Episode 424: 2025 Chevrolet Blazer SS, 2025 Range Rover Sport SV Edition Two, Listener Questions
Unnamed Automotive Podcast
Episode 424: 2025 Chevrolet Blazer SS, 2025 Range Rover Sport SV Edition Two, Listener Questions
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Car
BMW M5
The BMW M5 is a fast and luxurious car that is designed for performance. It's like a regular BMW 5 Series but with a lot more power and sporty features.
Car
BMW Z4 M Coupe
The BMW Z4 M Coupe is a sporty car that looks a bit funny because of its shape, which is why some people call it the 'clown shoe.' It's designed for performance and fun driving.
Car
Chevrolet Blazer
The Chevrolet Blazer SS is a sportier version of the Blazer, which is a type of SUV. The 'SS' means it has more power and better handling than the regular model.
Term
SS
'SS' means 'Super Sport', which is a label used by Chevrolet to show that a car is designed for better performance and sportiness.
Term
all-wheel drive
All-wheel drive means that power goes to all four wheels of the car, which helps it grip the road better, especially in rain or snow.
Term
front-wheel drive
Front-wheel drive means that the front wheels of the car are the ones that get the power from the engine, which can make the car more fuel-efficient and give more space inside.
Term
rear-wheel drive
Rear-wheel drive means that the back wheels of the car are the ones that get the power from the engine, which can help with handling and performance, especially in sports cars.
Term
three cylinder motors
A three cylinder motor is an engine with three cylinders. These engines are usually smaller and lighter, making them good for saving fuel in compact cars.
Term
four cylinder motors
A four cylinder motor is an engine with four parts called cylinders that help it run. These engines are often found in smaller cars and are known for being efficient with fuel.
Term
grip
Grip is how well your car's tires stick to the road. If the tires have good grip, the car can go faster and turn better without sliding.
Car
Chevrolet Equinox
The Chevrolet Equinox is a smaller SUV that is easy to drive and has good gas mileage, making it great for families.
Brand
Cadillac
Cadillac is a brand that makes luxury cars and SUVs in the United States. They are known for their high-quality and stylish vehicles.
Car
Cadillac Lyriq
The Cadillac Lyriq is a new electric SUV from Cadillac. It has a modern look and is designed to be environmentally friendly.
Car
Cadillac Optiq
The Cadillac Optiq is a new electric car that Cadillac is planning to release. It will focus on luxury and modern technology.
Term
Pursuit Vehicle 9C1
Pursuit Vehicle 9C1 is a special version of a car made for police use, with features that help in high-speed chases and other law enforcement activities.
Car
Holden Caprices
The Holden Caprice is a large, comfortable car that was mainly sold in Australia. It's known for being roomy and having strong engines, making it a nice choice for those who want a luxury ride.
Term
RPO
RPO is a code that tells you what special features or options a car has. It's like a label that helps identify what is included in the car when it was made.
Term
kilowatt hour (kWh)
A kilowatt hour is a way to measure how much energy a battery can store. It tells you how long an electric vehicle can run before needing to be recharged.
Term
horsepower
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful an engine is. The higher the horsepower, the faster and stronger the car can be.
Term
EV
An EV is a type of car that runs on electricity instead of gas. This means it doesn't produce exhaust fumes and can be cheaper to run.
Term
two motors
When a car has two motors, it can use one for the front wheels and one for the back wheels. This helps the car go faster and handle better.
Term
torque
Torque measures how strong an engine is at turning things, which helps a car accelerate and pull heavy loads. More torque usually means better performance when starting or climbing hills.
Car
Cadillac Lyric V
The Cadillac Lyric V is a powerful electric SUV from Cadillac. It's designed to offer luxury and advanced technology while being environmentally friendly.
Term
EV drivetrain
An EV drivetrain is the part of an electric car that helps it move. It includes the battery and electric motor, which replace the engine found in gas cars.
Term
kilowatt hour battery
A kilowatt hour battery measures how much energy a battery can hold. The bigger the number, the longer the car can drive before needing to recharge.
Term
0-60 time
0-60 time tells you how fast a car can go from a stop to 60 miles per hour. It's a way to see how quick a car is when you start driving it.
Car
Chevrolet Ss
Car
Chevrolet Corvette
The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and stylish sports car that many people love. It's famous for being made in America and is often seen as a symbol of coolness and performance.
Concept
Altium platform vehicles
The Altium platform is a type of design used by General Motors for their electric cars. It helps these cars run better and have a longer battery life.
Car
Hyundai Ioniq 5 N
The Hyundai Ioniq 5 N is a sportier version of the Ioniq 5 electric SUV, designed for better performance and driving excitement.
Car
Mazda Miata
The Mazda Miata is a small, two-seat car that is really fun to drive. It's light and nimble, making it great for people who enjoy taking their car on winding roads or tracks.
Car
Land Rover Range Rover
The Range Rover is a fancy SUV that can handle rough terrains while keeping you comfortable inside. It's known for being luxurious and is often used by people who want both style and adventure.
Car
Subaru Outback
The Subaru Outback is a versatile car that can handle both city driving and off-road adventures. It's roomy and great for families or anyone who loves the outdoors.
Car
Bmw X5
The BMW X5 is a stylish and comfortable SUV that drives like a sports car. It's great for families or anyone who wants a nice vehicle that can also be fun to drive.
Car
Porsche Cayenne
The Porsche Cayenne is a high-end SUV that drives really well, just like a sports car. It's designed for people who want a lot of space but still enjoy a thrilling driving experience.
Car
Audi Rs
Car
Bentley Continental Gt Speed
The Bentley Continental GT Speed is a super fancy car that's really fast and luxurious. It's made with high-quality materials and is designed for people who want the best of the best.
Car
Porsche 911
The Porsche 911 is a classic sports car that's famous for being fast and fun to drive. It's easily recognizable and is loved by car enthusiasts for its performance and style.
Car
Toyota Tacoma
The Toyota Tacoma is a tough pickup truck that people use for work and outdoor adventures. It's known for being reliable and can handle rough conditions.
Car
Ford Ranger
Car
Hyundai Santa Cruz
The Hyundai Santa Cruz is a smaller pickup truck that is easy to drive around town. It offers the benefits of a truck while still being comfortable like a car.
Car
Ford Edge
The Ford Edge is a comfortable SUV that's good for families. It has a lot of space inside and comes with many features that make it easy to use.
Car
Nissan Frontier
The Nissan Frontier is a smaller pickup truck that is built tough and is usually cheaper than other trucks. However, some people think it doesn't drive as nicely as others.
Car
Ram 1500
The Ram 1500 is a big pickup truck that can carry heavy loads and is great for work or play. It's known for being comfortable to drive, even on long trips.
Car
Lucid Air
The Lucid Air is a fancy electric car that is designed to be very high-tech and luxurious. It's made to compete with other expensive electric cars and offers a lot of cool features.
LIVE
Hello, and welcome to the unnamed automotive podcast.
My name is Sammy Hajesad, and with me, as always, is my good friend and fellow automotive
journalist, Benjamin Hunting.
Say hi to the people, Ben.
Greetings, corporeal and non-corporeal spooky season listeners.
Greetings to everyone.
I hope you've enjoyed your spooky season.
Ben and I, our pair of automotive journalists, we're also very good friends.
Isn't that what makes this podcast so unique?
Debatable.
You can find Ben's work all over the internet.
Ben, plug a couple of the publications you've been writing for.
You can find my work at Spooky Motor Trend and Horrific Hagerty and GhostlyDriving.ca.
And you can find my work at driving.ca and autotrader.ca.
Ben, you also have...
Not the spooky versions?
No, not the spooky versions.
I don't write spooky content lately.
Content.
You never write content.
Don't use the word content.
What should I write?
How should I describe the...
I know articles, features, reviews, bomo, I don't know, whatever you want to...
I just feel like content is reductive and it likens us to cogs.
I also do some videos for the driving.ca YouTube channel.
There you go.
I don't really know what the URL for that is, but I'm sure if you search for it, you'll
find it.
And you'll find a bunch of other fun YouTube stuff that it's always throwing at you.
Thank you, algorithm.
YouTube is great at that.
Sammy.
Yeah.
Do you ever wear a spooky costume when you're doing one of these videos?
No, I don't.
Not on these videos.
I should.
I think I've worn a costume once in my entire career on video.
Do you want to talk about that or is that something you're only talking about with your
therapist?
No, I can talk about it.
It was for an old M5 video I did for AutoGuide and I made the argument that it's expensive,
but it's like having five different cars in one.
And so I took a different costume for each personality of the car.
Do you remember what the costumes were?
I think one was like a professional driver.
One was like a race car driver.
One was like a family guy.
One was like a hacker, I think.
I don't know how that.
Yeah, like a computer person.
Like hacker from like the movie Hackers or hacker like Hugh Jackman from Swordfish?
No, I can't pull off the Swordfish.
Or Chris Hemsworth from Black Hat.
No, neither of those.
I guess the movie Hackers.
Did you ever dress like Madonna from the video she did with Clive Owen in the M5?
I think we both know the answer to that and I'm not even going to make it public.
I am your imagination.
I'm amazed at the level of dedication and craft you've invested in this single video,
which has never been absent from the rest of your career on camera.
You were like, it's all going in this one moment.
And then from here on out, it's like no more costumes.
Well, let me go and see what the take rate on the feedback was on such a video.
I want to also ask you on other videos, you might not have worn a costume,
but did you wear like my makeup or clown makeup?
Because that's like a costume.
That's like half a costume.
My makeup.
Yeah, you know, like you paint your face white if you're a mime.
No, like a like a like a disturbing chalk white.
You have you've never seen a mime?
In person, I know that they I know what they can be.
I know that they want.
But I think traditionally you're looking at a mime.
Are we really going to talk about this, man?
Why don't we talk about cards?
You know, I thought we were.
But then you got sidetracked when you you told me the astounding revelation
that you don't know what a mime is.
I do know what a mime is.
They're like, why would a mime wear makeup?
You make it sound like I'm an AI, not knowing what a mime is.
Absolutely.
That's a really big leap, dude.
I know what a mime is.
I know what the the act of miming is.
And you know that I went to a clown camp once when I was a teenager.
I think I do know this.
I'm not sure if you talked about it on the podcast, but I know this about you.
It was actually a drama camp that had a clown segment and we learned how to do
clown stuff.
So what?
It was like one class during the camp?
No, it was like multiple days.
So like every day during how long was this camp?
Like a week long?
Probably a week.
I went to it a couple of times at every like seven seven a.m.
There was like seven.
There was a clowning.
I don't remember the details because I was very young.
I do remember that when you had the clown nose on, you weren't allowed to talk,
but you could make like you could make like gibberish noises,
which is how clowns communicate.
There's a whole infrastructure of clowning that I love it.
I think we should consider making the clowning a part of our podcast going forward.
Moving on to cars.
Actually, before we move on to cars,
I have the most cloud like of car lineup.
No, but I do have a Kickstarter campaign that's currently going.
Yeah, I want you to talk about.
When this comes out, you're going to have a couple of days to get in on it.
Model, you and comic dot com aliens, 90s, high school,
feet of the earth, hanging the balance.
I know a lot of you already in on the campaign.
I want to say thank you.
We've already met our goal.
Just kind of get it out in front of as many different eyeballs as possible.
Tell your friends all about it.
Model, you and comic dot com.
Back to you, back to you, Sammy.
We don't have a we don't have a clown lineup of cars today.
No, not at all.
We've never had some interesting cars to talk about.
We usually talk about interesting cars.
What's your number one clown car?
Number one clown car.
Is that that?
What is the color BMW Z M coupe?
OK, mine's a micro because you get a fit.
Tiny clowns inside a big, big clowns inside a tiny car.
Right. Like that's the whole thing.
Isn't that isn't the nickname for the Z M coupe, the clown shoe?
Yeah, but a clown shoe is not a clown car.
I think you're getting lost up, lost in the anatomy of a clown
rather than the personality of a clown.
Would you watch a movie called The Anatomy of a Clown?
Why? Why are you working on one?
No, I wouldn't say I'm not working on one.
I you know, I support you.
This is a movie that I would watch for you.
OK, all right.
One ticket sold. Perfect.
Yeah, how many more you need to recoup your lot?
AnatomyofaClown.net.
Your how many more do you need to recoup your your clown camp?
There is no accounting for the emotional
losses I suffered while filming Anatomy of a Clown.
OK, truly a mistake.
We've got a really important car to talk about.
Extremely important.
You wouldn't know what to talk about.
We have really put off.
It's the twenty twenty.
Is it twenty twenty five Chevrolet? Yes.
You're almost there.
Blazer SS. That's right.
The SS stands for something, something.
Supersport. Supersport.
This means that it's
it's not only sporty, but very sporty.
Right. Yeah, supremely sporty.
Here's the thing.
Chevy has gotten weird about the Altium platform.
And I want to say that that's because I think they got a little too excited
about about like the potential of a brand new EV platform.
And the reason I say this is because you can order a Blazer in all wheel drive.
Front wheel drive and rear wheel drive versions.
That is all on the table.
Who was asking for front wheel drive?
Let alone all three of these things is the Neapolitan ice cream of electric
of electric SUVs.
There is no compelling reason for there to be all three of these options.
Either make it all wheel drive and one of the others or just leave it alone.
Because as Sammy points out, there's no mechanically with an electric vehicle.
There's no advantage to having a front wheel drive set up in a gas powered vehicle.
The reason front wheel drive cars are so dominant is because of packaging.
You can put everything like engine transmission and the drivetrain in one unit.
You put that unit in a small place and you can easily move it.
Well, for, you know, for cars that have four cylinder motors, three cylinder motors,
relatively compact drivetrain, which lets you make the cabin pretty big.
You don't have a hump on the floor for the transmission and all that stuff
in a lot of cases, and it's also cheaper to build that way.
So it makes sense.
But dynamically, when you're driving a car, physics dictates that when you accelerate,
the mass of the car shifts towards the rear wheels, which means that
in a front wheel drive vehicle, when you accelerate, the mass lifts off of the drive wheels,
which can affect traction, especially if you have a lot of power.
Absolutely.
So the other the end, which is why a lot of, you know,
enthusiast oriented cars stick to rear wheel drive.
Exactly.
And a rear biased all the dresses.
And physics part two also dictates that when you have tires, the contact
patch of your tires can do it has a certain level of grip, which can't be exceeded.
So if you're accelerating, that's going to put pressure on the grip.
And if you're steering, that's going to put pressure on the grip.
But if you're doing both at the same time, that is going to be a problem,
which is why the front wheel drive cars typically traditionally don't handle as
well as rear wheel drive cars, because in a rear wheel drive car, the acceleration
is on one axle and the steering is on the other.
There's less of a demand on the traction, on the contact patch of those front tires.
Sorry for the car one on one thing.
I just wanted to discuss because, you know, a lot of cars come in different,
you know, wheel or powertrain configurations, very few cars, if any,
I think come with all three setups, right?
Yeah, I want to say the Blazer is the only one right now.
One on sale or on sale and ever?
That's a good question.
That I'm sure that I think there's maybe a European car that's also done this.
Like from like Czechoslovakia.
No, no, I think it's also an EV.
I think they've also pulled it off.
Really? OK. So I'll look into it.
Maybe or maybe it's just maybe it's just a Chevrolet brand thing.
So I can't I can't understand this, but it happened.
It happened.
The other thing about Blazer is that it's really similar to the Equinox.
Like, really?
I thought the Equinox has a smaller battery and less, way less power.
I'm just talking about in terms of like design.
Oh, yeah. And and size, like the Equinox is smaller.
But when I drove it this winter, it felt big.
It drove bigger than it is in a good way or a bad way.
I'm going to stay neutral on that.
I was just a sensation that I had.
OK, but like, hold on, let me talk, though, in terms of design,
this like idea of like one exterior design being spread across.
I mean, this is how Audi used to design their cars all the time.
I'm saying this is almost like this is almost like Chevy's Audi inspiration,
where they were like, OK, the Equinox and the Blazer are going to be very similar.
And you can almost see it at Cadillac as well.
Now that they have the optic, the Lyric and the.
This is the optic.
That's that was the first thing I said, Lyric, optic, this tick.
Oh, my goodness. Is that all of them?
I think there's one more.
It's a less there's a less escalate it as well.
Right. Yeah, escalated.
So they they're all very similar,
but I do think they do a decent job of differentiating differentiating them.
I'm just not sure that the Blazer and the Equinox are different enough.
Like I have trouble telling them apart at first glance while I'm driving.
OK, what about you?
No, I think I agree with you.
I think I have to double check.
Maybe it's the fact that I don't see a lot of Blazers.
And I think I see more equinoxes.
So I just assume and especially because the Equinox is considerably more,
I think considerably more affordable than a Blazer.
I just assume that it's the Equinox all the time.
I have a question.
Why did you send me the Wikipedia link to Neapolitan ice cream in our chat?
I thought it would be interesting for you to bring up on the air,
considering you used the term Neapolitan ice cream.
It's a really good tangent where we we can understand that the very first
recorded recipe of of the Neapolitan ice cream was actually in
a Prussian household.
What? How was that a good tangent?
No, I'm shutting this down. No, OK, fine.
The the other thing to point out is that I think I started seeing some of these
Altium and one of the things that I think are really important about the Equinox
and the Blazer, I started seeing I think them being used by my police,
my local police force.
I saw I've seen a lot of gas powered
Equinox and Blazers use my use by law enforcement.
But here's something weird.
When I got the Munroani, which is the the order sheet for this Blazer
SS that I'm driving at the in French, because it's in Quebec,
it said Pursuit Vehicle 9C1 and then it said to assess trim level.
And I know what you're saying is GM.
And I'm like, what's going on?
They're like, yeah, that's wrong.
So you don't believe it or they're they're doing a cover up?
Well, I was just like, how am I going to?
How am I going to figure out exactly which trim level and packaging I have?
I think it was just a typo on the Munroani,
but it does link up with what you were just saying.
9C1, the universal GM code for a police package.
No, I didn't know that.
Yeah, to know 9C1 all across like history in model.
Well, as far back as like the Caprices that they used to offer,
they also were all 9C1 cars.
Is this something I didn't know ever 9C1?
Any time somebody says 9C1, they're talking about.
How many people say that to you, though?
Is that like nobody?
I mean, I don't talk to anyone about you anymore.
I don't know what happened to my life.
Is that the Neapolitanized?
I'm googling it.
There must be a Wikipedia article for 9C1.
Yeah, the Prussian household that invented the 9C1 ordering code.
GM. It is.
It's a whole Wikipedia article on this.
Well done, man.
GM loves its new alphanumeric ordering codes.
R-K-O? No, what is it?
There's a certain.
Anyway, I can't remember.
There's there's a specific RPO.
There you go.
Something production order.
It's considered an S, a special equipment order now,
as opposed to the regular production order, RPO.
OK, OK.
So but then the blazer is like this big old thing is big old thing.
That's what they advertise it as.
They should come on down.
What's going on?
The problem, the thing is, I know the Equinox has, like,
I think a 60 kilowatt hour battery or an 80 kilowatt hour battery.
So the the blazer, the base blazer has 85 kilowatt hours.
85. The SS steps up to 102.
The reason for that.
And here's what's interesting, too.
There, if we're going to get even more in the weeds about this
all-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive thing, yeah, the fastest version
of the non-SS blazer is the RS rear-wheel drive.
The how fast is that?
It has 364 horsepower.
If you want all-wheel drive for the RS trim, you get a second motor, right?
And a lot of the time when you have an EV with two motors,
that's a lot of power.
That gives you more power.
It's the opposite here.
It drops down to 300 horsepower.
I wonder what that's all about.
I have absolutely no idea.
And I've never seen it properly explained.
OK, it is an unusual thing.
Now, should I send an email to somebody and get this cleared up for our podcast?
Ask them about 9C1.
No, I'm not going to do that.
I think they get concerned when a guy of my complexion
in last name asks people about police cars.
So and also the RS trim is the only sorry.
The LT is front-wheel driver, all-wheel drive.
But the RS is our is that this doesn't make.
I'm not even going to get into this.
Forget it.
Let's move on to the SS.
The SS.
102 kilowatt hour battery.
It has two electric motors and it has 615 horsepower.
And let me double check the torque figure.
Why I heard that it has it has less torque at certain times
and then more torque at other times.
Is that true? What does that mean for horsepower?
Well, I understand that there's a fancy fancy mode
with a really gimmicky name called Watts of.
Yeah, I will. I'll get to that called 615 horsepower and 650 pound feet of torque.
The drivetrain for this vehicle is lifted directly
from the Cadillac Lyric V.
So the high-performance version of that.
It's supposed to have 302 or 303 miles of range.
We'll talk about that a little bit later. OK.
But like you were saying, Sammy,
most of these high-performance drivetrains,
when you look at a EV drivetrain specifically,
when you look at their performance numbers, their output numbers,
it's it's like a burst of power or it's a special mode that gives you that.
And the reason for that is often due to heat
because the more power you pull out of a battery,
the more heat is generated, the more quickly you do it.
So if you're maxing out the amount of battery power delivery that you have,
sometimes you can only do that for a certain amount of time
before you need to shut things down and let the battery cool off.
In the SS, there's something called wide open Watts mode,
which they abbreviate as Wow. Wow.
It's accessible through the drivetrain selection.
There's like a sort of drive mode selectors.
There's like normal sport and all this stuff, but there's something called Z mode.
And Z mode lets you configure the vehicle and it also also has a secondary button
like you can configure throttle sensitivity.
You can configure how this how heavy the steering feels, that kind of stuff
like like you would have for most performance cars these days.
But you can also there's a button, a separate button on that screen
that is for wide open Watts.
And you push that and it goes brawl.
Like it makes like a noise like in War of the Worlds.
Yeah, Stephen King version.
Stephen King, the Steven Spielberg.
Can you imagine the Stephen King version of War of the Worlds?
Yeah, it starts David Duchovny instead of Tom Cruise.
So it makes a brawl tripod sound.
And then you have like crazy power for pretty much as long as you want it.
Like I never had it wear off when I was using it.
So maybe I just ran out of road before I ran out of acceleration. Wow.
So one hundred one hundred and five kilowatts or one hundred and two kilowatt
one hundred and two kilowatt hour battery, six hundred horsepower.
No, six hundred and fifteen horsepower and that's a lot of the pound feet of torque.
Also, those are big numbers for for for a car.
Just to continue talking about Z mode, there's also a competition mode.
There's a competitive mode that's accessible there that that is not Z mode.
No, Z mode is the mode that allows you to it's essentially just a word for
like personal personal travel.
Oh, yeah. OK. Z inside Z mode.
There's a competitive mode which backs off like traction control and stability control.
I used it a bunch of times.
I never really noticed the vehicle getting out of sorts.
I'm not the kind of person who's going to throw like a six thousand pound
vehicle around on a public road.
So maybe if you're on a lot like a big wide open stretch of asphalt in a parking lot
and you wanted to drift it, you could probably do that in the competitive mode.
My personal opinion is that absolutely zero people are ever going to put this
on a track or in a high performance environment.
I don't think that that's what this is for.
And I think that General Motors recognizes that as well
because you don't get it really.
There's no air suspension.
There's no adaptive shocks of this vehicle.
You're getting like a a monotube shock upgrade over the standard version of the car.
But other than that, it's pretty much like Brembo brakes up front.
Twenty two inch wheels with summer tires and the big power boost.
Like that's what the SS is.
It also has some styling stuff.
Like it does look different from other Blazers inside.
It had like a red interior, red leather, which is pretty cool.
But when you're driving it, this is really an EV whose party trick is go very fast
in a straight line like three point four seconds to 60 miles an hour.
Holy, that's extremely quick.
It's faster than any other Chevrolet SS model in history.
So all the big block, all the big block Camaros, all of the charge Corvette.
Yeah, well, I don't know if those were SS's.
Those were ZL ones. Oh, sorry.
You're just saying SS's. Gotcha. Yeah.
So in any case, it's very fast in a straight line.
If that's entertaining for you, I think you would like this vehicle personally.
I find that that gets old.
It's something you do a few times and then you kind of forget about it.
I like the fact that I could easily pass people with this thing.
This is so quick that I regularly was going way too fast on normal roads
because it's you don't notice how fast you're going because of how sensitive
the throttle is and how instantaneous acceleration is.
And like because it's the fall and because of where I live, there's a lot of leaf
papers. I've mentioned this in the past.
They're driving slow on the roads around my town.
It's really annoying.
Basically, it's a tourist car. It's a tourist complaint.
And so I would pull out to pass them and I look down and I'm doing a hundred
miles an hour. Oh, my God, it's just crazy.
And it doesn't seem like a hundred miles an hour.
It does not feel fast in a good thing or a bad thing.
And sometimes I know that luxury cars like really excel at delivering
a car that is fast and doesn't feel fast.
It feels like really like smooth and luxurious and refined.
This is not a luxury car.
I would wager that like if you're an SS fan, you're probably wanting to have
an engaging driving experience. A thrill, right?
This doesn't really offer that.
It's extremely competent and extremely quick.
It does not corner in an interesting way.
It does not really reach out and grab you as a driving experience.
It is very practical.
It's got a ton of cargo room. It's got a great backseat.
I think that the pricing is not totally out of line in Canada.
If you're looking at an SS, the price is $59,000 Canadian.
That is not horrible.
That's sorry. That's that's the US.
Sorry. Sorry.
It's $59,000 US.
Again, not horrible for the insane amount of power you get this for.
Get get with this.
Sorry. In Canada, it's $73,000, which makes it $13,000
more than the cheapest all wheel drive version of the Blazer.
That's a bit of money to spend.
I don't know.
I think the one real complaint I had about this vehicle, maybe two,
the brake performance was not spectacular in the sense that there was kind
of a vibration from the brakes at almost every speed, which made me think
it was the regen and not the the performance brakes that were doing it.
OK, maybe my vehicle was beaten on a little bit, maybe not the before I got it.
I mean, the other issue I had was range.
I mentioned earlier, 303 miles of range for this Blazer SS.
That's pretty good.
But in reality, I was driving at temperatures of about 11 degrees Celsius.
So I want to say like 45, 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
And I was only getting 44.7 kilowatt hours per 100 miles of driving
or 3.6 kilometers per 100 per 100 kilowatts of driving.
All of that works out to 228 miles per charge, not 303 miles.
And Sammy and I were doing some investigation before we started
recording where we were looking to see if this was an outlier
and other people who've had like a lot of highway miles on the Blazer,
which is mostly what I was doing.
I took three road trips in it.
They were around 250 miles per charge, someone I think got up to 275 miles.
Either way, that's still well below what the factory is advertising.
So the cold does affect battery power, but normally to see a 30
percent drop like I saw, you would have to be at below freezing.
And I certainly wasn't.
Yeah, I mean, this is something that we're we're starting to see
a little bit more frequently with the Altium platform vehicles.
I think you had a similar complaint with the Equinox in the winter last year
that it was consuming energy nearly twice the rate it's supposed to.
And it seems like maybe Altium's cold weather
performance is not nearly as good as what we've expected.
This is just not that cold, though, like it's it's not.
Yeah, it's not above freezing.
You should not have this issue, in my opinion.
So, I mean, that's another important thing to bring up is
are these things just over promising or under delivering entirely?
Right. I mean, maybe in perfect conditions, you could achieve 300 kilometers.
Maybe not in your it might be also arrow.
Like I'm driving about 75 miles an hour on the highway.
But a number of my road trips were also on secondary roads
where I was driving about 55.
So like, where's the sweet spot for this vehicle?
It's hard to know.
In general, I mean, EVs are heavy.
This is a six thousand pound vehicle.
The Sierra Denali I had last the week before was, you know,
three thousand pounds more than that, and that is not efficient at all either.
It might just be a feature of Altium.
You know, maybe Altium is just very context sensitive when it comes to range.
I'm.
I'm worried about that.
I'm worried about that because I think that that sets a really bad
precedent for the mainstream EVs offered by Chevrolet
and and and all of its other brands, right?
That they just need a big battery to get to get anywhere.
That's what you experienced.
That's what most people experience with the
the trucks, which I think offer that offer a 200 kilowatt hour battery 205.
And everyone's really impressed with the range of that.
But the reality is that if they were more efficient
and especially in different weather conditions or cold weather conditions,
they should be better than than what I mean.
The reality is these trucks are pulling a trailer filled with gasoline.
That's that's the analogy that is most accurate when you're looking at their range.
So I don't have much more to say about the Blazer SS.
I'm not disappointed by it.
No, wait, I'm not done yet.
Hold on. What are you?
Where are you going with it?
There's one more car that's kind of similar in this class,
and that's the that's the Ionic 5N.
In fact, it's the only car that's similar in its class.
And is that worth talking about in any way or form?
I know neither of us have driven it.
Neither of us have driven it.
It's a few thousand dollars more expensive than the SS.
It's a little bit smaller.
It's also a thousand pounds lighter.
So they also make no no discussion about how much more it does.
It is not the highest range version of the Ionic, you know, it isn't.
No, I don't think so.
You can buy a more expensive Ionic 5.
No, more highest range, like like driving range.
Yeah, I'm not really concerned about driving range.
I think that like I think these are two different vehicles
because the Ionic 5N is everything that has been pushed to us
for marketing shows it on a racetrack and handling is like a big deal.
And it has suspension work that the SS doesn't.
I feel like if we really wanted to do an apples to apples comparison,
you have to realize that one of these is a muscle truck
and the other one is like a sports truck.
Interesting. That's that's the way to look at it.
And you know what?
I can't blame Chevrolet for doing that.
I don't really think there's a market for a vehicle
the size of the Blazer that is a handler.
Like it's not who's buying that.
I think the Ionic 5N is also an anomaly.
I feel like the smaller size and the lighter weight
maybe makes it a little bit easier to swallow.
Only comparatively, right?
Yeah, only comparatively, like these are like the reality of somebody
who wants to have a performance car, you know, a fun car to drive on a track
will opt for something as light as the Miata if they want to.
There's also problematic aspects of taking we were talking about heat before
taking a vehicle to the track that is battery powered.
You have to think about heat management.
You always have to think about heat management at the racetrack,
even with a gas powered vehicle.
And with with with an EV, it's the same kind of idea,
except instead of the engine, you're worried about the battery heat.
And, you know, if you exceed the battery heat,
you can often be put into a like a limp mode.
The other thing, too, is if the battery is really hot after you come off the track
and you go to charge it, that's going to affect your charge speeds.
It's a whole ecosystem.
We're not really in a world yet where battery powered vehicles,
I think, are making headway among enthusiasts who go to the racetrack.
Again, smallest possible like niche market you can think of.
I don't I completely get why they're not being focused on.
But these two outliers, it's they're they're kind of bookends
of the of the whole performance TV thing.
Yeah, I mean, they say should I say the affordable performance TV thing?
Yeah, I think the whole aspect is to have a car in the showroom that,
you know, with a single test drive can make someone go, oh, wow, this is wicked.
Well, like so many of these can do that, right?
Like this. Yeah, I feel very fast.
I don't know how like the the the difference from a 3.5 second
to a 4.5 second zero 60 launch.
They're both awesome, right?
It's all meaningless at this point.
Exactly.
Which, you know, is there anything there's nothing else you said you wanted
to talk about with this car?
You don't mind if I if I transition to the one that I drove.
Go for it.
Which is equally, you know, disturbing to talk about in terms of performance.
Disturbing.
I drove the 2025 Range Rover SV, specifically the Edition two,
which again, is a really weird name to to provide a vehicle
because it makes you it makes everyone know that you didn't get the first
edition of a car that you got the second one.
It is a performance oriented version of the Range Rover Sport.
Is it is it an SVR?
It is not an SVR.
The SVR name is gone now.
It is it is the replacement for the old SVR.
So it's the Range Rover Sport Edition two Range Rover Sport SV Edition two.
OK. And it is despite, you know, typically Range Rover's
offering a ton of off road capabilities.
This one has a totally track oriented
design in terms of the way they've engineered it.
And let me walk you through this because just before you do.
I want to bring up the fact that this vehicle is only 500 pounds
less than the Blazer SS only 500 pounds less.
Significantly larger.
Ten percent, ten percent less weight.
And packs a turbocharged V8 engine.
All wheel drive. Probably not as powerful.
You think so? No. OK.
Six hundred and twenty six horsepower.
And five hundred fifty three pound feet of torque.
So it has a hundred pound less of torque and ten pounds.
Ten ten horsepower and can do zero to sixty and three point eight.
So you're looking at the Blazer's tail lights.
Yeah. And what's that?
Paying for the privilege of seeing a Chevy badge.
You want to see that?
You want to know the price tag?
I can't quite reach the price tag of this addition to the
especially the one I drove was over one hundred and ninety
thousand US and in Canada, two hundred twenty six miles.
Wow. Yeah.
That's a lot of money, ain't it?
That is a lot.
Did you know, though, that it weighs a hundred and sixty eight
pounds less than the non SV Edition two?
Yeah, I did because it has a lot of carbon fiber.
Now, this is something that you really have to pay attention to
because why would a, you know, basically nearly a six
thousand pound vehicle or is it a six thousand pound vehicle?
I was looking at the kilos need to shed weight.
Like, what is the point here?
And the point is right, right, bro.
The thing is this thing has a ton of carbon fiber accents.
The hood is carbon fiber, and you can option it with carbon
fiber wheels, which I think are the craziest idea for a Range Rover
because, you know, there are, you know, the Range Rover's
killer app is that they're usually really capable off road.
And nothing for this vehicle, right?
No, I mean, this thing does have all the same off road features
in terms of like the off road drive modes that has an air suspension system.
It should be capable at, you know, getting over an obstacle
or a pothole in your way or I don't know, man, I'm looking at the
right the ground clearance of this vehicle.
Are you able to raise it?
Yeah. OK. How high?
I don't know that. I don't know the the let me get that.
I had it for a minute, but then I closed it like I always do every single podcast.
Yeah, it's almost like your mind is a sieve.
Off road ground clearance is two hundred and fifty one millimeters.
No one knows what that means.
Nine point eight inches.
OK, that's pretty good. Yeah.
That's one inch more than a Subaru outback just for those people.
Those people, that's always our benchmark, right?
Keeping score at home in terms of price versus ground clearance.
So I was really like, first of all, it's really attractive.
Edition two comes in four different motifs.
The one I had with this Nebula blue matte paint.
Matte paint is such a great idea in theory until you remember that
washing it is a huge pain in the butt.
And every time anything touches this paint, you have to wash it off in whatever way you can.
But it's super attractive, looked really nice.
I kept I couldn't help but think of other super SUVs when I was driving this car.
And my personal favorites are always the BMW X5 M and the I think there's
a Porsche Cayenne turbo, which is around the same price point
and performance characteristic of this car.
But I found this thing to look really good, feel really good, sounds very good.
In fact, this car features the same power train
that's found in the BMW X5 M competition.
Wow. Yeah.
Thanks, BMW, for sending your engines out.
I do think it looks really good. I think you're right.
And I think it looks better than any of these other super SUVs
that kind of like try to be really aggressive by.
You know, bulging out these flenders,
fenders, putting on like like scoops or or bulges in the in the hood
or the other parts of the car or vents.
And I think this thing just really looked really sharp.
I was really happy with that.
Really strong first impression, even with that matte paint.
And inside, it looks really cool, too.
There's a lot of weird gimmicks that I think are worth mentioning here.
For example, as far as I understand, the SV,
the Sport SV comes with the largest carbon ceramic brakes offered on the market
with discs that measure at four hundred and forty millimeters.
Again, with the millimeters.
That's what they use.
Let me break out my yard.
That's seventeen point three inches.
So the Blazers are fifteen point three inches.
Yeah, bigger brakes and eight pistons up front.
I four in the back.
What are we? OK, are we ever going to get ten piston brakes?
Is that going to happen?
I think there are.
I think there's ten piston bake or are they going to skip to like a dual caliper set up?
I have RS six potentially has.
Is that off the?
No, Zed Zed R1 2026 Zed R1 has optional ten piston brakes.
That's insane. OK.
Again, are these pistons just smaller
because you only have so much size, which break?
Yeah, so much disc to grab and the caliper could only be so big, right?
So like, are they just?
I understand if you're making more of more of something smaller for heat reasons.
Yeah, like maybe it works that way, or maybe it's just advertising.
You know, like we start to it's just an arms race for who can have the most pistons.
You know how many pistons my track car has?
Two, one, one single piston front brakes.
But you're going to waste like a little paper.
Yeah, it was two hundred and two hundred two thousand five hundred pounds.
Yeah, which is like half a little less than half of this gigantic SUV.
The Audi RS six, the Bentley Continental GT Speed
and the apparently the 911 Turbo S can be had with ten piston brakes as well.
Anyways, they they Range Rover has told people
that during their test drive of this car, they put on, I don't know,
a ton of like eight hundred laps or something ridiculous like that.
I don't believe it.
Here are laps of what on Port Amal,
the Algarve racetrack there or the racetrack in Algarve.
And it did not need a change of pads at the end of it.
They were very proud to mention that.
I don't know if that's nearly as impressive.
I mean, how fast are you driving, guys?
I think it was for the media, the media introduction.
So usually those those hall pretty.
Yeah, when I was at the M five introduction at a
it might actually have been that same circuit because it was also important.
Yeah, they were changing pads like every two sessions.
I'm not joking.
And I ended up losing my brakes entirely at the end of the front straight.
And one of the scarier moments I've had at a press launch,
the pedal went all the way to the floor and I had to downshift, downshift,
downshift, downshift, and I barely made that corner. Wow.
Yeah. So Range Rover has obviously heard that story over there at Algarve
and like, we'll try to make that not happen again.
Another important thing.
So first of all, this thing rockets from from a standstill.
It has a top.
It has like a pretty high top speed.
I think about 180, which is why you love top speed.
You never thought about it until I never talked about it before the podcast.
You're right, usually.
And it can stop really well.
It also has an interesting suspension or chassis system.
It doesn't have traditional anti roll bars.
Instead, it uses a combination of the air springs and these dampers,
electronic dampers that does not sound expensive or complicated.
It's extremely expensive, very complicated.
They call it 6D dynamics.
There are six variable, six variables that the system calculates.
Let me see if I can get them off the top of my head now,
because again, I don't have the spec sheet, lateral, vertical, longitudinal.
No, I don't know how to calculate that one.
Roll, pitch and yaw.
It calculates all of these things.
How many pistons is it?
Yeah, it calculates all of these things to optimize the ride quality
for whatever you're gunning for.
And as a result, can feel really flat when you're trying to corner with it,
which is pretty cool for a big SUV like this.
And I found it to not have a ton of body roll
when I was hustling it on the back roads that I had for our video shoot.
I did not take it on track because I'm not that crazy.
And Hamilton Raceway was closed.
Like Hayuga, it's called, but it was not closed.
I just didn't feel like wasting a whole day going up and down
and knowing the limits of this car for, I think,
an audience that would probably not really care about it.
Are you talking about our podcast audience, Sammy?
No, I'm thinking about the potential shoppers or reviewers,
the people who'd be reading and watching a review on this thing,
probably don't care about its track ability at all.
I don't think this thing will ever see a track if despite it being so advanced.
And I mean, you might tow your track vehicle to the track with it
and it might see the track like over the pit wall for the pit wall.
And I mean, it's super cool.
It's got a really great exhaust note, much better than I think
blaps out of a BMW X5M.
I think it sounded really great.
It looks really good, handles really nice for a car of its size.
The interior has some really cool gimmicks.
The main thing I need to point out is they've gotten rid of every single
physical control in the cabin for the infotainment system.
Really stupid thing to do.
Even, you know, volume knob, not there.
You have to slide a button up and down on the edge of the gauge
on the edge of the infotainment screen. Nobody wants this.
In addition to that, the screen is like haptic.
It has like these haptic feedback.
So you actually don't just slide your finger.
You have to push and make sure that it like it like vibrates back
before you can operate it properly.
So it was really it's really cumbersome to use.
I'm sure that maybe over time, you'd be super comfortable with it.
But I couldn't help but think that if one thing goes wrong with the screen,
pretty much any function you're looking to do with this infotainment system
is wiped out as well.
I need to talk about the sound system.
But before I do that, I want to mention that these seats are really fancy.
It has heated seats, vented seats and massage seats up front.
I'm mentioning that because there are there is a system in these seats
that takes data from your sound, from your audio, your audio source.
Oh, no.
And what do you think and vibrates the seat
in in beat with your with your music?
This is like when you're a teenager and you put a subwoofer under the passenger seat
to three way worse to thrill your passengers.
I think there are six vibrators in the seat.
OK, is that what they call them?
I don't think they call them that.
But what do they call the personal massagers?
It's a secondary massage system.
It is not the massage because the massage massage is usually used
in some sort of like, I think, an air system or a motor system to do it.
If I operate or not air, they're like speakers.
If I operate these vibrators plus the massage system at the same time,
you can't do them both at the same.
Do I go into orbit?
Yeah, yeah, you go into you go into a headspace of orbit for sure.
I feel like this is the definition of distracted driving.
So they have like a little function, a little app on the on the infotainment
system called like body and soul. Oh, you click, you click on this
and it can like provide like this spa like experience where the seats
kind of like tweet out to you in this in this really like, I guess,
zenful way. I found it a huge gimmick, really funny, totally unnecessary.
I can't believe. Yeah, I got a follow up question.
Hit me with it. I don't know if I'm five years from now.
How many of these landrovers are going to be totaled when these seats stop working?
Insurance can't cover the replacement of one seat, you're saying?
I'm saying that these vibrators, as you call them, they probably like
what if like they fail one by one and then you're just getting like erratic
pulses and there's no way to do like you can't just obviously you can't replace
the vibrators and you can never employ ownership of the vibrators.
You always have to say the vibrators, never your vibrators or his vibrators.
Yeah. And then you'd have to replace the whole seat, I'm thinking.
I guess so.
You I mean, they're all in there and they're they're really like
they're really integrated in the feet, if you know what I mean.
I do know, I feel like they're a pressing issue.
I think those seats are probably $50,000 each.
And that's if you can find them in stock because they're also selling them
to movie theaters and I don't know.
D box, isn't that what it's called in the movies?
I think I mean, I don't think they work in D box.
Do you like do the rear passengers get this this pleasure as well?
I don't think so.
What about the cargo compartment?
No, what if I'm overlanding and I want a vibrating bed?
I bet you do. No, I don't think so.
What is this?
I need to see if I have if I have better information on this.
This is one of the silliest.
This is one of this.
This is right up there with like this is right below aquarium
aquarium in the dashboard in terms of like weird customizations.
Who has an aquarium in the dashboard?
No one does. That's the final frontier.
It's like it's either that or like a soda dispenser.
Like those are the two things that we haven't had yet in a factory car.
Now that we have like
butt dancing seats that boom to the rhythm.
Hold on. I got I got a great one for you.
Not only is it called body and soul seat, the acronym is bath.
It's bass or bass?
Bass, bass, whatever.
OK, it is a multidimensional audio experience with a wellness
benefits, which allows the front seat occupants to feel the sound.
This is the first production vehicle,
probably the last to incorporate a tactile audio system from,
you know, this industry leader sub pack.
Yeah, everyone's all my friends talking about some packed all my homies sub pack all day.
Technology used by the world's top recording artists and composers.
You see, incorporating sub packs, AI, optimizing software,
the transducers, this is what they've called them,
a line to the front seat occupants, backs, body and soul seat,
body and soul seat, analyze the media in real time, just the back generating.
Yeah, I'm instantly less interested.
So they call them transducers.
Do you know what I'm going to Google?
Yeah, transducer, it translates sound into motion.
And then that's what you call it?
It translates one thing into a thing.
That's a different thing.
It's a device that converts energy from one form to another.
Yeah, that's what I just said, except I said it in a less less academic way.
Sammy, I have a question.
No, hold on, hold on, let's I mean, I have one more thing.
The body and soul wellness program, bath well, I made that up, I'm sorry.
The body and soul wellness program can help enhance the Range Rover Sport
as these front seat occupants, mental and physiological well-being
by influencing heart rate variability.
Whoa, that seems like something a lawyer would not allow to be written anywhere.
Could the the six specially developed tracks could affect HRV,
either helping to reduce anxiety or improve cognitive response.
Special tracks.
Are you saying that there's music that goes with this?
Yeah, it sounds like a song music designed in collaboration
with Coventry University's National Transport Design Center
and School of Media and Performing Arts.
So it's not specialty develop track.
There's two.
There's so there's this special.
There's this wellness app that incorporates these six tracks.
OK, or you can just make it work with whatever you're listening to.
OK, here's my question.
If you're not answering any questions, that's all I got.
If you're listening to opera.
Yeah, theoretically, could the system prove fatal?
Oh, my God, why?
Because you hit those high notes and one of those transducer slash vibrators
just punches through your spine like that's like the tiny mouth and aliens.
Or like the fifth element, the fifth element.
Do you have a booking in mind for your Range Rover Sport FV?
A booking. Are you going to book one to test it?
My heart rate is fine as it is.
I don't I don't need to start messing with that.
Now, a sub pack and I, we go way back.
I don't need to. That's wild.
That is the most frivolous feature I think that we've ever talked about.
Do you think so?
It's pretty close.
What's more frivolous than that?
I love it. It's so good.
It's hard to think of something else.
I mean, it's as good as like having a mood ring in a car.
A mood ring in a car.
Yeah, just it tells you what your mood is.
Is that a thing?
No, I don't think so.
What about a mood ring shifter?
Do you want that?
Well, we're close to having a mood ring.
Doesn't Genesis have that like glowing orb?
You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, it's an infotainment screen.
Oh, it's a gate. It's a gear selector.
Yeah, the gears, it's a glowing orb until it's a gear selector.
Yeah, flips over Jaguar style.
Yeah, so I mean, we've come close to mood ring.
But just no one.
And it changes color based on the drive mode, probably.
I'm surprised Hans Zimmer is not somehow involved.
I know, I mean, this is this is the anti Hans Zimmer.
I mean, I think Land Rover tried.
They tried to get Hans Zimmer and he was like, this is frivolous.
This is not a BMW.
I wrote the score for four days of thunder,
but I won't be based myself to this level.
I think he looked at this and he looked at his BMW contract and said,
I'm sorry, I can't help you the same motor.
Yeah, that was the main reason they tried to entice him by saying,
look under the engine, of course, it's the same.
Anyways, this car is wild.
I had so much fun with it, but it's completely for nobody.
I don't know why anyone needs a track oriented Range Rover Sport SV,
but they made it and they made it pretty well.
I'm surprised at that fact.
But I also have pretty fond memories of the old SVR, as you called it,
because it had a supercharged V8.
Yeah, I went to the launch of that vehicle.
It was fun.
One of the coolest sounding motors I've ever.
And really like high, like it had a really quick revving,
like really good response on the throttle on that thing.
It really sounded great, looked great.
I can't wait till the first person launches a child seat
through the sunroof using the transducer system.
Like that's not in the in the rear seats.
You think the next the next year they're a front seat child seat.
Look, if you're irresponsible enough to use the transducers
with a child in the car, then you probably don't pay attention
to which row they're sitting in.
That's true, I guess.
So I don't know if there's anything else I really have
or want to talk about with this car.
OK, cool car.
But yeah, who's it for?
And I hope they're enjoying it.
Yeah, so we can move on to we have a great question from listener
Henry, who wrote in and said a whole bunch of kind stuff about the podcast.
And we really appreciate that.
It helps feel us and make us feel like we're doing it.
Like we're really connecting with people out there, which is great.
Yeah, we're happy to keep people entertained.
Henry is asking a very specific question.
I think is also a very interesting question.
So they are looking for a pickup truck
because they have two specific needs, actually three specific needs.
The first is it has to seat four people.
The second is it needs to tow a 16 foot aluminum boat
with about 300 to 400 pounds of gear.
So that's the gear, the boat and the seating.
This means that you're looking at a crew cab pickup, most likely.
And so far, Henry thought about the Tacoma, but with the engine issues.
They said, not sure about that.
Santa Cruz and Ranger also look promising.
Curious as to what we think.
So the life first.
Yeah, well, I was going to say it depends.
The answer depends on a couple of variables.
One of the first is where that three to 400 pounds of gear is going to be stored.
If because when we're talking about smaller trucks like this
or even larger trucks, some which I've had problems with,
you have to keep in mind that you have a gross vehicle weight rating
to deal with, which is not the same as the gross combined rating,
which is what they use to determine how much truck can tow.
But the gross vehicle weight rating is the maximum amount of weight
that the vehicle's platform can handle once it's loaded.
So that's what determines your cargo capacity.
So for like, let's say a vehicle like the Santa Cruz,
it's around 1,600 pounds of cargo capacity.
That's what you could put in the bed.
But that's that's a kind of a deceptive number
because you also have to subtract the weight of the passengers.
So let's say you're four people.
Let's be conservative and say that's 600 pounds.
So that's already you're down to 1,000 pounds of cargo.
Then you have this three to 400 pounds of gear, which, you know,
it could be anything could be fishing stuff.
It could be camping stuff.
It could be just outdoorsy stuff.
So you add that, let's say it's 400.
Now you're down to 600 pounds of cargo.
Yeah, yeah.
Now we've turned into a math podcast.
It's a math podcast.
There's one last piece of math that it's easy to forget about.
So you're thinking, all right, I have 600 pounds of cargo capacity left.
That's not too bad.
The trailer itself, I have, let's say for towing,
I believe the Santa Cruz is 5,000 pounds.
So a boat trailer, we're going to do some quick math.
Was it Sammy and aluminum boats that were like, what, 600 pounds?
Max kind of about the size.
Let's add 1,000 pounds of trailer.
I don't know.
Anyway, you're well under the capacity for a Santa Cruz,
but you have to take into account the tongue weight of the trailer,
which can be up to 30 percent of the of the trailer's weight.
And that cuts into cargo.
So if you have 400 pounds of cargo left, or I think that's the number
we had 600 pounds, sorry, and you have a trailer that is 1500 pounds,
let's say you could have as much as 500 pounds on that tongue weight.
And that cuts your cargo capacity down to 100 pounds left.
Yeah, I'm bringing this up.
This is very, you don't have to necessarily follow all the math I've said,
but all we did was take all of the things that Henry is going to be putting
in this truck, add them together, and we're at the knife's edge
of what is possible for the gross vehicle weight rating.
OK, now, the scenario could be different,
that there might not be that much tongue weight.
Which car, which truck are you talking about here?
The Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz, but even if you look at a vehicle like
the Ranger, I believe the cargo capacity is 1800 pounds.
So that gives you more breathing room, maybe Henry's bringing kids along
and the only way, you know, 200 pounds combined.
It's that that's a lot of variables.
Maybe all of that weight that is going the 400 pounds a gear is in the boat.
And it's not in the truck.
If that's the case, you're adding it to the weight of the trailer.
You're not cutting.
It's easier. Yeah, exactly.
So there's a lot of variables.
I'm bringing this up because we're talking about a midsize trucks and compact trucks.
In that area, you're going to be on the knife's edge
when it comes to cargo more quickly than with some other trucks.
In some cases, not necessarily always,
but it is something you have to keep in mind a little bit more towing capacity.
Santa Cruz is going to knock that out of the park.
I mean, a Maverick would be able to do that as well.
And that's maxed out around 4000 pounds.
You're still going to be OK.
But it has similar cargo issues to the Santa Cruz.
The Ranger is going to give you the biggest
safety net in terms of, again, if you put that stuff in the boat,
none of this is really an issue. You're going to be much more clear.
The Rangers towing capacity is 7500 pounds.
You're going to be more than enough. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, you're way below that with this.
But it's all about that that tongue weight and that.
Yeah, this is the kind of trailer that you could realistically
tow with pretty much any SUV and be OK.
It's really the cargo space, the cargo capacity that becomes an issue.
So if you're going just for like total comfort and not having to worry
that maybe you've overloaded, the Ranger is going to be a better choice
than the Santa Cruz.
Then you have to ask yourself, how often am I towing?
Am I willing to make sacrifices of comfort?
Am I willing to make sacrifices of fuel mileage?
The difference there might be between a Santa Cruz and a Ranger?
If it's primarily daily driven with occasional towing,
then maybe you're more careful with your loading
and you're able to enjoy the other benefits of the unibody Hyundai.
Yeah. This is my thought process on it.
I also agree, Henry, I would stay with away from the Tacoma.
It's kind of weird that drivetrain right now.
I don't think they've completely got it sorted out.
I had issues with the forerunner that we were talking about a couple of weeks ago
where under towing, it was OK.
But when I wasn't towing, I had weird issues with throttle response and the transmission.
And then last year, I had all those.
I had some bad issues with the drivetrain towing and non towing in the Tacoma.
Another option you might want to consider, Sammy, had thought about maybe a ridge line.
I'm not totally familiar with the stats on the ridge line.
I always feel silly when when when mentioning the ridge line.
But the ridge line is always an option.
And you don't have to you don't have to go for it.
But it's got a naturally it's got like a tried and true naturally aspirated six cylinder engine.
So in terms of reliability, I think they're known to be pretty
good and they're practical.
They've got like an underbed storage system, which is both useful and completely useless
when you have things on top of that that like trunk opening in the bed.
That ruins everything.
The if you're yeah, if you're looking at a unibody truck,
I mean, I like the Santa Cruz more than the ridge line, but the ridge line is definitely an option.
If you're going to ridge line more, if you're going to look at a full frame truck
like the Ranger, I would also suggest a Chevy Colorado because I think of those two.
I think the Ranger is really is really good.
But the new Colorado is turbo four only, right?
It's still a very good driver.
So I still really good drive trade.
I know you can get the turbo six now in the Ranger, but for this application,
it's not necessary.
It's a nice to have, I would think to have more power.
But for for what you want to do with it, you're not going to be straining.
It's just more of a more of a weight issue than anything else.
I just worry about the fuel efficiency once you start towing with a turbo.
I mean, I know that fuel for fuel in terms of in terms of towing with anything
usually dips real hard, but yeah, and it's before might be tough.
I don't know.
I don't think it's going to be that bad with a with a boat that is of this
lightness like this is a very reasonable load.
Yeah, I know people who tow it with unibody, you know,
SUVs. Is there another truck that you would recommend?
There's not a lot in the meat in the midsize to compact.
Frontier, baby. No, I don't recommend the frontier.
It's fine. But I mean, if you're if you need to live with it every day.
No, there are better options.
You know, like that's what it boils down to.
So a super utility oriented truck.
I would call that that I wouldn't really recommend it.
Henry, I really recommend driving them and seeing what you think of them.
That's always the most important thing because in terms of stats,
they will all do what you need them to do with varying degrees of safety,
like a safety margin.
That's that's going to be the biggest difference between them
in terms of capacity and capability, but the personality of the truck,
your comfort inside of it, the size of the cab,
how big your passengers are and how big they're going to need
the rear of the crew cab to be.
That's all something that driving the truck,
experiencing firsthand is really going to tell you.
So I would say go drive Santa Cruz, Ridge Line, Ranger and Colorado.
I mean, the GMC version of the Colorado as well.
If you want styling, it's at that point, it's a question of styling.
Those would be my four that I would.
And then what happens if those don't work out?
He needs he strikes out on all four of us.
He needs that.
What's the what's the first stop full size?
No, full size is overkill because you're not necessarily going to get better
cargo capacity with a full size because of how heavy trucks have become
and because of how many options they have.
A couple of years ago, I had a Ram 1500 and the tongue weight of the trailer
I was driving, which was very tongue weight heavy.
It overloaded the cargo capacity of that truck.
And I overloaded the suspension, the air suspension on the vehicle
because of the tongue weight of the trailer, because the cargo capacity was very low.
I think it was like less than a thousand pounds.
So I mean, not great.
I for this job, I can't recommend a full size.
I think Henry's on the right path.
OK, anything else you want to talk about this week?
I don't think so.
All right.
Well, that's this week's episode of the unnamed automotive podcast.
I really recommend our listeners head on over to our website,
unnamed automotive podcast dot com, where you can see all of our previous
episodes and links to the stories that we've written about them.
But more important than that, you can contact us just like Henry did
through our website.
You just hit the contact button there.
You fill out the form, hit submit.
It lands in our inbox.
We typically talk about it as soon as we can.
Additionally, you can reach out to us on social media.
I think we both prefer Instagram, right, Ben?
Sure.
You can find Ben at Hunting Benjamin.
You can find me at Sammy underscore half like you're laughing.
Ben, what are we talking about next week?
So I'm a big sigh.
What's that all about?
I have a few things I could talk about.
But what I'm going to talk about is a car that we've never ever had
on the podcast before from a brand that we've never had on the podcast before.
OK. And that is the Lucid Air Lucid Air.
Very exciting to talk about.
I will also have a car I don't think we've talked about on the podcast.
It's the Acura a DX.
Have you had that? No, we haven't.
So very cool.
All sorts of new stuff on the podcast these days.
Thank you, everybody, for listening and send us more emails.
We love it. Bye. Bye.
About this episode
The latest episode dives into the 2025 Chevrolet Blazer SS and the 2025 Range Rover Sport SV Edition Two, highlighting their unique features and performance specs. The hosts engage in a lively discussion about the Blazer's unusual drivetrain options and the impressive power of the SS model, while also critiquing its range and driving dynamics. The Range Rover is presented as a luxurious performance SUV with advanced technology, but the hosts question its practicality. Listener questions about pickup trucks lead to a detailed analysis of options like the Tacoma, Santa Cruz, and Ranger, emphasizing towing capacity and comfort.
0-60 time
all wheel drive
Altium platform vehicles
Cadillac
EV
EV drivetrain
four cylinder motors
front wheel drive
grip
horsepower
Audi RS e-tron GT
Bentley Continental GT Speed
BMW M5
BMW X5
BMW Z4
Cadillac Lyriq
Cadillac Optiq
Chevrolet Blazer
Chevrolet Camaro
Chevrolet Corvette
Chevrolet Equinox
Chevrolet SS
Ford Edge
Ford Ranger
Holden Caprice
Hyundai Ioniq 5
Hyundai Santa Cruz
Land Rover Range Rover
Lucid Air
Mazda MX-5 / Miata
Nissan Frontier
Porsche 911
Porsche Cayenne
Ram 1500
Subaru Outback
Toyota Tacoma
Original notes
What has over 600 horsepower, and can sprint from 0-60 MPH in under 4 seconds? BOTH of the cars the Unnamed Automotive Podcast are reviewing! This weeks show starts with Benjamin's take of the 2025 Chevrolet Blazer SS EV, which is super heavy, features a huge battery, and a weird WOW feature to blast off to high speeds. But what else does it deliver for car enthusiasts? And why does it kind of look like an Equinox EV?
Then Sami drives the 2025 Range Rover Sport SV Edition Two, another high-horsepower machine, but this time focused on track capabilities, with some of the biggest brakes found on the market, carbon fibre wheels, and 626 horsepower. Plus some weird gimmicky vibrating seats with tons of PR drivel around them.
Finally our hosts answer a car-buying question from a listener who is concerned about towing and hauling, which lets Benjamin get his calculator out for the ultimate advice section. Thanks for listening!
Unnamed Automotive Podcast
Unnamed Automotive Podcast
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