Exploring Soft-Roaders with Sue Mead: Off-Road Adventures and Automotive Insights

Welcome to another In Wheel Time podcast, the world's favorite place to go for fun, romance and informative car talk.

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The romance comes in in the cars.

I was wondering about that.

You love your car.

Yes, that's it I knew that Made you think, though, huh yeah, you love your car.

Yes, that's it.

I knew that.

Made you think, though, huh yeah, it did.

Okay, just ahead, journalist Sue Mead talks about soft-roading.

Uh-oh what Later, jeff has the racing calendar, mars has this Week in Auto History, and I'll get you caught up on some of the stories making automotive news headlines this week.

Howdy Along with Mike out of this world, mars.

We always need more.

Jeff Zekin, I'm Don Armstrong.

Glad you could join us on this Saturday for our live broadcast.

If you're listening on a podcast or something other than between 10 am and 12 noon on Saturday, you're listening to a pre-recorded show, and this particular date today is 9-14-24.

That's right.

So there you go, just to make sure everybody's on the same page.

We ain't trying to fool nobody, kind of like that guy who worked at that car dealership Day late and a dollar short.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, look who's joining us.

Oh, my God, it's Sue Mead.

Ladies and gentlemen, sue, you look great.

I haven't talked to you or seen you in years, but it's great to have you on the show today thank you, guys.

It's so nice to be back.

I think one of the last shows that I did with you was when I was in saudi arabia, but I'm home today in williamstown, massachusetts, which feels great.

It's been a really busy year, car wise well, I sure am glad that you're home, because you know you need to run the vacuum cleaner and do a little dusting and you know some home stuff for a while Feed the fish, mow the grass.

Oh, wait a minute.

I just heard you talk about romancing cars and my romance in cars is going off-road in them.

And what happens there stays there.

I actually just love off-roading and you guys know that.

And what happens there stays there.

I actually just love off-roading and you guys know that.

I've had some fun times doing that this year, both in the US and even in China, which we'll talk about another time, but I'm so excited to be back with you guys.

Well, it's great to have you with us, and Sue is a well-versed auto journalist.

Racer, off-roader, she is everything.

She is the living car goddess.

Right there she is.

People want to be her.

You're making me feel so good as I turn 74 this week.

Let's not even talk about that.

Yeah, we're not talking about that.

Listen, guys, I'm so happy to be here You're catching up to Don.

Yeah, that's it Still working.

I know and I enjoy what I do here I enjoy being on the road and driving some new cars.

I just drove three versions of the hyundai, of hyundai vehicles with the xrt trim and saw a fourth version unveiled and it was really fun.

I love Hyundai vehicles because of the warranty and the three years unlimited maintenance and roadside support, but this new XRT trim just floats my boat.

Where did you go to drive those?

Good question.

In the mountains out of Santa Barbara we stayed in Los Olivos.

Oh God.

Yeah, you've been there, obviously, but the nice part about it was that there are some good driving roads without much traffic, and that's what you need to do.

If you're flying to Santa Barbara or Santa Monica, you need to get away from the traffic you didn't run into any fires out there no, I saw some from the air, but no, I was fortunate good, good, good, good.

So we talk about soft-roading, a, a term that you came up with.

Define that for us well, I've noticed I, mike and I had a conversation about this the other day I've noticed that over the last couple of years especially, more and more manufacturers are building models that have a trim that they're advertising can go overlanding or off-road, and the truth is that 90% of them are really what I like to call soft roaders.

They can go on a light dirt trail or for some light backcountry use.

So many manufacturers have made these vehicles and are touting them because it's such a popular end of the driving culture right now.

I think there are a few folks who like to look like they're doing that, but many do, and I'm really excited about that.

As an off-roader myself, I'm also really pouting that folks who do it still should pay attention to the rules of letting someone know where they are, having good safety equipment and food and water and supplies in the vehicle, because I don't like to think of folks saying, well, I've got an extra tough bumper and I can or cannot put a winch on it, and I've got some rubberized seats.

I'm just going to go off-roading today.

So that's why I like to call it soft roading.

Yeah, I think that's a good term.

You know it's funny.

I didn't know that you were going to talk about this and I was thinking everybody nowadays and I mean that loosely but the majority of cars that are sold are SUVs and they're sport utility vehicles, meaning in my age group and yours, that they could go off-road.

And the majority of vehicles coming out of the factories today are not really capable of going off-road.

They may look like they are but they're really not set up to do it.

I mean, okay, it may have four-wheel drive, but it doesn't have a transfer case, it doesn't have low, low gear.

You can't do the things that you can, let's say, for instance, in a Jeep Wrangler.

I mean, a full off-road Jeep Wrangler is going to cost you quite a bit of money, but you know, it's one of those deals where you really have to be specific into what you define as off-road, as opposed to your next door neighbor.

That I'm going to go off-roading in my SUV.

It's what it's for and it's not really that set up for to do that.

Exactly.

I started thinking about this before we went on air and I thought what are some of the things that are really important to real off-roading?

And ground clearance is a big one, Good tires is another, and having gearing as you said, a low-range set of gears.

But what impressed me about this?

There are two things that impressed me about the XRT trim on the Hyundai vehicles the other day, which started the conversation with Mike Mars, and that is not only did Hyundai put it on their Santa Fe that was new this year, the 2025 Santa Fe but they just added it as a trim level for the Tucson.

So the Santa Fe is a three-row vehicle, as you know full size and the sort of midsize to full size we straddle categories.

The Tucson is more of a compact to midsize SUV.

They've also put it on the Santa Cruz, which is a compact truck, and now one of the most fascinating elements of being on the program was seeing that they have added this trim to the IONIQ 5, which, with this trim on it, I saw that one of my journalist friends called it having the potential to be a hot hatch, and it reminded me of driving the Mustang Mach-E with a rally trim on it.

So the IONIQ 5 is an electric vehicle and we certainly know electric vehicles are going off-road these days but it was not a vehicle that I expected to have this extra cladding.

On the front and rear there's a dark chrome grille that kind of makes it stand out with this package, and also, like everything today, what is the jewelry on cars today, guys?

Wheels, Wheels.

You should see the wheels that come with this trim.

So there's different wheels and different tires, and then, of course, a roof rack.

Whether you're going to use it or not, it's there.

It speaks to the mission, and then inside is some special sort of weather tech seating.

So I think it's really cool.

I did take two versions of it the Tucson and the Santa Cruz on an off-road trail with a couple of longhorn cows giving me a spit eye.

That would be the stink eye.

Yeah, that's right, that's exactly what it was.

So.

But they had the ground clearance isn't raised it can always be raised a little bit with a tire but it had the capability to go up and down some hills and the all-wheel drive gearing to do the same and the traction to make corners with a little bit of punch to the throttle.

So I'm just fascinated with the fact that we could count on our hands so quickly a dozen or more vehicles that are not the Jeep Wrangler or a, even the Bronco Badlands, vehicles that really have more ground clearance and more prowess off-road.

But there are a lot of vehicles.

Let's look at the Subaru Wilderness.

Yes, it had, you know, that's a good example.

It's a wagon with on steroids a little bit, but it very much in, and I was thinking of the uh, honda trail sport and they're just, it's a whole, it's not just a class of vehicles, it's really, I think, a part of our culture.

That I think, goes back to even 2008, to 2010, when people stopped taking traditional vacations and did staycations and started going off road, and we've seen such a growth in not just the overland, the true overlanding, and the vehicles that go camping and say the Rebel Rally, which has a mix of these soft-roaders and

some that are true four-wheel drive.

But we've seen so much of this and I think it's great.

But it's become, in the case of Hyundai, it's become a whole trim package that's added to five of their vehicles now.

So it's very interesting to see what that says about the car culture today.

And when Mike and I were talking about it, we both said and he said first, I think, what's next?

I don't know, but what I know is that this is really big now.

I find it interesting.

I wonder what the take rate is on these, you know, because, like I said, I think that most people most generally speaking people don't do this, so this is really kind of a niche deal, but I think it's going to expand, like you said, into more and more people doing staycations, camping with the family, because, let's face it, going to a Motel 6 and spending $200 a night can add up pretty darn quick.

I mean, you don't have to go to a high-end, luxury staycation someplace and spend $10,000 for five nights.

Over there you can go camping for just a teeny, tiny fraction and really experience something that most people haven't experienced before camping out with the family, go into a lake, go into the woods, whatever the case may be, and you'd really want to have something that would be capable of going off-road, because some of the campsites are semi-remote.

You have to go through the park to get to them, but you can, and that's part of the fun of doing it.

I just think it's a great idea.

I know that there are a lot of manufacturers now that are really kind of focusing more on these particular trim levels the Nissan Rogue, wilderness you mentioned that GMC Terrain, at4.

So there are those out there and really, if you stop and think about it, if you were to go to a parts store or online and go buy yourself some big wheels and tires, you'd go buy skid plates for the front and rear, a winch, all of these things that a lot of these vehicles come with.

It's a lot cheaper to get it from the factory than it is to aftermarket it.

Exactly.

I enjoyed one of the stories told by one of the product planners from Hyundai and he said that he and his wife took the Tucson which again is a mid-sized SUV, and went to a camping area and folded the seats down and, as you know, many manufacturers now make those seats so they fold flat.

Yes.

And they put sleeping bags in the back of the vehicle and they didn't even have to put up a tent.

So it's really much more user-friendly.

And the other thing I was thinking about is that so much of our car craze the last couple of years was manufacturers adding EVs to their stables, and we've seen that that's in a tough spot at the moment because of infrastructure, I believe but the manufacturers couldn't get away without having an EV, and I feel that it's the same thing now with the soft

rotors or a more aggressive trim, that to be a viable manufacturer in today's world and, as you said, the majority of the market is SUV and trucks by far, and so if you don't have something that fits this category, you're kind of behind the eight ball.

You know the full, flat seats.

That was something I believe that was a Rambler staple way back in the day and you wouldn't be allowed by the girl's dad to take that car to the drive-in.

But I tell you I had some good times in the back of a Suburban one time.

Well, the front seat was full.

I had some good times in the back of a Suburban one time.

Well, the front seat folded flat, with no seats in the back.

No seats in the back.

You know, it was back in the day when you took the third row out and the second row did fold flat, so it made for, you know, a four by eight sheet of plywood.

Okay, we'll go with that.

But the Rambler.

It was the front seats that the back folded down.

Yeah, Not the other way around.

Whatever, the whole thing turned into a big damn bed, exactly.

You're so funny.

Not that you don't know anything about that, Sue Mead.

Do you know how many times I have slept in the second seat of a vehicle, especially on my Camel Trophies?

When at 2 in the morning or 4 in the morning mud covered, I was too tired to put up my tent and I'd say to the guys I might be the only one that will fit across the seat of the discovery.

I've called it.

But I was just in Alaska on a four-wheel drive trip and I was with my good friend Ken Cameron, who's a four-wheel drive expert and travels the world doing extreme four-wheel drive training, and I set up a trip to show him the wilds of alaska and he and his son and I landed up really late at night it was about midnight pulling into a place to camp and they had a two-person tent, which was just fine for me because there were bear, and I said, guess who's got the backseat?

And we were in an older four-wheel drive Land Cruiser.

But yeah, that's all I'm going to say about my backseat.

I got you and I have to ask you before we let you go Do you know the Lilienthal's?

I was thinking the same thing.

Don Do you know the Lilienthal's?

I know the Lilienthal's and just admire them so greatly.

They were on a Subaru trip in.

Connecticut and they decided they wanted to go through all the New England states because they've been trying to knock off every state.

So they came to my house with Oregon wine and we had the time of our life and I showed them all my race suits and my Dakar trophy.

And they are trophy winners.

They have just done so much with the Alcan and now their European trip with the electric Volkswagen.

ID.

So I admire them greatly we had them on a couple of weeks ago and they're always fun.

We've been with them well when they both had had real jobs, and that's where we started with them.

Uh and uh, it kind of like you old friends and it's just, it's just great to have you on the show with us and talk.

And what is your next adventure, sue?

well, I have um the vwid buzz that I'll be driving in San Francisco.

Actually, I'm heading out on Monday to see a reveal for the new Ford Expedition, an hour-long program which has me traveling two days.

And then I'll be at the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame at the end of the month, a place near and dear to my heart and I'll be speaking briefly about John Reti, one of our colleagues who found out in June, two days before he passed, that he was going to be inducted.

So I look forward to that.

But then I'm hoping to go back to China in November and I'd love to talk with you all about what I have found in China that's been so exciting.

December.

We're going to do that in December.

Well, let's do that in December, because I think I told you, mike, I've been limping for 18 months because of a knee with a torn meniscus, and then my foot went bad and I need surgery and I said could we make it November 11th so I could get all my work done?

So that is perfect, yeah yeah, yeah.

Well, sue, it's great to talk to you.

We look forward to November, the 11th, when we see you again, and so let's plan a date right now.

Well, mike, you get back to me, I have my surgery that day.

I could probably talk to you on the way home in the car, because I love talking about cars.

That'll be fun.

I love talking about cars whenever it fits in, but I have some really fun stories about China and it's timely as we're looking at tariffs and electric vehicles.

Forty percent of the market there is electric.

I'll send you a commercial that was just made that I'm in with the king of drifting from Japan, but that would be a really fun thing to talk with you about.

We love it, Sue, we love you.

Thank you so much and we'll talk soon.

Love you guys.

Thank you Thank you you bet Bye-bye.

All right.

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Now for the In Wheel Time Racing Calendar sponsored by Texas Muscle Car Club Challenge.

Thank you guys.

September 15th.

Tomorrow, you've got Indy in Portland.

That race is going to be very cool.

They're almost done with the Indy Series.

Same thing with IMSA.

Imsa is actually off.

You also have Formula One this week, starting actually yesterday.

It's the Qatar Airways Abrazaizhan Grand Azerbaijan there you go.

It's the Cutter Airways Abrazaizhan Azerbaijan.

There you go.

That's what he said.

Yeah, put that with ketchup, it is the Cutter Airways race, and then from there we've got NASCAR.

Nascar is in the playoffs is what they're calling it.

Watkins Glen International that is on too.

That's great.

I love those road courses.

That's where the Xfinity guys ran yesterday, but that's on tomorrow at 3 pm.

It's on the USA Network.

Nhra is also this weekend and they're in Redding, Pennsylvania and Erica in Pro Stock is qualified number one, there you go.

And that's what we've got right now.

Alright, thank you, sir.

Time now for this week in auto history.

Mr Mars has that?

Yeah, it do.

It's been a busy month in auto history September the 10th, 1975.

This is when the automotive industry began introducing vehicles designed to run on unleaded gasoline, and this was a significant shift prompted by new emissions regulations aimed at reducing air pollution.

Lead was commonly used in gasoline to improve engine performance and reduce knocking, but it contributed to the harmful emissions and posed health risks, particularly if you were a sniffer.

The transition to unleaded gasoline was a major milestone in environmental protection, aligning with efforts to improve air quality and public health.

Then, on September the 12th, in 1914, Jeff Cadillac revolutionized the automotive industry by introducing the first mass-produced V8 engine.

This was a 5.1-liter

, 315-cubic-inch that produced 70 horsepower, which was a significant leap in power and performance compared to the contemporary vehicles.

It featured a 90-degree overhead valve design, water cooling and was capable of reaching speeds up to 65 miles an hour, if you believe that.

That is donkey.

The V8's smooth, powerful performance elevated Cadillac's reputation for luxury and innovation, and this engine marked a milestone in automotive engineering, influencing engine design for decades to come.

Then, on September 13, 1973, opec oil embargo begins, and it had a profound impact on the American automobile industry.

The embargo, imposed by OPEC in response to US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, led to a massive rise in oil prices and fuel shortages, which exposed the vulnerability of American independence from foreign oil at the time.

Going to September the 14th, in 1908, the first commercial gas station, the Standard Oil Service Station, opened in St Louis, missouri.

This pioneering establishment Marked a significant development In automotive infrastructure, providing a dedicated place For fueling vehicles without gasoline.

Prior to this, you had to go to a general store or hardware store To find somebody that sold gasoline, but this helped facilitate the widespread adoption of automobiles.

To a general store or hardware store to find somebody that sold gasoline, but this helped facilitate the widespread adoption of automobiles, laying the foundation for the modern network of gas stations that we rely on today.

September 14, 1955, launch of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing.

This is an iconic sports car renowned for its distinctive upward-opening doors and advanced engineering.

The 300 SL featured a fuel-injected inline six-cylinder, a lightweight design and aerodynamic shape that contributed to its handling and agility, which combined to show it some of the 1950s automotive luxury and innovations.

This week in automotive history.

Thank you, sir.

Aston Martin just unveiled its latest flagship model, the Vanquish, a muscular, carbon fiber-bodied $429,000 coupe.

Yeah, it's more luxurious and sporting than the DBS it replaces, featuring a coddling leather and cashmere interior and reaching a top speed of 214 miles an hour, the highest ever of any Aston series production vehicle.

Motivating it is a new twin turbocharged 5.2

liter V12 engine that produces 824 horsepower, a significant increase from its 759 horsepower of its predecessor's V12.

Its predecessors v12.

Aston's beast joins a host of all new six and seven figure supercars, including the 423,819 horsepower ferrari 12 cylindry, the hybrid 604,100 horsepower lamborghini Rivalto I think I'm supposed to look at one of those and the $4 million 1,800 horsepower Bugatti Tourbillion.

That'll fit in your garage.

As long as they fit in the garage, I'm good.

It features a 12 or 16 cylinder gas powered motor, generally in larger and more important forms than their progenitors.

Oh, spell it.

Is that the word for?

the day B-R-O-G-E-N-I-T-O-R-S.

You could twist that around and really get in some serious trouble.

Yeah, you could, progenitors.

I'm not going to go any further than that.

The In Wheel Time Car Talk Show will continue after this quick break.

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The annual time fall tour begins Saturday September 28th at Woody's sixth annual Waterfront Rod and Custom Car Show.

There'll be awards for best truck rat rod, import paint engine interior and best of show.

It happens at the Topwater Grill in San Leon, texas, where the backdrop of Galveston Bay will be one for your car scrapbook.

Registration is $30 per car.

On-site Visitors are free 8 to 4, saturday, september 28th, it's Woody's 6th Annual Waterfront Rod and Custom Car Show at Topwater Grill in San Leon, texas.

Well, that's all for this week's In Real Time Car Talk Show.

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Exploring Soft-Roaders with Sue Mead: Off-Road Adventures and Automotive Insights

About this episode

Jeep Wrangler

Ford Mustang

Hyundai Ioniq 5

Hyundai Santa Cruz

Ford Bronco

Outback Subaru Wilderness

Nissan Rogue

Toyota Land Cruiser

Ford Expedition

Mercedes-Benz Mercedesbenz 300

300 Sl Gullwing

Aston Martin Vanquish

Aston Martin DBS

Lamborghini Rivalto

Ferrari 12

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