And its not just the striking "Petronas Green" colours that are instantly identifiable with the Iveco truck that Dutchman Gerard de Rooy raced to an historic victory in January on one of motorsports' toughest tests, "Le Dakar"; under the skin there are competition-bred upgrades to match.

At the Paris 2012 Intermat Exhibition, the international trade show dedicated to earthmoving, building and construction machinery, Iveco presented the new Trakker Limited Edition Dakar.  With a limited production run of  502 units the vehicle is dedicated to the extraordinary success achieved on the Latin American rally.

The Trakker Limited Edition Dakar was launched by Alessandro Mortali, Iveco Senior Vice President Heavy Range, at a ceremony in the presence of Miki Biasion, former two time FIA World Rally Champion with Lancia and winner of the Raid Tout Terrain World Cup in 1998 and 1999 as well as being driver for Team Petronas De Rooy Iveco on this year's Dakar.

During the course of the launch event held on the Iveco stand, Biasion and Mortali revealed the special features of the limited edition vehicle. They explained how taking part in one of the most important rallies in the world has enabled Iveco to test all of its technologies and innovations under extreme conditions, obtaining amazing results in terms of reliability and performance. Biasion told attendees at Intermat of the experience that drove Team Petronas De Rooy Iveco to success in the South American competition, earning first, second and sixth place in the final ranking for heavy duty vehicles.

The three vehicles, adapted to handle the extreme environmental conditions of the rally, were all series models and optimised for high energy efficiency performance. Thanks to the experience acquired on some of the toughest tracks and under the most extreme conditions in South America, Iveco has built 502 vehicles, (the race number of the winning vehicle), all of which contain some of the features and technological innovations of the vehicle that dominated the competition.

The purpose of this special limited edition version is to transfer some of the technologies that have been tested during the competition, in the toughest possible conditions and that made this outstanding performance possible.

The Trakker Limited Edition Dakar is equipped with Cursor 8 and 13 litre FPT Industrial engines with power ratings of between 310 HP and 500 HP, which develop a torque of between 1,300 and 2,300 Nm. The gearboxes are manual (with between 9 and 16 gears) or automatic (with 12 to 16 gears), it features disc-drum brakes with ABS off road mode and there are a number of different solutions for the shock absorbers including parabolic and pneumatic versions. All the versions are equipped with the Active Day cab in Dakar green. The Trakker Limited Edition Dakar is liveried with the original design of the sponsors that backed the Iveco champions.