MINI will be taking part in next year Dakar RAlly with a Countryman fitted Original MINI Accessories for X-Raid Team. Now that MINI is out of World Rally Championship, you would think this is how the car’s keeping busy, but it is not a WRC Countryman.

The Dakar-bound Countrymen, and there are five of them, are apparently standard underneath. MINI says they will boast powerful engines and rely on the firm’s ALL4 four-wheel-drive system to take on 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles) of desert through Peru, Argentina and Chile. They do get an off-road body kit though, as you see in the pictures.

The off-road package fitted onto these cars consist of silver-coloured add-on parts for the front and rear apron and side skirts. Seeing as they are MINI’s original accessories, you can also buy them for you civilian Countryman. The range also includes 18-inch light-alloy wheels with run-flat tyres, mud flaps for the front and rear wheel arches, auxiliary headlights, and all-weather floor mats and a protective load compartment cover made from hard-wearing PVC.

The full-on racing MINI Countryman WRC will continue its rallying career in the hands of private teams next year.