Breaking Down the Ford Bronco RTR with Vaughn Gittin Jr. | The AutoGuide Show Ep. 108

Welcome back to the AutoGuide show presented by eBay Motors.

We have a great episode for you this week.

We're talking to Vaughn Gittin Jr. about his latest creation, the Ford Bronco RTR.

Just back from a win at the Baja 1000, Vaughn explains what the Bronco RTR is, why it exists,

and how it fits in with the Bronco Raptor.

Then Mike Schley joins me for his latest gear test, the Garmin Dashcam Mini 3.

Speaking of Raptor, Mike has been rolling around in the F-150 Raptor, and we'll stick with the

off-road theme by breaking down my time in the Honda Passport Trailsport.

That's all in the AutoGuide garage.

We'll close things out with the mailbag, but first, a word from eBay.

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Joining us now on the AutoGuide show is Vaughn Gittin Jr.

Vaughn, it's good to see you.

Tell us a little bit about what this new Bronco is and what it does.

Yeah, well, aside from a dream, this Bronco is the most capable, fun to drive and thrilling

Bronco just below Raptor.

The only Bronco offering that would be more capable would be Raptor.

This has been the culmination of well over a year of working very closely with the Ford

Enthusiast Vehicles team and my team at RTR to develop such a Bronco, one that is built

for and by Enthusiast, something that has the looks and the DNA of RTR and the racing

that we do with Ford and creating the attainability and affordability that only Ford can make

happen at mass production.

So tell us about some of the modifications for the Bronco RTR.

Yeah, well, aside from the appearance that you see, you know, bringing in our hyperlime,

styling, the, you know, signature RTR grille with integrated lighting.

When you get into the real nuts and bolts of it, aside from how bad it looks,

maybe I'm a little biased, but you know, you know, one has got anti lag.

So for those of you that don't know what anti lag is, anti lag is a way to get rid of turbo lag

and give the driver the response that they want when they command the throttle,

which is super useful on off-road and, you know, I don't know this for a fact,

but I feel like this is the first off-road production vehicle that has anti lag.

Yeah, I don't know the answer to that, but definitely for an RTR.

The other thing that we've done is we have the largest steering gear on it.

So it basically has a Raptor steering gear.

So for that strength, especially on high loads, when you're crawling or articulating a lot of load

on the front end, it's got a really strong, you know, steering gear or steering rack.

We have enhanced the cooling system. Again, went into the Raptor parts bin and stole some parts

for the cooling system to keep the vehicle cooler, slow speed cooling, helping for recovery time,

and, you know, when you're hot out there in the desert or any terrains.

One of the things I'm most excited about is what we were able to achieve suspension and

vehicle dynamics-wise on our base vehicle. So the Base Bronco RTR comes with

high clearance suspension and a wider track. So the high clearance, the base suspension comes

with the Bilsteins. This offers us roughly an inch more than or inch more ride height than a

standard Bronco. And then you can of course get the Sasquatch package. So the Sasquatch package

of this vehicle gives you the 35 inch tires, Fox internal bypass, the lockers and things like that,

and then the modular front bumper. So what you'll notice as a driver, right, the higher clearance

kind of speaks for itself, you know, you're not dinging and touching things when you're out there

in the rough stuff, you know, you're crawling, you're going through rocky terrain, you know,

you're coming up over peaks and valleys and you're not turtling out or rubbing the frame in the middle.

The other benefit is the wide track, which we got with a very aggressive wheel offset.

Not only did the aggressive wheel offset allow us to design a really bad wheel,

but it also increased our track width, which gives you much better stability. You know,

for me, you know, sliding around a little bit out in the hardback, you know, the vehicle feels a

bit more planted off camber turns, things like that. You just get more stability. And so,

you know, really have taken a lot of things that we've learned from racing, you know,

about how 1000 from the things that we do racing King of the Hammers and and brought that mindset

and some of the what I what I would consider like some of the more simple things to do,

especially when you're working with Ford and you have all of this, this capability in the,

you know, in the portfolio and basically built the vehicle that that I would want, you know,

they all come with the two, three 10 speed auto two, three, that motor was a conscious decision

for the nimbleness and the lightweight and the vehicle dynamics. So it's very much a driver's

Bronco. It's very much, you know, a looker's Bronco, someone that wants something aggressive and,

you know, you can buy this Bronco and you don't have to take it, you know, to get it ready to go

off road. You can just take it straight or you can use it as a slate to, you know, personalize it

as you would. And you mentioned this. So this slots below the Raptor and you're kind of pitching

this is more of a like an accessible Bronco for people who want a lot of off road capability,

but a little bit of daily driver and it's just it's less expensive. Kind of talk to that that

there's a little bit of a wider net here with this Bronco. Yeah, you know, the Raptor, in my

opinion, you know, is the, frankly, is the most capable in the Raptor portfolio when you consider

its ability to rock crawl and do the tighter stuff that the others can't. And, you know, but,

you know, Raptor has it, you know, has its place, it's a little bigger, it's wider, you know, it's

not for everyone, not everyone's worried about that maximum speed. And so to have a vehicle that

can give, you know, such an incredible experience and make sure that you're not left stranded and

make you feel like a hero is what the goal was here. But again, the key of the entire RTR lineup

here at Ford with Mustang and Bronco is attainability. Like I'm an enthusiast to my core.

And I, you know, we have our spec vehicle line, which is vehicles that we get from Ford, we build,

and then they go to dealers and their pre title. They're not cheap. You know, I mean,

Mustang and Bronco is anywhere from 70 to well over $100,000. And so for us to be able to come

out with something like this, even though we can't speak of pricing, it is people are going to be

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LLC and eBay subsidiary. You've been tuning forwards for quite some time. I actually,

I'm dating myself. I was at SEMA like 09 somewhere in there when you pulled the cover off of a car

way back. So this is like whatever 17 years later, probably both had less gray hair. Talk about like

you know what it's been like working with Ford and what it's been like just kind of really getting

it not just racing but now you're like a legit you know car tuner and you know what's that been

like that sort of journey? Yeah, no, thank you for that question. You know, when I started RTR,

it started with the passion to make Mustang cool again to a younger generation.

When I got my first Mustang, I wasn't a Mustang guy. And I have a unique perspective of why

you know, it was losing cachet and I just had a passion to make it cool again because I think

it's such a special, it was such a special vehicle. And that once I got into that,

and I grew my brain space, I'm like, you know, I just wanted us to do really cool with Ford.

Like I personally have a, you know, undying passion to win on and off the track with them. And so

going from like starting RTR is like a dealer installed package where we would,

you know, send dealers a literal palette and then they would install it to now having our own,

you know, bailment where we get vehicles, we have an upfit partner that builds them and they

go to dealer and then having a true collaboration with Ford. You know, this was always in my vision.

I was always like, we're going to get, we're going to get there. And it just took us doing all the

things, you know, the special vehicles, you know, we built Ken's Unicorn building all of our race

cars. And really Ford seeing our capabilities and our approach and passion and commitment.

Both ways, you know, we kind of know what we're doing, but also that we are just Ford. Never

built another product for any other vehicle other than Ford vehicles. And so it's been

really enlightening, you know, because, you know, for the past 15 years, call it, you know,

we've been doing it on our own. You know, I never really had like an inside look of how Ford does

things. And so it's been really fascinating to see how this company has been, you know, game

changing for over a hundred years, approaches the business, you know, how they, how they do things,

how they test things. And so it's, it's been a lot of learning and, but a lot of like very much

juxtaposition because we're a little more smaller, scrappy, nimble of a company versus

company Ford, right? And so this project was really like a mesh of both of our strengths,

right? For instance, like we did the wheel design. Yeah. Ford's never made a wheel so quickly,

you know, and, and so, you know, like our grill, you know, we were a lot of studio

collaborating with studio on this project. And so it was really fascinating to

really get in deeper than we've ever been, you know, and I've been working with Ford now going

on 20 years. So we, you know, really assessing the business from being in my business mind on

and really understanding how they, how they do things. It's fascinating. And there's,

there's a lot of learnings of things to do and some things to avoid, you know, when it comes to

like slowing things down and stuff like that. And so, but, you know, we challenged the system

and, and every step of the way, they really appreciated it. Like a, they appreciated the

perspective and they challenged us and we appreciated it. And it was just a really,

really cool team effort that we extracted the passion. And, you know, this vehicle kind of

had some benefit because we had already worked through each other with the Mustang, which there

was a lot of learnings, you know, like Mustang wise, this is the second time Ford's ever done

a collaboration at this level with Bronco, I think it's the first. And so, but we had a

similar teams aside from like the core engineers, but when it was studio wise and Ed actually was

the Mustang program, you know, chief engineer, when we started the Mustang. So,

so, but what I'm trying to say is that we kind of had, we kind of had a little bit of flow going

when we came to, to do Bronco, but the mindset has never changed, right, is build a bad fun to

drive thrilling attainable vehicle. And now we have Bronco to go with Mustang. And yeah, it's

just, it's an absolute honor. I mean, this, this is, it's not lost on me. What this means, you know,

and, and the validation for, you know, my team and RTR and what I've built. And it just started

his passion. I had no business plan. I just wanted to pull straight up. And that's all I've

continued to do is just live like not by my accountant, but live by my passion for automotive

fun. And here we are. You, if I'm not mistaken, Carol Shelby is like the only other guy who's

done sort of the in depth relationship with some of the Ford products as you have. Can you kind of

speak to what it's like to be like, literally here we are at world headquarters behind the curtain?

That's gotta be pretty cool, right? Yeah, it's, it's so hard to put into words, you know, because

it's like, I come from a perspective of like, it didn't just happen overnight. I've been working at

this for 20 years. So like, I'm not surprised because it was always real in my head that we

were going to be here. But I do have to say there's been multiple, you know, tears come to my eye

when I come here. And I got people like Farley hitting me up and just being like, man, like,

these are, you guys are doing such a good job. And, and, you know, people like yourself, they're

constantly like, dude, you're only the second person in the world to ever do this, you know? And

but, but for me, you know, it's, it's just flattering and humbling and, and an honor. But

you know, all of those things are very secondary for the pride that I feel of what we're able to

produce for the customer. You know, I'm on the ground all the time. I see what we're able to do

and offer people from vehicles, whether I give them a ride or they just see some of our creations,

you know, they're just like so mind blown. And so for us to be able to create things that people

are actually going to be able to get behind the wheel and feel the effort and hopefully make

them feel like a superhero and make them feel included in something that's bigger than them

is very, is a very special place to be. And that for me is, is the reward over any of the other

things that come along with programs like this. Very cool. Very cool.

That's Von Gittin Jr. You're listening to the AutoGuide show. We'll be right back after this.

eBay has reinvented vehicle buying from click to curb. Everything's covered with their new secure

purchase. eBay isn't just where you find your car. It's where you buy it start to finish title,

financing, registration, delivery, it's all built in and eligible vehicle purchases are backed up

by up to $100,000 in protection. This is what modern car buying looks like. Get your next

ride on eBay. eBay things people love. Secure purchase is powered by Carmel dealer services,

LLC and eBay subsidiary. Okay, it's time to bring in Mike for our aftermarket

gear segment, the Garmin dash cam mini three. I feel like we've talked about a couple of dash

cams on the show recently. Mike, how is this one? Oh, don't worry. We got many, many more

dash cams to go over the coming weeks. But hey, that's good, right? It's for trying to give consumers

the advice on what's good and bad about dash cams. Garmin, well known name. You'd be hard

pressed not to know someone who had a Garmin GPS handheld portable unit back in the day before they

all showed up in cars. I think everyone in my family had one. But they also do the dash cams and

many other products. So this one specifically, I actually requested usually companies reach out to

me and say, Hey, you want to review my latest dash cam? And if it's something new or different,

I say, Yes, this one I went after because Greg liked me, we have unique jobs, we are going car

to car week to week. Not everyone does that. But I wanted a small, easy to install dash cam that

I could put in every press car I have. So if anything happens, I have the footage. So this

camera is very small as the mini name would have you believe it's only a few inches tall, wide,

deep. I specifically got the Garmin accessory suction cups. So it's easy to put on car to car,

as opposed to having one of those sort of more permanent mounts. And the goal is every week,

I can put car to car. Now, the use case, besides what we do is there's a lot of people who travel

a lot and they get a rental car, sometimes multiple times a week, sometimes weekly, sometimes once a

month, but whatever, it's also good to have a dash cam for them because especially when it's not your

car, something happens, you want to be able to cover yourself. And this one would easily fit inside

any sort of computer bag briefcase, it works just like a dash cam, as it should do to its name,

it records actually really good quality, it has the same sort of automatic save alerts, there's

one button on the back, it's so small, but that's the save button if an incident happens, if it

gets shaken hard enough, it'll auto record if it detects a accident, it works just like any dash

cam and then the quality is actually really good and it all goes on an SD card, like most of these

cams, like a micro SD card. Being so small, you are going to have some limitations, there's no

screen on the back so you can't see what's happening as it happens, you can stream it on your phone

live if your phone's in the vehicle with you, that helps you get it set up angle wise. The download

from the camera to the phone is actually quite slow, it doesn't have the fastest Wi-Fi speed set in,

but being a chip, if you have a reader, you can just pull it out and put it on your computer,

so otherwise it does all the basic thing the dash cam could, without any extra frills, but it's

like a fourth the size and as I said, very easy to move around and with the suction mat, which is

also very small, it's very portable, so yeah, someone who needs a portable multi-use dash cam,

this is a good option, if you're looking for a permanent solution in your car, you probably

want to spend some more and get a nicer unit with more features. Sometimes it's nice to get

something that's just very straightforward, like you don't always need a Swiss Army knife, you need

something that does basically one thing well and it's portable and accessible and adaptable,

so that sounds like what this is, plus you get like the Garmin brand, the name obviously very

strong, I've used a bunch of their different products from their watches to fitness equipment,

this sounds kind of interesting, I mean, for someone like me who does get in and out of a lot

of test cars, Mike, you've sort of educated me on the purposes of a dash cam like this, for me,

this would probably be the one for me, you know, because it's portable, it's easy, that's what I'm

looking for, I'm not looking to shoot the next like Scorsese flick, like from my dashboard, I just,

like you need a camera, so this sounds pretty back to basics.

Yeah, so it's available and like you said, the Garmin name is a huge part of it, like this is one

of their lower price products, but I also, and we'll get to it in a couple months when the weather

gets nice again, I have like a four figure performance recorder from them, it's this giant

unit and it's like, it records everything you would want on when you're lapping for a weekend

fun, so yeah, Garmin, you know you're getting quality parts with it and the name to back it up,

they're not going to, you know, in a month if something goes wrong, no longer exist, so that's

a big plus too. All right, sounds good, so that's our gear test with Mike, thanks for hanging out,

we'll be right back after this one, we're going to go inside the AutoGuide Garage.

All right, so we have both been driving some interesting things as far as like a bit of an

off-road thread, you a bit more serious than me, you have the Raptor and I had the Passport,

Trailsport, why don't we start with the Raptor, I mean let's just be real, people love Raptors,

what did you do with this thing, did you like go to Baja, what was your week like with the Raptor?

It's funny you say more serious because I really feel like I'm not getting to drive it

the way you should because I live in the middle of the third largest city in North America and

I'm in the suburbs where it's flat and boring, but I do have the OG Raptor, the F150, this is just

the regular Raptor, not the Raptor R, so I have the turbo six cylinder, not the big V8, still makes

ridiculous power, the valve exhaust, I can make it loud, louder and illegally loud, it's what you

expect, the reason I'm driving it is that it isn't much different, but we haven't driven one in

years, so I wanted to see you know, does it still have what it takes because we've driven Ram, RHOs

and all of these AT4 X GM models and whatnot and you know what, it's still everything you think,

I went on a couple, well I guess it's months ago now, about the Bronco heritage and how I just

love the way it drives and the big knobby tires, I mean this is very similar, luckily today and

earlier in the week we've had snowstorms, so that sort of lets me test it more where it excels,

it just laughs it off, I mean these aren't dedicated winter tires, but the mud and snow

all trains just chew through the stuff, I mean the ice you got to be a little more careful, but

like any modern car there's a million drive modes and it took me a while to find the combo,

but when you set it in the right settings with the stability and all that and the

four-wheel drive system, it is a blast to just slide around in the snow and whip around and for

size, it takes some, I wouldn't say skill because that makes me sound like I'm a better driver than

I am, but this isn't, you just get in and you can slide around like some cars and make you feel

like you're calling McRae, like this is an advanced tool, it's meant for people who know what they're

doing and then if they can get the max out of it, they can get the max out of it and it took me

a while to sort of ramp up my learning curve and I've gotten there now and I can just imagine

what this could do in like real hardcore off-road situations because there's some roads here that

are terrible and it just laughs them off ride comfort wise and I can just imagine if you're

just whipping across dunes or slowly crawling rocks, snow banks are everywhere because we've had

a terrible winter and just ride right through them, like who cares, downsides it is massive,

I have to drive my son off at school and it's very tight parking lot and I've caused a couple

traffic jams trying to get in, luckily again half of that lot's kind of covered by snow banks so I

two wheels up on them and get by which entertains the kids and sort of the

highlight of the drop off right now for all the grade fives and under but yeah it's just a cool

truck that's way overkill for probably almost everyone who buys it but if you get to take it

where it's intended even once or twice a year it's totally worth it. That's a pretty succinct way to

you know put it right there if you do get to use it even if it's just occasionally it is totally

worth it so that sounds I mean that sounds like a lot of fun. I've always had a great time when

I've driven the Raptor even for just like short local loans here in the fleet or you know some

Ford things it's always such a it's such a party it really is and I think Ford was kind of like

really they helped reinvigorate this segment by bringing back the Raptor name and just making it

the special thing that like we're talking about I think they're trying to get there with some of

their other trucks like the Lobo. I'm looking forward to getting into one of them later this

spring if spring ever gets here but I mean to me they've really created it's an icon as a cliche

right but I'm I'm excited about this truck I can't wait to drive another one so and I actually

think they also do a good job with like some of the details like Raptor interiors they look cool

you know they do some things so and I got all the graphics packages on the outside which

it's one of those vehicles like a lot of like a charger or a challenger like it's fine on those

vehicles because that's what it is like you don't feel it's tacky sort of like an Ismo or Modis I

had recently but um just one last point I want to make because you kind of got to it is I don't

know what it cost the USF to look it up again I think it's around the 80,000 in Canada it's six

figure but it's one of those vehicles where it's that much money yet you don't feel bad if you go

and abuse it off road it's like you're paying a lot but the people can afford it it's like

that's the point is I'm paying crazy money but I don't care if I destroy it whereas like a G-Wag

and some other real expensive vehicles that are range over you're never going to take off road

and get scratched this thing it's like you know okay I'm sinking all this money into it but it's

going to be able to take the abuse and if I scratch up my fenders or rip off some cladding or

dent to skid plate who cares that's part of its charm and it's just cooler for it so uh good on

Ford on succeeding or yeah getting that sort of right combo where yeah it's crazy but you also

don't care if you you bash it a bit the base model in the US starts at about 79 I just looked it up

which I would argue and this is with the 3.5 liter EcoBoost I would argue it's worth it I think

you get a lot of stuff for it it's full-size trucks are expensive right now

they do some significant things that do make this more capable more special more fun to drive so I

think it's worth it and then if you get the Bronco R because you mentioned you had the plain old

excuse me Raptor R you had the plain old Raptor it's like I mean do you even need that that 5.2

liter V8 I mean that's where you get into six figures here in the US and it's that's an expensive

truck yeah like the Raptor falls into two categories one people who really can usually like they're

going to beat on it pretty good on their weekend just for fun like people who have memberships to

off-road clubs and off-road parks I mean or people who do need the capability a day like they have

to climb up the side of a mountain every day and then the people who just want the look like maybe

they're going to go down a cottage road once a year and feel like that's off-roading and I think

that's where they are is more it's like look I have the Raptor and I have a Supercharged V8 like

no one who's going to use it regularly probably will even want the Supercharged V8 like you want

it you feel worse if you've spent actually 30 grand for your thing you're going to you know constantly

be putting new shocks and bits on so and you don't need all that extra power to climb over a rocket

two miles an hour so I think that's an excellent segue to my vehicle for for this week I tested

the Honda Passport Trail Sport which is I think an outstanding vehicle for if you want to go down

your cottage pathway once a year it's extremely comfortable for that expressway drive but then

once you get there with those big knobby tires the extra ground clearance you just cruise right over

that bumpy terrain to the cabin in the woods which is exactly what I did I actually tested a couple

of different passports this is kind of at the end of last year so I kind of mush them together

one I did take as we say here in Michigan up north like four hour drive 75 the family the dog

all the stuff we take with us comfortable not a problem that 3.5 liter v6 is great on the highway

decent fuel economy it's it's fine and then once we get up to you know the up again as we say where

things are a little more like rugged and on cut this thing looks right in you know it does not

look out of place it's it's a you know tough looking SUV it's got that truck kind of vibe and I think

that's very cool so I really liked it you know again then later in the fall I actually drove it

it was sort of my commuter vehicle for North American car truck and SUV of the year testing

because it's that sort of group test is like kind of out it's out there so you want something that's

comfortable and good to drive and the weather can kind of get squirrely in October around here so

again you wanted something that might have some capability so this really fit the bill on all

counts comfortable seats lots of interesting like design cues inside to give it that sort of

trail sport vibe Honda has done a good job with the trail sport trim I think across its lineup I

think it's a golden age almost of like trail sport wilderness some of the other ones out there as far

as like if you want something that's like an off-road vehicle most companies have something for you

and this one you don't really get a ton of upgraded capability here but again just being in this like

sort of squared off SUV with this like like vent and the headlights vent in the hood it looks the

part but you do get these like again knobby tires you get the ground clearance it's easy to drive it

points where you steer it it's there's a number of different drive settings which I think can make

it you know more capable or more efficient depending on how you want to drive it so again for both

stints I really enjoyed it the most recent one I drove was the passport this is the elite one

which was actually it was about $54,000 it was loaded up and again worth it I think when you

consider the average price of a new vehicle is close to 50 depending on you know what's going on in

the world that day I think something just north of that that's capable you can put your whole family

in you can load it up and it's good in so many different situations I think it's worth it I you

know if I looked at some of our various competitors almost all of them have this thing near the top

of its segment and I think that's telling you know I think auto journalists can suffer from group

think but also we're often right you know like we started know what we're talking about so you

know there's other things in the segment from like the Bronco to the Forerunner

that can make things a little more like really truly capable off-road but at the same time

I think this is a nice mix you know it kind of gives you something that's comfortable but again

very drivable you know I put this up there like the Toyota Land Cruiser is another one in this

segment but yeah I mean I got a ton of stuff in this thing too for like both stints I mean like

literally I filled this thing up and like had to like manually close the lift gate it was hilarious

I have actually like a YouTube short of it that I need to bring back up so I really liked it I

think when people ask me like I'm thinking of a Jeep Wrangler or something I say hey that's awesome

if you want to get a Wrangler more power to you if you're gonna not really do that much off-roading

you might want to look at this thing because it's not that it can't do the off-roading it's that

the other 90% of your life you're gonna be way more comfortable so I give this thing a really

strong strong evaluation I've really enjoyed it both times I've driven it I actually was surprised

it didn't win North American SUV of the year I kind of thought it might I was a little surprised it

didn't but strong vehicle so have you driven a passport lately yeah I've driven the passport

trail sport my first trail sport everyone's actually the pilot and fingers saying I agree

I was surprised at the tuning they did a suspension and all-wheel drive system

that just made it far more confident feeling on just even like a gravel washboard road with

the tires and true point about the off-roading it's so true as people think you need the most

hardcore thing to do the most basic thing like people would be amazed what a stock

Subaru Crosstrek or Forrester wilderness could do it could climb places that people would be

convinced only a built cheap off-roader can the difference is it'll do it once or twice and then

they won't want to keep doing it because you're straining suspension and bushings and other

components to its limits and you're ripping off bumpers and just like it's fully capable so with

off-road it's sort of not I need x capability it's I need this much capability that can

repeatedly take the abuse and that's sort of where this new class of wilderness and trail sport goes

these cottage roads that a regular trail sport in a regular outback could go on no problem but

after your 50th ride you might start wearing out your busher you might start leaking a strut or

something they're designed to take that extra abuse and then if you need to go places where

they could rock crawl but after three or four rounds you start damaging stuff that's when you go up to

the raptors and whatnot so just like a track car right like you can track in that chord but after

a couple laps the brakes and tires are going to be screaming for their life whereas that's why

Porsche or Corvette are designed to be able to handle that better so yeah it's a good spot I think

for people who need to regularly tow especially or carry families on beat-up roads and it's not

going to destroy your transmission because they usually have extra coolers or your suspension

or your tires aren't going to just have chunks of rubber come off because they're not designed for

the the sharp rocks so Toyota or Toyota Honda does a great job not everyone I'm not going to

name them other names there are some other brands in the space that don't do it right but

Honda is one of the ones that's doing it correct and like I mentioned Subaru and as you said it's

sort of a mild off-road golden age where everyone needs a rugged something I mean

there's hardly an SUV out there that doesn't have a knobby tire option even if that's all it is so

it's just the trend right now and yeah Honda's cashing in properly and the passport just looks

cool so yeah I mean I like again I couldn't have said it better myself I think it's it's a solid

vehicle you know it's a good family vehicle but you can also have some fun with it so

it is a golden age for off-road-ish trims if that's what you're looking for which it's

it does seem like that's what everybody's looking for so all right so that is what we've been driving

in the AutoGuide Garage we'll be right back with the mailbag all right so the news this week is we

had some Tesla Roadster patents surfaced Mike you were kind enough to write that up but what

of our users asks what is going on with the Tesla Roadster and the answer I think we have is well

we're not totally sure they did tease about a few years ago and there is that like teaser that

was flowing right out there and then we're seeing some patents which patents are interesting when

you're sort of trolling the patent rolls it could just mean they're keeping the name it could mean

they are doing it for like toys like a lot of times you'll see things like the name Chevelle

will be trademarked and you're like oh yeah that's for like a hot wheel or something or a

matchbox car so we don't really know they haven't said they're not doing this they did say they're

not doing the Model S and Model X with Elon Musk you always take what he says with a grain

of salt we'll see when those things actually sort of muster out or get their honorable discharge as

he said I'll say this on the list of the like Toyota products I'm not sure this is very high as far

as like what would pay the bills or as important but Tesla also hasn't had a real runaway product

hit because they don't really refresh their products all that much so a Roadster would

definitely kind of you know start a new conversation about Tesla so I don't know two years that's

going to be my like I'm going to throw a dart against the wall and say maybe in two years we

see a Roadster and it might look like this teaser that's about all I got what do you think Mike?

Well if I'll start with the prediction my prediction is more cynical Roadster is never

never coming it depends it's funny how it depends on who you ask that question to Tesla

I wouldn't say a fan but like a believer would say like it's they've already ordered theirs

it'll be here any day a Tesla detractor would say like I said never but I don't mean it and I'm

being negative to Tesla it's just you look at what's going on right now as you said they killed

the Model S and the Model X because the sales had slowed down so much that they were being classified

as others in their quarterly reports and the others include the Cybertruck and the Semi and

those were the last two great revolutionary products that Tesla unveiled and neither caught on

like the brand had hoped someone who really understood the industry could step back and

take a look knew neither ever were but like Elon Musk is the greatest type man of our era and he

had built it up and his supporters built it up that you know it was going to take down this and

that like one of the things was it was going to take down the F-150 lightning well I guess

technically it's outlived it but none of those vehicles are ever going to outsell anything

so I just don't get like he is a businessman and he understands money how a Roadster at this

time is going to make sense for the company they've said time and time again they're going into their

humanoid optimist robots and that's where the company wants to go so I don't see them getting

another niche low-volume vehicle that it's not at its own platform everything's kind of built

together but it wouldn't be dedicated tooling all around if you were to tell me they were going to

bring out something else built on the 3Y platform okay and maybe the Roadster could somehow adopt

off that so so maybe but I really think this whole patent thing is what you said is to keep

their intellectual property it might be used for toys video games it might just be because they

want to keep the door open on it it might just be for branding other things but yeah I don't think

this is a telltale sign the Roadster's right around the corner I I think we've kind of moved on from

that but the company's never going to say we're not going to do this so um yeah I uh I just think

it's uh keep our keep from other people stealing our Thunder type deal I could uh you know you

mentioned using like an existing like a model 3 based Roadster that actually sounds pretty good to

me that could be a lot of fun you could even use the Model S sort of layout and make that like a

grand tour like a Mercedes SL fighter you know there's a lot of ways you could unpack this but I

don't think any of them are super super likely you know plus they I guess they could always call

Lotus again that's the thing with Tesla specifically too is any other manufacturer that's

cars or their bread and butter and like that's what they do if you look at that platform and

you're going to build a derivative I mean we were just talking about earlier in the show

Tesla could just print money if they made a square-bodied off-road version of the 3Y platform

and sold it it would become probably their best-selling vehicle but Tesla doesn't do things

like other people do so maybe they will build a Roadster instead off of that platform but I mean

if you put a a the tires off the Cybertruck onto a small little two-row SUV that's the same footprint

as the Model Y I mean that would I can't imagine that not being a success but no one knows what

Elon's going to do next and that's sort of what's given him his success so yeah I mean you know

the model not the model the Roadster could be announced before the show goes live for all we

know so that's our that's us not answering the question but that's about all you can do

that's just us I would say speculating like it it could happen we don't really think it is going

to at least not anytime soon but hey thanks for thanks for asking so that is all the time we

have this week thanks to Vaughn Gittin Jr for hanging out at the top of the show you've just

listened to the AutoGuide podcast presented by eBay Motors eBay has reinvented vehicle buying

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