With the ten-year anniversary looming in 2025, the Morocco Desert Problem will introduce a particular class for automobiles constructed a minimum of a decade earlier than the inaugural rally.
On Thursday, race officers informally introduced the creation of the Classic class for vehicles of a minimum of twenty years and older, that means 2005 is the newest manufacturing yr for the upcoming version. The category shall be separate from the principle rally classes, although the tentative plan is to allow them to observe the identical route as everybody else. Further particulars shall be revealed through the race presentation at QFF Eersel‘s store on 19 September.
Historic rally raids are removed from a brand new idea with occasions such because the RallyClassics Africa and Pionniers Basic. Some with trendy automobiles incorporate classic classes like NORRA’s Mexican 1000 and NORRA 500 in Baja California. The Africa Eco Race, which runs by means of Morocco alongside the Dakar Rally’s previous route, débuted a Historic class in 2024 (then referred to as Basic) for pre-2007 vehicles that alternated between navigation and regularity codecs on every stage.
Even the Dakar Rally has a classic division of its personal with the Dakar Basic, a regularity occasion that runs at the side of the principle rally. For 2025, the Basic elevated its eligibility vary to additionally allow vehicles constructed as late as 2005.
Carlos Santaolalla, who received the newest Dakar Basic, entered the Morocco Desert Problem in April in his Toyota Land Cruiser KZJ95. Because the Classic class didn’t exist on the time, he was lumped into Vehicles and Buggies alongside state-of-the-art automobiles just like the race-winning Century CR7 and Toyota Hilux Overdrive T1+ machines.
Though 2025 is well known as its tenth anniversary, the Morocco Desert Problem’s lineage dates again to 2008 because the Libya Desert Problem. It later turned the Libya Rally, albeit in Tunisia because of the Libyan civil struggle, in 2012 earlier than shifting to Morocco in 2014. The race assumed its present moniker in 2017.
The 2025 Morocco Desert Problem is scheduled for 3–12 April, working from Agadir to Ouarzazate throughout 3,150 kilometres and eight phases. Registration opened on 1 August.
