THE Retired Report – Who Won 2024?
Well hello there fellow hobbyists, I am Cubby, I am retired, yet here I am for another Cub Report!
As we get ready to conclude the year of 2024, I wanna take a look back and see how our industry did over the last 12 months. After looking through a year of our posts, I’ve come to a few conclusions.
Ya know how rc has had a bunch of different eras? For example, the Associated RC10 created its own huge era. For years and years, rc was primarily about racing 2wd buggies, with the Associated nearly always leading the way. During the buggy years, the AE vs Losi years were some of the absolute best. For you newer hobbyists, Associated used to be the king of the hill, and not by a small margin either, but by a big one.
Then came a lil’ truck called the Traxxas T-Maxx. The T-Maxx completely changed the face of rc with huge tires, 8 shocks, and a noisy nitro engine. The T-Maxx era was HUGE, to the point hobby shops were selling pallets of T-Maxxs per WEEK. This of course brought on not only a revolution in monster trucks, but also brought the fine art of backyard bashing to the forefront.
After the T-Maxx, Associated made it first to the table with their short course truck, with Traxxas and Losi not far behind. The short course truck era wasn’t nearly as big as the T-Maxx era, but it definitely helped keep sales up in our industry. I’d bet most of you reading this today have at least one Slash in your garage, if not a half dozen in some way, shape or form.
Then, all of a sudden, completely out of the blue, a little company called Axial released a truck called the SCX10. And that brings us to today. Where scale rock crawlers have been dominating the salesfloor for a decade. The SCX10 was a radical departure from the norm, with scale realism being the norm, not the exception, and where a lazy day on the trail was more fun than 14 hrs at a track sucking in tire sauce fumes.
During 2024, the last era, the scale crawling era, was definitely slowing, while a new segment, vintage buggy racing, gained a lot of steam. From Associated, to Yokomo, to Schumacher, to other manufacturers, vintage buggies came on red hot in 2024. I don’t know if that segment will gather enough steam to become a whole new and legitimate “era” so to speak, but it’s building a lot of momentum.
With that lil’ rc his-story lesson out of the way to get everyone up to speed, exactly who won 2024?
I think I’m going to have to go with Associated!!! Boy, it’s been a long time since Associated lead the pack, but AE went ultra-HARD in 2024. Associated dropped numerous vintage race buggies/stadium trucks this year, plus they got into the hardcore drift market. From early in 2024, all through the year, Associated was dropping hot new releases that fit well into the market. They hit all the big trade shows and did a lot of winning on the racetrack. For those reasons, I feel like Associated not only “won” 2024, but are also starting to feel a lot like they did when they truly had the eye of the tiger. They are pushing to be the king of the hill again, a throne they once sat proudly upon, and seem to really want to be on again. As a lifelong AE fan, it’s fantastic to see!
Oh a different note…
However, for as well as AE is doing right now, there is another company where we are seeing a possible “KTM” situation get going. What is a “KTM” situation? KTM is a big off-road motorcycle manufacturer. They are 3 billion dollars in the hole and are starting to fall apart at the seams. There is a big hitter in the rc world, that is going through a reallyyyy rough time at the moment as well. While not the single biggest player, they aren’t small either, and I’d be surprised if they make it to the year 2026. If this particular company were to completely faulter, it would really change our industry as a whole. I certainly hope they do what it takes to get things back to together, but only time will tell. We see companies come and go all the time in this industry, but it’s rare when one of the big boys may not make it another year.
Uhmmmm… I think that’s it for this time ya bunch of hooligans. Until next time, please get out and support your local hobby shops!
YOUR Cub Reporter
