This year's Tuareg Rally saw at least eight Qt Wildcats entered in the professional class for what proved to be an incredible eight-day event. Beginning in Almeria, scrutineering was performed at the Spanish port prior to the commencement of the Rally from Nador in Morocco. The first day saw the competitiveness of the Wildcat and their teams with the coming together of Mark Luijckx and Alwin Oud (Team Alwin) taking the lead, closely followed by Phillip Cornette and Steve Ingels. The two Race2Recovery vehicles of Qt's Tom Neathway and Dave Marsh and of Ben Gott and Tony Harris also achieved Top 10 positions on Day 1. The second day saw the first true performance from the all new V6 diesel of Qt with the father and son tandem of Fodil & Zeyd Allahoum.
They took the 3rd overall position for that day. Qt's MD and driver Dave Marsh commented that the Wildcat performed "faultlessly" in any of the conditions from the high-speed hard terrain to the wide dunes of the Erg Chebi desert. He related that the highlight of the Rally was on Day 5 when they claimed overall win for the dune race stage. Racing in an extreme environment "really" emphasized the performance of the Wildcat, he further stated.
He also stated that it was "greatly satisfying" to see the second vehicle home was the Wildcat of Team Alwin. Dave Holland, owner and driver of UK Wildcat, with his experienced co-driver Dan Lofthouse, who is the present Border Hill Rally Champion, relished being challenged by the harsh conditions that the event organizers threw at them. Justin Birchall maneuvers the Qt works Wildcat with Jonny Koonja who soon changed to the long stages after getting used to the short circuit British Cross Country Championship events posting a stage win on the seventh day.
