New Gemballa Marsien is a modern-day Porsche 959 Dakar rally car

The son of late Porsche tuner Uwe Gemballa has picked up where his father left off, revealing a completely bespoke off-road capable supercar named Marsien.

Inspired by the legendary Paris Dakar rally era, Marc Phillipp Gemballa’s Marsien utilises design characteristics from Alan Derosier’s Porsche 908 design study and most notably, the Porsche 959 Paris Dakar.

Originally named Project Sandbox, the 992-generation Porsche 911 Turbo S-based car was manufactured in Germany, and honed off-road through the Arabian desert. The full carbon-fibre body is raised 120mm above the tarmac in on-road mode, or can be lifted to a total of 250mm above the sand in off-road mode.

It features a twin-turbocharged flat-six engine tuned by famed Porsche tuner Ruf, outputting 552kW/930Nm to all four wheels.

In addition to Ruf’s handiwork, Gemballa teamed up with aftermarket outfit Akrapovic to create a unique titanium exhaust system for the project, as well as KW Automotive to design a bespoke double-wishbone front/multi-link rear suspension setup. The active control dampers can react within 20 milliseconds to handle any sort of terrain.

The all-terrain vehicle features a set of staggered 20-inch front and 21-inch rear forged centre-lock wheels with Michelin tyres in its on-road setup, or can be fitted with 19-inch front and 20-inch rear wheels wrapped in all-terrain tyres for the off-road format. Gemballa says the on-road setup will see the Marsien sprint from zero to 100km/h in 2.6 seconds.

Just 40 examples of the Marsien are expected to be built, with the manufacturer stating that deposits have been taken for more than half of the production run already. The price of conversion for the Marsien is €495,000 (AU$784,000) which excludes the cost of the Porsche 911 Turbo S (992-generation) base vehicle.

Marc Phillipp Gemballa exists as a newly founded company; a separate entity from the Gemballa tuning firm.