’d never seen before. It was racing through the desert and looked familiar, I just couldn’t place it. After a quick search, I learned that the truck was called the Mega and it was built by a French company based in Aix-en-Provence. I suppose that’s where the Aix in Aixam comes from, I wonder what the AM is.. I couldn’t figure it out. Auto-Moteur? Back in the 80s Aixam started with a different name: Arola. Arola was happy to be making what they called “non-licensed” cars, transport solutions; small commuter vehicles powered by two stroke engines and later, small diesels. Arola’s mission was help people who didn’t have driver’s licenses get around France. Georges Blain, an emerging character in this story, was a parts supplier to Arola and offered to buy the company in around 1984. His offer was accepted and the name was changed to Aixam.
Blain had bigger ideas, and with the help of his friend, Philippe Colançon, an engineer at Aixam the time, (in present day, a Managing Director) went into absolute warp drive and dropped a new model called the MEGA Track. This was a complete departure from past projects, a new supercar powered by a Mercedes V12, 400hp, impressive styling that emerged seemingly out of nowhere. The car was super unique, hosting giant Alcon brakes (so big, in fact that they made the Guinness Book) air suspension and Pirelli test tires from the Rambo Lambo. The Mega track had lots of suspension droop, something totally unique for an exotic looking car, and could be raised and lowered from the cabin. The company produced 6 in total. A Russian dude bought two, two remain in the factory showroom, who knows where the others are, I didn’t put much time into it. The car was not a commercial hit with only 6 sold. Aixam probably lost money on the project but they proved to be able to create a pretty darn good looking car and definitely the first of it’s type. Imagine a supercar on modest truck tires that you could drive over the desert. I’d drop a bunch of photos but honestly, you can just look it up and besides, this post isn’t about the Mega Track anyway, it’s about the Mega Desert.
Going on deep internet dives for things that are twenty years or so old is a kink of mine. I love to find connections across projects and teams because, having been involved, I know that motorsports is a small world and big things don’t usually happen on their own. Ideas are born from partnerships and cooperation, iterating on successful ideas and hiring people who were part of those successful ventures. The Aixam Mega Desert is a great example of all of these things.
Georges Blain had been building an Andros Trophy car for professional ice racing and experiencing some great success with it throughout the 90s. Working off that success, Blain and Colançon started talking about and seriously considering Dakar in 1999. The conversation seemed to start with talk of a 2wd buggy like the popular and successful Schlesser Buggy that was finishing at the top of the results in Dakar. The two discussed what made the Schlesser successful and determined that it was in no small part due to the experience of Jean Louis Schlesser and that they, bringing a new buggy to the party probably wouldn’t experience quick success. Blain was intent on a very fast iterative process, “not 3-4 years” To achieve this, the two made some brilliant engineering maneuvers. First, they decided that there was no time to build a new body for this truck. To get around this, they took the Mega Andros Trophy car, cut it both lengthwise and in half and lengthened it, widened it. It’s incredible when you look at both.. it works well.
above, the Andros Trophy Car.
The team needed a drivetrain and they needed a drivetrain quickly! They knew that SBM, whom I’ve talked about and written about a lot, was a 4 hour drive directly north. SBM was, of course run by Bernard Maingret who was running the factory Ralliart Team from Pont-De-Vaux. Maingret had options in his contract with Mitsubishi that he could prepare other parts of Mitsubishi vehicles to keep his shop running in slow times, SBM and Mitsubishi probably envisioned engine building and customer car work as part of this agreement, although those were handled mostly by Faster France down the road. Blain approached Maingret to ask about preparing a driveline for the Mega. This presented a conflict that had to be taken up with Mitsubishi. The article I read (linked above) states that “Mitsubishi neither said yes, nor did they say no” to the idea of preparing another manufacturer with a Mitsubishi frame and drivetrain so the project continued with some risk that it could be cancelled at a moment’s notice.
The Mega team bought an engine, transmission (specification still unknown) and a prepared ladder frame from from SBM. The equipment was the final spec of SBM’s Pajero Evolution. (the 240hp is due to the 32mm restrictor used in 2000) After a test with the Mitsubishi, Blain wasn’t totally satisfied with the supplier’s suspension. What would they do? Time was very tight. Aixam decided that if one damper unit per wheel was good for their ice racing car, then two dampers must be good for desert racing, and after an initial test on the Mitsubishi dampers, the Mega Desert received 2 Andros Trophy Dampers per corner. Somehow, after all of this, the Mega was still a full 200kg lighter than the Pajero Evolution with the same power. This was likely due to the lightweight shell that Mitsubishi had not used due to having built the Pajero Evolution to T2 Specifications earlier on.
After less than a year of design and engineering, the team headed to Morocco for a test. They hired the winningest driver/rider in Dakar history to drive the car, Stephan Peterhansel. Peterhansel was incredibly pleased by the performance and the car was declared done somewhere around the new year of 2000. On to Dakar.
The 2000 Dakar is probably a whole post in itself but this particular year was the craziest iteration probably of all time. The original route was suspended due to a terrorist threat and the cars were all airlifted out of the dangerous area via several trips on a giant Antonov plane, like a Noah’s Ark service vehicle. They touched down in safe territory and the rally continued in what effectively became two sprint rallies.
The Antonov lifts off full of desert racers.
This airlift moved a total of 500 race and service vehicles. This alone is absolutely mind-blowing, to pull off this remarkably challenging logistical act in the middle of the desert on zero notice. Back to the race, the Schlesser Buggies are proving unstoppable. Whispers amongst teams circulate about the course being designed to favor the 2wd buggy, and of the team sandbagging, slowing down to not tip their hand and show the obvious advantage. The Mega team raced a consistent event, Mitsubishi could not hold the pace in the heavier Pajero Evo much to the disappointment of Ralliart France Team Manager Dominique Serieys who accused Mega of cheating to the point where Aixam were subject to a teardown after the event. No impropriety was found and Mega held onto 2nd place in their debut event, truly an amazing finish over a well-funded factory team that had been sweeping the results for years. Mega and Peterhansel beat Mitsubishi / JP Fontenay by about 17 minutes when the dust settled.
2000 would be the first and last event for the team. Aixam’s owner Blain retired, direction changed and Dakar was very expensive without a committed sponsor. It’s likely anyway that after such an impact that Mega would need a completely new car for 2001. Maybe everyone was depleted from the big push they put into 2000.
Thanks for tuning in. Here’s a video to close it out.