Adam Andretti Is a NASCAR Truck Driver Now and He Loves It

Welcome to the gas. I'm Gary Gastelud. This is the Gary and Alex show, the official podcast

of American cars and racing.com. And with me, of course, Alex Nunez. How are you doing

today, Alex? All right, man. How about you? I'm good. Are you all dug out from the snow

up there in Connecticut or still piled on? I'm as dug out as I'm going to be until it

starts melting, you know, over the next few days. But yeah, do you do the snow tires

in Connecticut? Or is that not far enough north? I don't. I have, I do run all weathers

on my, on my cars. So I have three peak mountain snowflake, you know, raiding on them, but,

but no dedicated snows. It doesn't. I mean, honestly, it hasn't snowed this much in like

10 years. So it's not, it's not really that much of a problem here in New York. There

are vehicles around that have been snowed in since the first snowstorm. So we're coming

up on a month now. And one's really annoying me. It's a Toyota Tundra pickup with an off-road

spec that's been buried the entire time. And like, I don't even care if the guy leaves.

I just want him to pull out of the snow and pull back in because it's driving me crazy

seeing that thing sitting there. I mean, you have the capability to use it. This is, this

is your, this is your moment. If you're a New Yorker with like a DRD package, you know,

Toyota, use the package. You're embarrassing Toyota. We've got some other truck news coming

up later in the show. Tesla has a new truck that's turned out to be a big hit, we think.

And Lincoln might be going off-road with a Lincoln luxury version of the Bronco. But first,

this is a big race weekend here in the United States. NASCAR is not just at the Circuit of

Americas with the Cup Series and the O'Reilly Series, but the truck series is in St. Petersburg

for the first time, supporting the IndyCar season kickoff down there and over in Sebring,

Florida. The Trans Am series is starting this weekend. And one person who's in the middle of

a lot of that is one of our favorite race car drivers and one of the best Trans Am drivers

out there today, Adam Andretti. And he is also going to be in St. Petersburg for the truck race

where he joins us on the show now. Hey, how are you doing today, Alex? I'm doing well, Gary.

You know, it could be confusing. Alex Adam, I've got two of them right here with you,

but no, I'm doing very well, Gary. And thank you for the kind intro. Hey, listen,

you are a full-time Trans Am driver. But last week, you made your truck series debut at Atlanta,

which I think was the first time you ever raced on a super speedway in a stock car. I think you've

been on one, maybe an open-wheel car years ago. Before we even get to that, tell me how you even

got involved in the truck series at this stage in your career. You've been driving for decades.

I think you're in your mid-40s. How did you even get involved in the NASCAR truck series now?

So it all started with Claudio Burton is the creator of Top Liner. And the Top Liner is a

premier spray-in truck bed liner. It could be used, obviously, for ATVs as well, trailers,

anything you want to add a grip surface to it, even your decking if you want, right, on your home.

So he invented this great product. And obviously, the truck series is just a perfect fit for the

brand. So over the winter, he came, he approached me. I've been driving for him in the last two

years in the Trans Am series. And he approached me to see what my interest would be in the truck

series. And I was like, well, I mean, you know, if I could do a backflip, I would, but I can't. So

I'll just say yes and jump at the opportunities. So at that point, then he tasked me with, you

know, he had a budget that he was looking at. So he tasked me with trying to find a race team

to take this budget to and to get the most play out of this product, obviously. And,

you know, for me, I've got a great network of connections through a lifetime in this sport,

obviously. And one of those great connections is also a close friend of Claudio and myself,

and that's Gary Seelix. And Gary is a legend within the Trans Am paddock as a crew chief and as an

engineer. So I went to him, you know, because he's in Morseville. And I know that he's really

good friends with Scott Zippadelli, which is the crew chief on the 11 truck here at Tricon that won

the championship last year. And I go, can you hook me up with Scotty? And he goes, yeah, absolutely.

So we connected, I connected with Scott. And Scott was really receptive to having me come on

board, but he doesn't make the calls. And so he said, you got to talk to our general manager,

Kevin Ray, and one of the owners of TriCon. And this is where it gets really interesting, Gary,

is that Kevin and I go way back to 1999, when both he and I were young in our early 20s,

and trying to make it as race car drivers back then. And we were working at the Richard Petty

driving experience, just literally just to get those laps and those precious laps in to pay some

bills and have some fun. So it was an awesome reconnection. I called Kevin Ray and we reconnected

and as it would have it, they had a truck available for the races that we were looking at. I was

really trying to get to Daytona because obviously Daytona being very important and that would have

been really important for Claudio. And unfortunately NASCAR approvals and that winter snowstorm you

were just talking about wiped out my opportunity for the approvals, a test to get approved for

Daytona. So we went ahead and we carried forward with Taylor Gray, a wonderful young driver there

that drives for Joe Gibbs Racing in the O'Reilly series. And we hooked up with Taylor Gray, put

him in the number one top liner truck at Daytona. And then I got to make my debut a week later in

Atlanta last week. And that was, I got to say, I'm hooked. I'm addicted. I think that Claudio

might have made a mistake for me here because now I want nothing but these trucks. I love these

trucks. Tricon's a great team, but Atlanta is a wild track and not having much of that kind of

experience. How did you even get ready for that? Did you get SimTime or was it you showed up that

weekend and did practice and went out there? I did get SimTime. That's another beautiful part of

being hooked up with the Toyota brand too. And Toyota, TRD, they do, no one does it better on

the Sim side of things. They've really taken it to the next level in NASCAR. And so yeah,

I got to do some SimTime, but one thing they can't really simulate on the simulator is draft.

And they do their best with wind, playing with the wind on the simulator, but they really can't

simulate the draft all that well. So I got some single truck runs. But the first time I released

a clutch on a real truck was to go out for my qualifying run last Friday. That's wild. And

you came back from a spin to finish 12. That's a really impressive result for your first race,

even with somebody with your kind of experience. Thank you, Gary. It was, I tell you, that was

an amazing team effort. First and foremost, what most people probably don't know that we're watching

that race was we had a right front tire that was going down. And that's what was causing the truck

to behave so poorly like it was. So had I had more experience, I might have known that that right

front tire was going down and I might have pitted. And that would have ruined our race. That would

have taken us two laps out and we wouldn't have been able to recover from that. So these

Goodyear tires, that beautiful Goodyear Eagle hung on for me on that right front for that first

stage. And when we came in, they changed, gave me all four new tires, told me what the problem was,

and that gave me the confidence then to know that, okay, this is what the air does out here.

Sure, the air plays with the trucks a lot. But what I was experiencing was something completely

different. So very, very grateful, very blessed by the grace of God that we didn't, you know,

bend up some metal on that thing when it got sideways on me. And some of that great dirt

experience I have really paid off there because it teaches you, you know, when you're when you're

running the dirt in your sideways, you're on the throttle. And that's kind of what it gets you

comfortable with. And I do believe that kind of technique is definitely what kept me on the bottom

side of the track and out of the wall. We went a lap down because of that. But that was, you know,

that wasn't detrimental to our race. This team, Seth Smith, my crew chief on the box just called

a perfect strategy to get us back on that lead lap to get us that lucky dog and then made some

great, great adjustments, you know, with with big Mike here as our truck chief and, you know,

Seth making making great adjustments on that truck all day long that gave us really one of the

fastest trucks at the end of the race. I was chopping at the bit that we could get to run the

full distance because I had the I had the freshest tires out of anyone there in the top 10 and we

were making huge gains. So top 12 was definitely fantastic. But I think our potential was even

better. Well, you're back in your element this weekend with the street race at St. Petersburg.

First time the trucks are going to be there. And man, what a lineup of road racers. Your teammate,

Genevane Ruggero, he's done Transam racing. Connor Mossack has as well. Colin Braun is going to be

there. James Hitchcliff. And then your other teammate, Dario fricking Frank Keady. I mean,

how is it even possible? I tell you what, we're we're stacking the deck here at Tricon Garage.

Like you said, there's three really solid road racers here with myself included. And I just

mentioned Dario and Gio. And I think the poor Gio isn't getting the attention he deserves on this

because he's a heck of a road racer. He's a heck of a racer period. He's doing a great job.

Has some great finishes this season already and that 17 truck and we're we're and then like you

mentioned, you know, Hinch, again, I think Hinch is biggest challenge going to be an age pattern.

I think he's been paddle shift to most of his career or sequential box. So I think that's going

to be his biggest challenge. And then but Colin Braun and I know Connor Mossack, I've raced with

him in Transam for many years. These are all really, really stout road racers. So it's not

like it's a given that that we're going to be, you know, just taken away and run away and hiding

with this thing. But I know obviously what Tricon brings to the game here and what they've always

done there, their success speaks for themselves. And I'm just feel extremely blessed that I got

hooked up with this organization to do this kind to do this task with them. Have you had a chance

to drive the truck on a road course type setting yet? No, but I didn't get a chance to drive one

at Atlanta either. Not worked out for me. So I talked to, you know, Paul Menard is a great

competitor of mine in the Transam series, and he's become a real good friend. And Paul did a

really good job of kind of preparing me as well. You know, he said, these things will feel a lot

like a TA2 car when you get on the road course. So I'm anticipating with all that experience I

had in the TA2 car that that's going to translate over pretty, pretty smoothly for me over this

truck. But I can't wait for four o'clock to roll around so we can get behind this thing, this

top liner Toyota Tundra and really show what we can do. Yeah, you raced Transam one most, the TA1

mostly in Transam. Those cars have like 850, 900 horsepower, a lot more than the trucks. Is it

harder or easier to drive a less powerful car fast? No, I wouldn't say, you know, they're all

challenging, right, Gary? Like every race car has its attitude. And, you know, I think my uncle

Mary always said it best. Every car drives the same at like seven, eight tenths. It's when you

push them to 10 tenths is when they start to rear their ugly head. And that's what we do in these

race cars and as we push into 10 tenths all the time. And and a TA car is it's a beast, right?

You know, like you said, 900 horsepower, they weigh 2,500 pounds, but there's also stuck to

the ground really well. They have a lot of mechanical grip with with really wide Pirelli's on

them. You have a lot of aero help. And these trucks, it's old school NASCAR, in my opinion.

I love these trucks. That's what I love about them. They move around a lot. They slide around a lot.

You're not on a lot of tire, but you got a lot of horsepower. I mean, these things are

are no slouches up north of 700 horsepower with these little more engines in them. So,

you know, they're they're not a slouch and and I tell you and the and the arrow that they have

on them. It's it's a different kind of arrow where they have not as much downforce, but they have a

lot of side force with those big side rails on. So they're fun to drive. Like I said, I want more

where I'm working real hard on the people that are behind me to get more budget so we could do

more of these because you know, the Trans Am stuff is a lot of fun. But so are these trucks.

Do you have any other races lined up yet? We have two more contracted here at Tricon with

after St. Pete. We go to the Glen and then we'll go to San Diego for the street race out in San

Diego, which is going to be pretty special event with NASCAR. And so excited about those. But I

I don't want to stop like I'm looking at where we're at and how we ran last week in Atlanta. And

and I'm gelling with this group so well, like I said, you know, with between Seth Smith, my crew

chief and big Mike, the truck chief and Taylor and Colin and Ryder. It's just an amazing group of

guys that I get to work with here. And so if we can do more, I want to do more. And so we're,

we're trying to find the budget to do that. And I have some hopefully some tricks up my sleeve to

maybe make that happen. Well, I got some news for you about this weekend's race. According to the

odds, they've got you at 13th at plus 1800, but Dario's 12th at plus 1600. And you're ahead of

Hedgetown, who's at plus 2000. So you're a pretty good company there, at least as far as the odds

makers, but honestly, they don't really know how you could drive one of these trucks out of a thing.

Yeah, I think that's great. That works in my favor. You know, I'm definitely still the intangible in

these trucks. Dario spent a couple of years in the NASCAR ranks in the Cup Series when it was

like a Nassi. And so I'm sure that's playing into their matrix a little bit. And but yeah, I thrive

on being the underdog, you know, I'm the Andre that very few have heard of and I thrive on that.

So I'm excited to show what we can do for sure. And just real quick with the Trans Am, how do you

get from St. Pete to Sebring to race there tomorrow? I think qualifying is in the afternoon.

Is somebody else going to have to qualify your car? So yeah, and the way Trans Am rules are,

they no one else can really qualify my car. I mean, take advantage of that. We got Martin

Rajinger there. He's a Porsche factory driver and he's part of the Claudio Burton gang as far as

drivers that he supports and helps out and is a fan of and brings out. So he's got him.

And Martin's going to make sure that he drives both the 17 and the brand new car that we have,

the 7 car that we just got built over the winter. So Martin's going to be a busy boy to make sure

that those cars are ready. And then when I'm going to leave here after our race on Saturday,

I'm going to drive two hours down the road, load up the wife of the dog and the cats,

and we'll get in the motor home. We'll go two hours down the road to Sebring and

and then we take the green fly there at 9.45 in the morning, Sunday morning,

and I'll be starting from the tail. So it should be an exciting one to watch there.

I look forward to passing some cars. Trans Am's owner, Pirella Motorsports, bought racing America

recently and is really kind of building things up with the business across all the series it's

involved with and now with the broadcasting and media. Are you feeling that in Trans Am,

that there is a growth moment here because this is some of the most exciting races and the events

themselves are an absolute riot. Folks, if you love racing, go to Trans Am race. Lots of great

access to the cars and the drivers. It's a real lot of fun. Absolutely. No, there's definitely

something on the brink here happening with Trans Am. The race America is super exciting

announcement and having Alan Bestwick, you know, one of the best voices in our sport to be the

voice of Trans Am. Yeah, you certainly feel that I was on the phone with Alan yesterday,

just talking because that's what he's doing. He's reaching out to all the competitors and

getting his stories. And then we got some great leadership as well with Lee Gianoni as the CEO.

We have a new COO and Ken Twates. And Ken Twates has been a permanent fixture in the Trans Am

paddock as not only a driver, but an owner and a sponsor in the series. So for him to come in as

chief operating officer, I think is a really, really bold and strong move for the series to be

able to do that. We have Andy Lolly as our president and our chief marketing officer, Scott Duncan.

With that team of four, I definitely have a lot of faith in what's going to happen with this series

and where they can take the Trans Am series. Like he said, it's some of the best racing on earth.

And it's kind of a, we call it a best kept secret, but as you know, Gary, we don't mean any

secrets of motorsports. We need exposure. And so that's what we're looking for there.

I hope to catch you at Live Rock. That's my local track Memorial Day weekend. And with any luck,

you know, if things break your way on the business side, maybe again in July when the,

when the trucks show up at Live Rock, because I don't think there's a conflicting

Trans Am race that weekend. So best of luck to you this weekend. Sounds like a ton of fun.

I know it'll be a ton of fun to watch. And we look forward to catching both sides of it.

Thank you, Alex. I really appreciate that. Hopefully too. Yeah, I'm working hard on the

business side of this sport. As we know, that's the probably one of the biggest challenges we

have in the sport is to put the funding together to go do what we love to do. And so working really

hard on that. And with any luck and with God's good grace, we'll be there in July as well.

But yeah, I always love the Memorial Day classic. And I certainly hope you'll come hang out with us

in our paddock space while we're there. Unless I happen to get to go to Indianapolis for any

reason that weekend, I will see you at Live Rock that weekend. I understand, Alex. I understand

completely. Trust me, if I had an Indy 500 ride, no one would see me at Live Rock either. So

although the Trans Am race runs on Monday and I love to race. So if I had an Indy 500 ride,

I'm sure I could find a ride there to Live Rock. That would be a fun double. That would be a good

double. That would be a cool double. The Flora double, which I'm going to trademark that now.

Step one is the Flora double this weekend. And then maybe you have the Connecticut double

separated by a couple months later, later this summer, but it should be awesome.

I love that. I love the Florida double. I got to get some t-shirts made.

Go for it. It's all yours. Thanks, man. I appreciate that, Alex.

Adam, we got to get you back on one of these days just to talk about the business of racing,

because you are very involved in it. You've been hustling all these years. You know how it works.

A lot of drivers, you know, that's unfortunately, that's part of the gig. You got to sell yourself.

You got to sell sponsorship. You can't just be a good driver. It's very rare

where somebody just says, here's a car, erase it, we'll take care of everything else, right?

Absolutely. No, the sport has evolved into that. And that's all part of it. You know,

the sport evolves all the time, no matter what you're on the business side, on the competition side.

And as it evolves, you have to be trying to have a little bit of a foresight on that evolution.

And that's how you stay ahead in both ways, both in the competition and the business side.

And it's honestly, it adds an element of frustration for sure, but fun, you know,

and a certain sense of satisfaction when you can actually put it all together.

So, you know, there's, you got two sides of it. You got people that'll kind of whine about that

side of the sport. And then you got those that are just kind of buckled down, put their heads down

and put the work in to do it and make it happen. So I've been very, very blessed to have wonderful

supporters of my career. And I just, I'm very grateful for that. And I look forward to keeping

my name in the mix here and keeping an Andretti out on the grid for as long as I can since I'm

the lone ranger anymore. And, you know, you never know what's going to happen, but I trust God's

plan. And I feel really good about where he's got me right now. Speaking of the Andretti name,

just getting breaking news right now that the Cadillac Formula One team has just named the first

chassis, the Mac 26, the Mario Andretti Cadillac 26 after your uncle. How excited is he about Cadillac

in America getting into Formula One? Oh, he's super excited, you know, and what an honor that he's

got, you know, that they, that they both stowed upon him by naming the chassis and, you know,

no pressure on the chassis manufacturers there, right? You know, I think that thing better,

that thing better performed like Mario Andretti performed as well. So,

but yeah, it's, I mean, honestly, what a great birthday present. He turns 86 years of age tomorrow,

so I believe they may have even just given him an early birthday present today.

Well, Adam, I know you got a lot of hands to shake and a truck to figure out how to drive.

Good luck there and say, Pete, and we will be talking to you again soon.

Thank you, Gary. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Alex. And to all your fans out there on

gas, thank you for tuning in and look forward to meeting you at the track one day.

Alex, he has so much energy. I love it. He loves racing. He loves the business. I remember the

first time I met him. It was a Jaguar XK Type S launch event and he was one of the professional

drivers there that were teaching us how to drive the cars on the tracks. And I actually got assigned

to Roberto Guerrero, another great driver, but it was pretty funny the difference. You know,

Roberto Guerrero, he's an F1 Indy car driver, real precise, hit your breaking points, hit the line,

all that sort of thing. And then I see the guys out on the track with Adam and he's taking them

for hot laps and he's doing like top gear style power slides around the entire Monticello Motor

Club track in this Jaguar, just a complete ride. I mean, he did a lot of dirt racing, like he

mentioned, did open wheel racing and now he's doing the stock cars. And of course he's been doing

Transam for years, but the guy just loves to drive and he can drive too. I've seen him on the track

and he knows how to rip these things. There are guys who are fast, they're fast in everything,

fast as fast. And Adam's one of those guys that can jump from platform to platform and be immediately

competitive. And that's why this whole, you know, flurry double as I called it, is really interesting.

It should be a lot of fun to watch. Like he said, two very different platforms, at least in terms of

pure power output. Like you said, those TA cars are monsters. And if you haven't been to a Transam

race, I mean, people should go to one of those races. Those cars are great looking too. Really

awesome. But it's gonna be fun to watch, you know, watch him jump from one of these trucks,

you know, after having tremendous success in Atlanta, like we open the show with,

go out there on the road course, go see what happens. And then head down to Sebring. And I

mean, everybody knows Sebring. Sebring is another awesome place. And, you know, he knows he's

starting at the back of the grid and he knows he's certainly not going to finish at the back of

the grid. I think he's going to surprise people at St. Pete. Big issue at St. Pete though,

putting trucks on a street track with a lot of guys who have zero road course experience.

Not a lot of real estate. Yeah, I think the first couple of laps are going to be disastrous. Then

hopefully it'll string out the good road course drivers will be up front and keeping it clean.

But that's going to be entertaining in any event. 100%. No, like I said, if you are

into racing, this is one of the better TV weekends that you are going to have between now and, you

know, Memorial Day weekend. And I'm excited about IndyCar's kickoff too. I mean, yeah, we've been

talking about that. No big changes to the series this year. Same car as most of the same drivers,

although do have a couple of new entries like mixed shoe mocker. And it's going to be great to see

how he does in that car on a track like this. But this was a great idea. It's great to see

NASCAR and IndyCar working together. And then they're going to be doing it again at Phoenix,

which is going to be another fantastic weekend coming up. Yep. A lot of really good things just

organically happening across racing right now. And it's very cool to see NASCAR and IndyCar

sharing a weekend. It used to be one of those things like, Oh, those streams will never cross.

And here we are. And I think it's just going to make it a really great racing product

overall for people in attendance. And frankly, also for everybody that's, you know, going to be

tuning in and watching. We're going to shift gears here and talk about trucks, not NASCAR trucks,

street trucks, specifically first, the new Tesla Cybertruck dual motor all wheel drive. This is

the cheapest version of the Cybertruck that's ever been put on sale. It was announced last week,

$62,235. People got pretty excited when they saw it. Yep. And then right after the announced it,

Elon Musk said, Yeah, but the price is only good for 10 days. So now Tesla's confirmed

that the price is only good until February 28th. And after that, it's going to go up. But here's

the thing. When they released this last week, if you ordered one, you could get it in June.

A couple of days later, the delivery dates had moved to September and October. Now if you want one,

it's early 2027. So this thing is either an absolute hit or Tesla didn't realize

that people actually want it. And now they have to figure out how to build it and ran

some kind of trouble. But I think it's actually about the demand probably.

I think so too. Listen, people have been waiting for a long time for a lower point of entry,

Cybertruck. This is more in line with what the original sort of Cybertruck narrative was. I know

I saw a bunch of the Tesla people are all over this stuff, obviously online, but with inflation

and whatever between the original announcement and now this is very close in terms of what the

money is worth, the value of the dollar based on that, very close to what the original sort of

promise was of Cybertruck. Obviously, Cybertruck arrives and it's the cyber beast,

a $100,000 thing, which again, this is actually inexpensive. I could see why it's demand driven

simply because where else are you going to get a truck that has what this one is offering for

60 grand period? I think people sort of forget that go on any of the configurators for any of

the doesn't matter if it's Ford or Chevy or Ram or GMC, go try and spec anything that has

options and capability that you want. And you're at $75,000 in no time. And the more upscale you go

or if you go into the heavy duty, you know, or super duty models, it just goes up from there.

So not surprised to hear that the demand might be such that the wait time is pushed way far out.

Especially if people want to jump on that pricing window, that's what's going to happen.

Tesla could do this stuff because Tesla does whatever it wants anyway.

Yeah. A lot of people maybe don't realize is that Tesla is also its dealer. You see a local car

dealer, they put the sales signs on the window with the cars. Tesla can just do that because

they sell the cars direct. A lot of people were busted on Tesla for releasing this and then Elon

saying 10 days is like, what car company does this? Well, they do it because they can't. And it's not

a bad spec. Dual motor, zero to 60 of 4.1 seconds, 325 miles of range, Cato up to 7,500 pounds.

It's got the lockable cover for the bed. It's got textile seats, not the fake leather, but

yeah, we'll see how it actually really does. And it'll be interesting to see

what happens to the price on March 1st. Last year, they tried to sell a rear-wheel drive

stripped down Cybertruck that didn't have the bed cover and actually had fewer features than this

one does for 10 grand more than this. So even if this went up 10 grand, it might still be popular,

but they might be sitting on a ton of orders. Tesla Cybertruck sales crashed last year to 20,000.

It was 38,000 a year before the factory has set up to build 125,000 a year. Obviously,

there were many mitigating circumstances last year. But now that the F-150 Lightning is off the

table, that's been discontinued. I'm sure a lot of those people would have considered Tesla's as

well. General Motors has the electric trucks, but they don't seem to be pushing them as hard

as Ford was with the lighting and certainly as Tesla is with this. And a lot of them are much

more expensive than this as well. And it's also going to be interesting to see what the future

of those is like, because it's almost hard to believe GM is going to stay in that game now

that Ford's out of it and now that it doesn't need to be in that game, just because they haven't seen

anywhere near the growth that they expected. Although the Hummer H2 actually does pretty

well, but they also have the SUV version of that. That's correct. I mean, listen, what this really

does is look what everybody's talking about now for the last several days. It's Cybertruck.

And Cybertruck had kind of fallen off the map, like you said, in terms of just the realm of

public discussion, right back in the middle of things. And it'll be very interesting to see

what the actual delivery numbers for it are coming out of this, if that sort of changes the

fortunes of that particular nameplate. They have the luxury of being able to do what they want.

They can dial prices forward and back and do all kinds of things as they've done with their other

models throughout their existence. Certainly an interesting story, not surprised if the demand

is what the wait times indicate. That's for sure.

Ford's out of the full-size electric pickup game the next time it does a lightning. It's going

to be a range-extended electric vehicle, kind of like those Scouts we were talking about last week.

Lincoln doesn't have any pickups, but they are an all SUV brand. And a new report says they might

be getting a new one, AutoWeek, of all places. When's the last time you heard a big story come

out of AutoWeek? It's been a minute. Sources tell AutoWeek that they're going to be doing a new

Lincoln based on the Bronco platform. This would go up against vehicles like the Lexus GX,

the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, the actual truck-based SUVs. Lincoln has that in the Navigator,

but that is very dressed up for the street. Sounds like this one would actually be a little more

of an off-road flavor. Lincoln, again, it's all SUVs right now, but they're not just street SUVs.

They're pure luxury. They don't even make sporty versions like Cadillac does with the V-Series.

They're just all about what they call the quiet flight. A Lincoln Bronco, considering how powerful

the Bronco is, really does seem like a no-brainer. We've heard rumors of this before,

but this is a fresh one. And it sounds like it's still a couple of years away,

but this really does seem like easy low-hanging fruit for Lincoln.

Listen, the best time for Lincoln to have this car would have been yesterday. The next best time

is whenever the hell they can get it rolled out of the factory. This is, like you said,

a total no-brainer. There is absolutely a market, especially in luxury brands,

for these more butch off-road variants that live in a special place in the lineup and have

an audience that is eager to buy them and eager to pay the premium for them also. Whatever Ford

gets for the Bronco, it's going to get more for the Lincoln version built on that platform.

And if you execute it correctly, Lincoln does a really nice job with interiors and stuff like

that. I'm very interested to see if this is, in fact, true what the final product looks like.

I think it's a very promising idea. I hope it's true. I'm interested in seeing it. And listen,

there's room for everybody to be in this. I have said for years to people, like, yeah,

Cadillac has a V-Series and it's unbelievable. It's awesome, as you know. If Cadillac had some

off-road version of the Escalade that was exactly butched up the way that those things are for that

kind of use case, it would sell out. It'd sell as many as they wanted to. I think the audience is

there for this kind of vehicle in general. Smart play by Lincoln, if it's true. I certainly believe

that this has been discussed for a long time. So one would hope it's actually a valid report.

Yeah, now that the EPA stuff and the fuel economy targets are off the table,

this seems like something they could and should be doing. And Lincoln, look, Ford knows trucks,

the navigator's great. The Lincoln's that are on sale right now, really top-notch luxury. I

happened to be testing a Lincoln Donalist this week, hybrid powertrain 30 miles a gallon,

310 horsepower, standard all-wheel drive. The interior is immaculate, definitely worth the

$50,000, $60,000, $70,000 you spent on this, depending on how you spec it out. And I had a

navigator a few weeks ago, that one was $130,000, top of the line, fully loaded obviously,

but it really did feel like it was worth that much. And if it had a Mercedes badge on it,

I don't think you would have known the difference. Yeah, listen, the bottom line is that doing

something like this, an off-road focused luxury SUV, that is an enthusiast vehicle,

and that just fills a gap for Lincoln right now. All luxury is great. And like you said,

they're really nice cars, but make something like this that's going to look really cool.

And you have a problem in that, how do you get capacity to fill the demand for something

like that once it becomes real? Plenty of critics think Ford should dump Lincoln altogether,

because they only sold 106,000 vehicles last year. But the price point, $40,000 to $130,000,

they're clearly making money. And more important than that, I think, especially with something like

this Lincoln Bronco, they have room to grow if they put the effort into it. And it does look like

they're putting the effort into it. One thing I want to mention on the way out,

Lincoln sold 106,000 cars across four model lineups last year. Chrysler just unveiled some

fake spy photos of the 2027 Pacifica, which has really just got new headlights and a new grille,

basically the same vehicle that's been on sale since 2017. Currently the only vehicle that

Chrysler sells, they have the Pacifica and the Voyager, they're both minivans, they're just

different names, but they sold 125,000 of these last year. The Pacifica Voyager outsold the entire

Lincoln brand, also outsold Land Rover and Genesis and a number of these other brands. And that's,

you know, they run 40 to 60, $70,000. So they're not cheap products. You know, a lot of people

think Chrysler is another brand that maybe should go away. But really, it just seems like it's got

a pretty solid footing with this, which is also the best selling minivan. It almost goes without

saying. But look, they're going to be adding two SUVs and a sedan in the next year or two.

So I think Chrysler has got a lot of opportunity to get back to where it was.

Chrysler shouldn't go away. Lincoln shouldn't go away. These are very important American brands.

Lincoln, there is white space for both of them. I mean, almost unlimited upside in white space

for Chrysler. I mean, all they have is the van. Take this new charger platform, make another 300

or do a Chrysler Imperial, do something, fill in the blanks. They have the IP that they can draw on.

There is an audience for this stuff. Like you said, Lincoln is all SUV. There's no reason

Lincoln can't have another car and maybe make it something different and exciting. Do some Mustang

based Lincoln that's more of a personal luxury vehicle that has some performance attached to it.

Bottom line, there is opportunity to do cool things with these brands. I'm against getting rid

of these brands. I was against getting rid of all the brands back in 2008 when GM almost went under.

That's my sort of line in the sand on this. There is value in those, especially Lincoln.

Anybody saying Lincoln should go away is out of their mind, in my opinion, way too important.

As for the Chrysler van, I could totally see this van platform, the current one becoming

the family car equivalent of what the LX platform was with Charger and Challenger and 300. It's

just going to keep going on forever because the audience for it is not going to go anywhere.

You can make fun of, oh my God, just a new front and rear clip on it. The reality is, if you've used

these vans, they're amazing. There is a reason why it's going to just stick around as long as it

sticks around. There's a reason why you're going to see it outsell certain brands in its entirety,

just the one or two nameplates. I'm pro the new look quasi-modern Chrysler Pacifica. Listen,

next time you have to rent something and you got your family, if you have the opportunity to pick

that, pick it. It's actually unbelievable. It's like a TARDIS inside if you get the seats set up

the right way. There's just unlimited space that you can utilize. A lot of times you don't have

the choice to just give it to you anyway, even if you rented the compact car, you still end up with

minivan sometimes. Well, not in Florida. Florida, they get you for extra. Oh, they must be gold down

there in Florida, right? Those Disneyland trips. Perfect. Oh, forget about it. Yep. Or that. Well,

Lincoln News, Chrysler News. Next week, we're going to be talking Cadillac News because the Formula

One season kicks off in Australia and we'll have a bit of a preview for that. Thanks for listening.

Thanks again to Adam Andretti and we will see you next time.

The gas is a production of Acar Media and American Cars and Ricin.com.

Adam Andretti Is a NASCAR Truck Driver Now and He Loves It

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