This Citroën ZX Rallye Raid Is an Unsung Dakar Hero, and It’s for Sale

On the surface, there’s nothing remarkable about the Citroën ZX. It’s dependable, it’s practical, and the higher-spec variants were more fun to drive than many gave them credit for, but the odds of it achieving 2CV-like stardom were always low. And yet, this humble hatchback spawned one of the most successful rally cars that a French brand has ever built: the Citroën ZX Rallye Raid. One of the handful of examples made will cross the auction block in May 2025 during a sale organized by Broad Arrow Auctions at Villa d’Este.

While the Rallye Raid’s overall silhouette is surprisingly close to the regular-production ZX’s, the two cars share little more than a name and a handful of styling cues. The one designed to speed across the desert is powered by a mid-mounted, 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine rated at about 300 horsepower in its most basic state of tune. The engine spins the four wheels via a seven-speed manual gearbox and a limited-slip differential on each axle. If you’re thinking “300 horsepower isn’t much,” you’re not wrong. Chrysler will happily sell you a Pacifica with eight seats and 287 horsepower. However, keep in mind that the ZX Rallye Raid weighs approximately 3,200 pounds thanks in part to a body made with carbon fiber and Kevlar.

And, besides, the 300-horsepower rating was enough to give the Rallye Raid the ability to tame just about any rally course the organizers threw at it. It took first place in the notoriously difficult Paris-Dakar Rally in 1991, in 1994, in 1995, and in 1996. It also won every FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup championship between 1993 and 1997. In hindsight, Citroën was one homologation special away from achieving rallying stardom. Imagine how the company’s image would have changed had it released a street-legal, Rallye Raid-inspired four-wheel-drive ZX in the vein of the Subaru WRX STI and the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.

But a hot hatch with Dakar-winning genes never saw the light that awaits at the end of a production line, so the next best thing is to buy the real thing. And that opportunity doesn’t come around frequently, nor will it be cheap. The example that Broad Arrow Auctions will offer during its 2025 Villa d’Este sale is an Evo I model with a 320-horsepower evolution of the naturally-aspirated four-cylinder. Citroën raced it in the Paris-Dakar for three consecutive years, but it’s currently wearing the same Camel livery as when Ari Vatanen drove it in the 1990 Pharaohs Rally. The car was part of Citroën’s stash of classics until 2011, and the auction description notes that it was recently treated a two-year restoration. The sale includes numerous period documents and pictures.

The ZX Rallye Raid is expected to sell for between €475,000 and €525,000, which represent approximately $525,000 and $580,000, respectively. Could you buy a new Italian supercar for that kind of money? Yep, you could even get two and still have enough money left over to build a garage to keep it in. And yet, this ZX Rallye Raid is a relative bargain. Half a million dollars is not a lot for a restored, turn-key example of one of the most successful top-level rally cars of the 1990s. Better yet, it’s old enough to legally import.