Peugeot Talbot Sport was created in 1981 under the direction of Jean Todt to serve as the motorsport arm of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group. The department initially focused on circuit rallying with the legendary Group B Peugeot 205 Turbo 16, which won the World Rally Championship manufacturers' and drivers' titles in 1985 and 1986. When the FIA banned Group B cars for the 1987 season following a series of fatal accidents, Peugeot Talbot Sport redirected its considerable engineering resources toward the Dakar Rally, an event that had attracted growing international attention since its founding in 1978.
The transition to rally raid proved immediately successful. Using derivatives of its Group B machinery, Peugeot Talbot Sport won the Dakar Rally in 1987 and 1988 with the 205, demonstrating that the mid-engined four-wheel-drive architecture that had proved so effective in World Rally Championship stages was equally capable over the extreme distances and terrain of the Paris-to-Dakar route.
For 1989 and 1990, the team updated its package with the Peugeot 405, a larger platform that offered more space for the mechanical components required to survive multi-week desert endurance events. The 405-based car won both editions, giving Peugeot four consecutive Dakar victories and establishing the team as the benchmark in the discipline. The programme then concluded as Peugeot Talbot Sport shifted focus toward sportscar racing and the development of the Peugeot 905 Le Mans prototype.
Peugeot Sport returned to the Dakar Rally in 2015, this time in partnership with title sponsor Total under the Peugeot Total Dakar Team name. The modern programme used the 2008 DKR, a purpose-built buggy-style racer developed by Peugeot Sport and tuned to the then-current T1 regulations. The car's innovative design, featuring a lightweight tubular chassis and independent suspension at all four corners, set it apart from the traditional truck-based approaches favoured by rival manufacturers.
The team signed a roster of elite rally drivers including Carlos Sainz, Stéphane Peterhansel, Cyril Despres, and Sébastien Loeb. Peterhansel, already the most decorated Dakar driver in history with multiple victories in both the motorcycle and car categories, became the team's lead driver. The team won the 2016 Dakar Rally with Peterhansel and co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret, and repeated the success in 2017 when Sainz claimed victory.
Peugeot's two Dakar programmes, separated by a quarter-century, collectively produced six outright victories and demonstrated the manufacturer's ability to translate its road-racing engineering culture into the entirely different discipline of desert endurance racing. The Peugeot Total Dakar Team's modern era established the 2008 DKR as a technically ambitious alternative to more conventional approaches and attracted a driver lineup that represented the greatest concentration of Dakar talent ever assembled by a single constructor.