’25 1:8 Elec. Offroad World C/ship Chassis Focus Index
2025 will go down in the history books as the year that IFMAR staged the inaugural 1:8 Electric Offroad World Championship with 116 drivers from around the world travelling to Portugal last week for 5 days of action at the Barcelos Buggy Arena track located in the north of the country. While 1:8 Nitro Buggy is the established blue ribbon category of offroad racing, 19 World Champions having been crowned so far, eBuggy is a hugely important market for the industry for both chassis and electronics manufacturers. Many manufacturers were very open about how eBuggy kits generate more main stream sales than nitro, all thanks to its plug & play and no mechanic required simplicity. Now the category has its first World Champion and a very worthy one at that in Danish talent Marcus Kaerup, the 17-year-old’s win bringing Team Associated’s tally of IFMAR World titles to an impressive 34!! While not achieving the same size entry as nitro, which enjoys capacity 180 entries, the first eBuggy Worlds was successfully executed and set a strong foundation for future editions, the United States the stage for the next eBuggy Worlds in 2027 (P.S. IFMAR can you please allow trackside commentary next time so everyone can experience an atmosphere that a World Championship deserves!). During our coverage, which was made possible thanks to electronics manufacturer Team Cayote, we managed to photograph buggies from 8 different manufacturers for our ‘Chassis Focus’. Interestingly, such was the desire to become the first ever 1:8 Electric Buggy World Champions, and have an edge on their rivals, two manufacturers only allowed their cars to be photographed after the event was complete on Saturday evening. With 13 drivers lining up for the triple A-Main, buggies from 7 different manufacturers added great variety with Team Associated, Xray and Sworkz sharing the honour of most cars in the final with 3 each. We have compiled the 8 buggies we got our hands on in our latest Chassis Focus Index –
Marcus Kaerup – Team Associated (TQ/Champion)
Elliott Boots – Sworkz (Q4/P4)
Bruno Coelho – Infinity (Q14/P8)
David Ronnefalk – Xray (Q5/P9)
Pekko Iivonen – Mayako (Q11/P10)
Joao Figueiredo – Tekno (Q12/P13)
Burak Kilic – Mugen Seiki (Q20/P22)
Gabriel Astorino – WIRC (Q59/P58)
