With the ten-year anniversary looming in 2025, the Morocco Desert Problem will introduce a particular class for automobiles constructed no less than a decade earlier than the inaugural rally.
On Thursday, race officers informally introduced the creation of the Classic class for automobiles of no less than twenty years and older, which means 2005 is the most recent manufacturing 12 months for the upcoming version. The category might be separate from the principle rally classes, although the tentative plan is to allow them to observe the identical route as everybody else. Extra particulars might 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 fashionable automobiles incorporate classic classes like NORRA’s Mexican 1000 and NORRA 500 in Baja California. The Africa Eco Race, which runs via Morocco alongside the Dakar Rally’s outdated route, débuted a Historic class in 2024 (then referred to as Basic) for pre-2007 automobiles that alternated between navigation and regularity codecs on every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 together with the principle rally. For 2025, the Basic elevated its eligibility vary to additionally allow automobiles constructed as late as 2005.
Carlos Santaolalla, who gained the most recent 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 conflict, in 2012 earlier than transferring to Morocco in 2014. The race assumed its present moniker in 2017.
The 2025 Morocco Desert Problem is scheduled for 3–12 April, operating from Agadir to Ouarzazate throughout 3,150 kilometres and eight levels. Registration opened on 1 August.
