The Backyard – Big Dune Buggies and the Year of Niche

Hello everyone and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard.

Another week, another huge release! This week, the Traxxas Pro Scale X-Series Sand Car was announced- a large scale sand rail that’s around the same size as their vaunted X-Maxx.

The announcement has generated a lot of buzz and discussion. I’ve seen some full scale motorsports news media outlets discuss the rig, which is a replica Funco Motorsports sand car, and that’s always great to see. In the hobby-sphere, it seems EVERYONE has an opinion on it, many of them fairly, um, “passionate”! Well, I’ve got an r/c Internet column so I’mma bout to dish too!

I think it looks cool! I’d imagine it would be a heck of thrill to have this out on the sand dunes. I understand it may not be for everyone, but I like that Traxxas is going all out with a hyper-specific type of scale vehicle release. This sand car is much more interesting to me versus another iteration of an existing standard platform and I appreciate it when companies, especially big boys like Traxxas, go outside the norm and take risks.

No idea how well it will sell, but I hope it sells well enough to where Traxxas keeps going hard at various niche type vehicles.

This is starting to feel like 2025 is going to be the year of niche in the hobby. I mean think about it- we are almost a quarter of the way into 2025 and the biggest releases from the biggest companies are a sand rail, a sprint car, a trail buggy, and a restomod /redesigned vintage 4×4 buggy!

Interesting times! As a guy who’s in to a whole bunch of niche forms of r/c (hello, I’m currently building two r/c pulling vehicles and working on a log truck!), I’m here for it!

Here’s to hoping the next niche Traxxas explores is the solid axle monster truck world, hehe.

Ok, that’s it for me this week. If you’re interested in following me on social media, follow me on Instagram – Rotten Apple R/C.

Until next time, keep it on all 4’s!