Mini Tyrrell Is NASCAR's Next Big Star

Hello, and welcome to The Gas.

I'm Gary Gastelou.

This is the official podcast of American Cars and Racing, and American Cars and Racing.com.

Check those out.

After the show, this is the Gary and Alex show with me, of course.

Alex Nunez, how are you doing today, Alex?

I'm great, Gary.

Thank you, once again, for including me in this project.

And today, man, what a project it is.

We have a packed show coming up later on.

We're going to be joined by one of NASCAR's hottest new young drivers, MINI Tyrell.

He even has the hot NASCAR name.

He's just 21.

He's already had an amazing racing career that you will not believe.

And big news heading in here to Daytona this weekend.

Plus, we've got a lot of US-built car news from Japanese brands, not from US brands.

US-built car news from Japanese brands, the latest from Toyota, Nissan and Subaru.

But first, we have some breaking racing news from IndyCar, which just today confirmed

that Honda and Chevrolet have signed new contracts with the series to remain engine

suppliers beyond 2028 when the new cars and new engines for the series are supposed

to launch.

Alex, this is a huge deal because not only did the current contracts end at the

end of this season, leaving it with a gap year potentially next year until the new

cars, which have been delayed several years, are launched.

But there was a lot of talk that Honda was ready to bail on IndyCar.

Chevy might have had to do it by itself, just a spec engine supplier.

Or maybe IndyCar would have to go find a whole new spec engine from Ilmore or

somebody like that to keep things alive.

But they pulled it off to keep it Honda and Chevrolet around.

And one of the ways they did it, this is something a lot of people might have

missed last year.

We talk a lot about the NASCAR charter system.

IndyCar started a charter system last year.

It's not quite as developed as NASCAR's.

All it does is guarantee you a spot in each race.

It issued 25 of these charters to the top teams.

And now it's issued Honda and Chevrolet each one charter,

which they can use to enter their own teams or even sell it to somebody

else or lease it to somebody else.

Whatever they want to do with that, just a little spiff to keep them

interested and to keep them on board as the engine suppliers.

Big sigh of relief here, I think, from IndyCar fans, Alex.

Huge. I mean, I think it would have been disastrous for IndyCar.

The team's investment dictates a lot of the success,

but you're talking about a spec chassis.

If you went to a spec engine on top of that, it's like,

oh, it would have been a rough look, especially if, like you said,

if you had to go to like Ilmore and then, you know,

you know, have a spec engine and then do some sort of, you know,

a Fakata deal where it's like, oh, we're going to have a Honda sticker

and a Chevy sticker so that, you know, allowing the manufacturers

to air quotes be involved.

This is the real deal, real engines from Chevy and Honda.

The opportunity to run a factory team.

Do I think IndyCar could stand a third engine manufacturer?

Yes. But this is a huge and important thing for IndyCar.

And I think it's timely.

IndyCar has some juice to it right now.

The Fox deal is important.

Fox is going to promote the hell out of this series.

And I think that's probably was another sort of factor.

I think people are reading tea leaves here, seeing that the future

for IndyCar is looking bright and finally two years from now,

when we get the new car for these new engines to, you know, slot into,

it's going to be a big deal.

And they're going to be hybrids like the ones today,

although they're going to be designed from the start to be hybrids.

The new ones are kind of the hack job.

They combine the 2.2 liter temperature charge V6

with the hybrid unit a couple of years ago.

The new ones are going to use a 2.4 liter

temperature charge V6 and be hybrids from the start,

have more power than the current units.

And this is a big part of it, too,

with the manufacturers involved developing this new technology

makes a lot of sense if they just went and did a hybrid spec unit

made by a contract supplier, like who cares?

What's even the point of making a hybrid?

There's no there's no engineering competition going on there.

Correct. Correct.

So again, this again, this gets back to there's going to be elements

that that are unique to those engine suppliers

and their respective OEMs.

They bleed into how these cars perform.

I think it's super important.

Indy car needs whatever differentiation it can get.

That is obviously, you know, in the drivers,

but the engine suppliers are a huge part of that.

So I'm really happy to see that this happened.

I want to see Indy car, you know, continue to be successful

and continue to grow.

So this is this is just good for the sport jumping over to NASCAR.

Of course, big week Daytona 500 coming up on Sunday.

Am I get rained out?

I get delayed till Monday.

We'll see about that.

But one thing we do know is that Kyle Bush for the first time

in his career, first time in 21 Daytona 500 is going to be

starting from pole position next to Chase Briscoe,

who was the pole sitter last year.

This is the one race missing from Kyle Bush's resume.

He's won all the big races, never won the Daytona 500,

has won a Daytona of the 2008 Coke zero 400.

Anyone pull for that in 2013,

but he's just not a super speedway kind of driver again.

This is his 21st time going for this would be a huge deal

for not just Kyle Bush fans, but I think NASCAR fans in general.

If he could win, although history is not on the side,

only 10 pole sitters have won the Daytona 500.

The last man Dale Jarrett way back in 2000.

It would be such a big deal if he won, I remember.

So when I went to the one Daytona 500, I went to was 2023.

And that was the Stenhouse win.

But that was again, as Daytona often winds up being,

that was a race that went to overtime, where if there was no

overtime rally would have won that race also.

So it's one of those things where it's just, you know,

it's like a movie where the thing you see the hand

and you know, the trophy is just out of range.

So there's a lot of people are going to be ruining

for him to get this.

It's exciting when you have these sort of sub narratives

that come up around the race, which is an inherently

exciting thing because the Daytona 500, it's pack racing.

But then I mean, the last third of that race is chaotic.

You know, it gets absolutely nuts and anybody can win

because half the field can be wiped out in that race

at any given moment.

Yeah, Bush noted he was leading at the 500 mile mark

in that race. That's got to be tough.

It's like Denny Hamlin losing the championship last year

in overtime after dominating the final race of the season.

Chris, before we get to the Daytona 500, we've got the O'Reilly

auto parts series race at Daytona.

And before that, the Fresh from Florida 250 NASCAR

truck series race and has become a tradition on this show.

We got to talk about the NASCAR truck series.

And Ram trucks, because they've got some exciting stuff going on.

This is going to be their first race in the series.

And they finally announced the final driver for their five truck

assault on the race.

He's the winner of the race for the seat reality show

competition beat 14 other drivers to win the seat.

His name is Minnie Tyrell and he joins us on the show right now.

Many congratulations and thanks for coming on.

Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

What you've got to do is actually very unusual.

You don't usually get to race to win a seat in NASCAR.

Usually you have to be a good driver.

You've got to win races, but then you've got to bring the sponsorship.

Maybe even sometimes write a check of your own, worry about all that kind of stuff.

How incredible of a feeling is it for you to have just gotten this on merit

and now you don't have to worry about any of that stuff, at least for now.

Yeah, no, it's it's such an incredible feeling

being able to be a part of something.

So iconic to the racing world and something that is not usually done.

It's so cool to see what Collie Grayson and Ram did with the TV show

and giving me and 14 other drivers the opportunity of a lifetime

to compete for the seat and a chance to drive a Ram 1500

in the NASCAR crash and truck series.

So what I thought was really awesome about it as well

was just the fact that all 15 drivers, including myself,

that a colleague and Ram had picked and chosen to do this show.

We all are pretty much in the same boat when it comes to the funding aspect

that you mentioned of what it takes to do this sport.

And giving us which, you know, I've won,

giving me that opportunity to get into the higher level

and be at a professional level of motorsports and take my talents this level.

It's it's truly incredible.

And I could not be more thankful to those guys for for what they've done for me.

Watching the show looked like there was a lot of respect amongst all the drivers.

I do have to ask you, one of your new teammates at college,

Brendan Queen used to race against him in the cars tour.

Were you guys buddies back then or was their rivalry coming into this?

Yeah, no, I mean, we started out as really good buddies at first.

And when we started racing door to door with each other

and started really getting competitive, I mean, obviously,

there was a little bit of beating and banging every once in a while.

And I would say there was kind of just a slight rivalry through the 2024 season

where we were tending to get, you know, together with each other.

We never wrecked each other.

It was just more or less like a, you know, I am here

and moving each other out of the way or whatnot.

But it's all a good fun.

I mean, you know, we it was just two drivers that were extremely competitive

and we both wanted to win and we're both fighting for the same real estate on the track.

So but it's really cool that, you know, we've we've moved past that

and have become really good friends and the fact that, you know,

we race together for so many years growing up in the grassroots level.

And now that we're both teammates in a race team

that we never thought we would have been at is just something really cool.

And that's something that we both can share and can learn from each other,

you know, and how we navigate at this higher level.

He was on the show a couple of weeks ago.

Very gracious guy.

You're 21 years old, is that right?

Yes, sir. Is it accurate that you started racing late models

and won a race when you were 10 years old?

Yes, sir. That's correct.

I jumped into a late model stock car for the first time.

I was nine and a half years old.

It was right, you know, in the kind of middle of summer.

I had met a gentleman by the name of Sam Beatty

through my father who had known him for years.

And my dad actually drove a late model for Sam at the Old Dominion Speedway

where I grew up a mile from the racetrack.

So he actually drove a stock car for Sam.

And, you know, throughout the years of him knowing him, you know,

I was came along and was helping my dad at the shop, you know,

at our family's automotive business in Manassas, Virginia at the time.

And and I was over actually at Sam's house because he called my dad and said,

hey, I need a I need a set of hands bush hogging my yard

and taking care of some things.

Is there any way you could send many over here?

You know, I know he's he knows kind of what he's doing.

And I know he can drive a tractor.

And, you know, my dad's like, yeah, of course, like I'll get him over.

There are no problems.

So I went over to Sam's house and

jumped on the tractor and was helping him.

And, you know, halfway through the day, we stopped and had some lunch.

And I looked in the garage and there was the 81 car, the late model.

And I said, you know, hey, Sam, you know, what, when can I drive that?

And he goes, well, I tell you what, kid, you know, you get a seat built

and we'll put you out there on the racetrack.

So me and Sam actually drove to Charlotte, North Carolina from Virginia.

And once a butler built, had a seat built and came back home

and got it all installed.

And at that point in my life, I was probably only this tall.

I was, mind you, I haven't grown much to begin with.

I'm vertically challenged, but, you know, I was very, very tiny.

So we had it all custom fabricated, pedals were extended.

I was as far forward as I could be, just up on the wheel.

And we had to find a racetrack that would allow me to race.

Because NASCAR sanctioned facilities and short tracks.

You had to be 14 years of age to compete.

So I was not that.

So we ended up finding Shenandoah Speedway, which is Shenandoah, Virginia.

And they didn't know actually when we show up or when we showed up

for the first time to practice, I walked up to the gate and I said,

you know, hey, you know, I'm the driver, you know, and I'm little

and the lady's like, oh, you know, you're so cute.

Like my dad was there with me and he's he's like, no, like he's the driver.

And she's like, yeah, that's, you know, that's great.

Like fill this out.

I didn't think anything of it.

So we went in there and practiced.

And I was actually, I ended up being like four tenths of a second off

of the poll sitter the weekend prior.

So I ended up racing and it kind of just went on from there.

Went to win two races at 10 back to back and won my first championship

at 10 and 11 years old and then went back the following year to Shenandoah

and won another late-mold stock championship.

Unbelievable to think you have that kind of experience already.

Your background, of course, in short track, mostly first race

of the season here, Daytona, you excited.

You like the super speedway.

How's how you feel about that?

Yeah, no, it's like you just said, you know, with my background

being short track, it's it's a totally different world.

And it's a lot that I'm going to have to get used to.

And it's a lot that I'm going to have to learn.

So even just with doing my rookie test in the truck at Rocky

Names Speedway this past weekend, you know, I'm sitting there thinking,

like, OK, what am I feeling?

You know, how is the car reacting compared to driving a late model,

which is two completely different things.

And the other thing I'm sitting there talking to, you know,

crew chief Bruce Cook and I'm like, OK, I didn't even factor

in the air part of this, like air is now a factor

because that's something I never had to deal with.

So all of that is all new.

And I've already learned so much on the offseason, just working with the guys here

and, you know, practicing on the simulator as well as, you know,

doing pit practice and figuring out what pit stops because that's a whole

another world, too.

So there's just so many different little things that I have to be up to speed

to before we go and that I've been really training hard on this

offseason to get prepared for.

So again, to answer your question with the super speedway,

it's it's a whole another world.

It's all about being strategic and being in the right place at the right time.

So hopefully, you know, I know I've got a lot of really

awesome guys at Collie Grayson here to guide me and hopefully we can take

the number 14 rain 1500 to the front.

One of them is going to be your teammate for that race.

Tony Stewart is going to be in the free agent car.

Have you interacted with him yet?

Have you got to work with him yet?

So I have not been able to interact with him in my time

being here at Collie Grayson.

But I have interacted with him as a child when I went to Richmond

Raceway and Martinsville Raceway or Martinsville Speedway.

And I went there and had met Tony at Richmond and I was walking around

as a little kid with like resumes and my racing career in my bag.

And I was also I was having a kickball tournament for my mission,

many's mission in September.

And I was handing out flyers for that and I looked at Tony and I said,

hey, man, you know, I want you to be my kickball tournament.

And I handed him that flyer and he looked at it and he looks at me

and, you know, mind you, I'm still this tall and Tony's this tall.

And he's like, you know, OK, he folds it up, puts it in his pocket

and he's like, you know, well, it's nice to meet you, many.

And he walks on and then I saw him at Richmond again

and he come down from driver intros and he hands me his Coca

Cola bottle that he was drinking and I grabbed it and he walks on.

And I looked at my mom and dad and I'm like, what do I do with this?

Like, I didn't know as a kid, right?

So they're like, no, like you keep that like fans want that, you know?

And I'm like, oh, OK, so I still have it to this day.

And I hope that I can I chased Tony around Richmond again

to handle another flyer.

And I remember when I saw him because he had a bad night or something.

And I walked right up to him and he's like, you again.

Like he's like, I can't get away from you.

So those are just a couple of cool moments.

I got some photos.

I hope I can share with them, but as well as pick his brain,

like you said, being the best living driver at that racetrack.

It's definitely something that I will have as an advantage,

as well as, you know, colleague racing will have his advantage

taking a guy like that to Daytona and being able to pick his brain

and understand kind of, you know, what what he thinks

and any advice he can give me to be successful at that racetrack.

Yeah, he's got 19 wins across various series.

It'd be interesting to see if he gives you the good tips

or if you keep some secret for himself so he can beat you.

The truck. I know, I know.

I don't think you'll have to worry about much of that.

I still have a lot to learn, but I'm going to I'm going to do all I can

to put that thing in front.

What is your personal goal for this year?

Do you think the team is going to be competing for wins

or do you just want to be the best of the five Ram trucks?

Yeah, for sure.

I mean, to me, I've had a lot of people ask me that.

And it's, you know, I'm not going into this season

making sure and putting pressure on myself to to beat my teammates.

Right. Like that's I think the best thing that I've learned

in my time at Collie Grayson, which has been a short amount of time,

is that this is such a team oriented place

and nobody here is alone.

Everybody works together.

So that is my mentality throughout the year.

Is this work together, work with your teammates, learn as much as you can.

And use that to your advantage.

I mean, obviously, we want to win races and have top five, top 10 finishes.

But my biggest goal for myself is just going to be to finish

on the lead lap and finish the races.

Just being that it shows the guys here that work so hard to prepare

these Rams and bring them to the racetrack that, you know,

I respect our equipment.

I respect their work and their work ethic as hard as they work.

So I just want to finish the races and be on the lead lap.

And in those top five, those top 10 finishes and and hopefully those wins,

those are just going to come along with it.

All right, many Tarell congratulations again

and best of luck at Daytona and with the whole season, 25 races.

Yes, sir. Thank you so much for having me on.

I really appreciate it.

You know, Alex, we had Brendan Queen on a couple of weeks ago,

basically genetically engineered to be a Ram truck NASCAR driver.

Now we got this kid who's spectacular driver.

I mean, he won races when he was 10 years old.

I was looking at them on YouTube. They're there.

It happened.

He was driving real deal late model cars at that age.

He was in the car series when he was 14.

He finished third in 2024 in the car series.

The last time Brendan Queen won the series.

So this guy's a really legit driver.

And as you can hear, spectacular to interview as well.

Sounds like he's really smart, gets it.

And Ram kind of stepped in again with this guy.

Yeah, I mean, Ram is super lucky.

But NASCAR, honestly, NASCAR is blessed to have some of these young drivers

that are now climbing into these national through the national series ladder

in the sport, because these guys love the sport.

I mean, they live and breathe it.

Like you said, they're like genetically engineered to be NASCAR drivers

is because they sort of grow up in like the NASCAR laboratory almost.

So this outcome is is great for them.

It's great for Ram.

It's great for the sport.

Easy people to root for who are going to be racing in NASCAR for a long time.

And the fact that Ram, through the competitive nature of how they fill that seat,

you know, you've got to learn a lot about these about these drivers,

you know, along the way.

People, I think, are going to go in there, you know,

having a little more of a rooting interest.

That whole Ram lineup is going to be super fun on Friday night.

I'm extremely looking forward to watching that race on Friday night.

It's a race within a race.

You've got Brendan Queen, you've got Minnie Tyrell, Daniel Dye, Justin Hailey

and then Tony Stewart in one of the other trucks.

I mean, and then on top of that, the race itself,

Cleetus McFarlane is going to be at it.

Travis Pastrana, a lot of celebrity action in the race.

But I mean, that Ram race, hopefully the team does good

and they're not racing for last place.

But just seeing those five drivers go at it ought to be a blast.

Again, really important.

The it shows the importance of another manufacturer coming in

and really throwing support behind the effort.

Five trucks is a lot of trucks.

And that's on the first race, you know, of the year for Ram.

It's not like they're coming into the series, there's two, three trucks

and then it grows, you know, by the end of the series or whatever.

It's all in fun names behind the wheel.

I think it should be exciting.

I think this is going to be a great watch Friday night.

There's a lot of juice with NASCAR right now.

And NASCAR is taking advantage of this.

I mean, I mean, you're you live in the city, Gary.

You saw what they what they just did with the with the billboard

stunt for the Guinness World Records.

And you sort of can smirk and, you know, chuckle at that stuff.

But I feel like all of that kind of stuff works better

when you have organic interest in the racing.

And I feel like there is a lot of organic interest

in the racing right now.

Yeah, it launched the new Hell Yeah marketing campaign

right after the Super Bowl on Sunday when it gets to take over

Sunday Sports, the commercial that's online.

You can find it online. Pure NASCAR.

There's beer.

There's explosions.

There's donuts, absolute mayhem.

They are back to old school NASCAR fandom.

In Times Square, they shoved a V8 engine into a billboard,

set the record for the world's loudest billboard.

And now we've got the big weekend coming up.

And again, going back to the whole charter thing,

you know, with the NASCAR Cup series really locked down with these charters,

which just exploded in value or worth a hundred million dollars now.

I think we're going to see a lot more growth in the truck series

and in the O'Reilly Auto Parts series, just because that's

how you enter the sport.

Now, that's the only way to get in at affordable price.

It's a way to get in at an affordable price.

And more importantly, the audience is there for the racing.

What's better than watching NASCAR on Sunday?

Watching NASCAR all weekend.

And when you actually have a quality product across the whole weekend,

it's great. And people have been talking about, you know,

Xfinity now, obviously, O'Reilly Auto Parts series.

But how many times last year we hear, oh, this is better racing than Cup, whatever.

The reality is now Cup Scott juice, O'Reilly has juice in trucks,

has like an unbelievable amount of juice.

And I think as we've talked about and touched on in the past,

that's really important because, I mean, the truck series is the series

that is still most connected to the actual OEM products that sell in mass quantities.

Well, looking forward to the great American race.

Now we've got some American car news to talk about.

Kind of wild stuff going on right now.

A lot of automakers from other countries

building cars in the United States right now, partially because of terrorists,

partially because they were planning on bringing electric cars here

when the old federal tax credits were still in effect.

Nevertheless, here's what happened this week.

Toyota took the wraps off of its new Highland,

one of its most popular models for the past couple of decades.

And this time around, it is an EV only going to offer it

as an electric vehicle that's going to be built at a factory in Kentucky

using batteries made at another factory in North Carolina.

Here's the specs at a glance.

Base model, front wheel drive, 287 miles of range.

You get all wheel drive 270 miles of range.

That's not a lot, but they're going to have an all wheel drive version

with 320 miles of range, which gets the EV over that 300 mile mark

that a lot of people think you got to be at to really make the car viable.

Pretty crazy that Toyota is taking this big step with the Highlander.

However, you know, last year it introduced the Grand Highlander,

which a little bigger than Highlander,

which already outsells the Highlander.

So it's kind of like already transitioned the Highlander brand to that.

Moving in here with the EV, but unlike some brands like Ford

that cancel some models, electric models, they're sticking with this.

They're moving forward with this.

And it's going to be interesting to see how the U.S.

consumer goes for it without the federal tax grant available.

And having announced the price yet, but this will be matching up

against the Hyundai Ionik 9 and the key EV9 to figure around

$55,000 to start.

You think Toyota is doing the smart thing with its EV roll out?

I think it works in this case.

You're going to have all this name equity, you know, with Highlander

that people are just going to go right to.

The real thing is Grand Highlander is the volume vehicle

and that sort of Highlander family.

So this differentiates it a little bit and, you know, speaking

of the range part, let's be honest, Gary, most Highlanders

are being driven probably under 50 miles a day.

I mean, they are around town, kid duty, all that stuff.

And anybody that's going to use it for long distance or whatever,

they're going to buy the Grand Highlander.

They're going to buy the Lexus TX. We'll see how it works.

I have little doubt that Toyota will put the necessary

marketing resources behind this.

We're about to find out just what the organic audience

really is for these EVs in this, you know, price point.

I think it has an automatic advantage over the Hyundai

and the Kia because it's a familiar name and that that goes a long way.

The other thing that I would add is that a couple of weeks ago

I was talking to somebody, you know, Cadillac obviously very

EV heavy lineup and they have seen success with this.

And we're now coming into the period of time where the Lyric

and the Lyric had done really well.

I see, I mean, I don't know.

I mean, again, anecdotal, geographical.

The Lyric is very, very visible, at least around here

in the Northeast where I live.

And I know that in the city, you see them a lot also.

And that original Lyric customer, most of whom are leasing it,

those are coming back.

And I think the what I understand the expectation inside GM

is you're going to see a big uptick in OPTIQ, you know, as people,

you know, come back and go back to their dealer and return their things

and look for what what the next thing is.

I think the people that are driving EVs, you know, already

are going to we've seen this, they'll stay in it.

So this is Toyota's opportunity to sort of go with a volume

product with a familiar name that becomes their sort of table

center for whatever they launch in the next few years as well.

So I think the ultimate success will be determined by, you know,

obviously, you know, sales of this, sales leases of this.

It's a lot of words to talk about, you know, a crossover, but it's

such a to me, it's kind of a big deal because it is a legacy

nameplate that's important to Toyota.

So I think that works in their favor.

I guess we'll find out along with everybody seems clear to me that

the organic EV market battle is going to be one in the suburbs

where people have homes where they could plug in at night, where

they could charge the vehicles where range really isn't an issue.

I think we saw that with Cadillac.

You had a lot of XT five people just trade them in for a lyric.

Yep.

Now we probably have XT four people trade them in for the OPTIQ.

They've both been selling pretty well.

And in the case of the Highlander, I think we'll see that.

And, you know, these are probably going to two vehicle homes.

Yes, even with the long range EVs, that's always good to have

the gas model that you could take on the longer trips

if you don't want to deal with the electric.

I mean, Toyota has done pretty well with the BZ compact electric vehicle,

which really on paper isn't that competitive, but it's a Toyota.

It's been incredibly reliable and it's been selling well.

They just introduced the second generation of that, and it's done well

even without the tax credits.

So the Highlander might do OK.

Be interesting to see the volume.

Are they going to sell 20,000, 50,000?

That's hard to say.

We won't know that for another year.

And of course, Toyota has not given up any of its other models.

They've got the Grand High.

No, there's very little risk here in them launching this.

And just to add to what you were saying, it's like all the

all the suburb reasons that it could work.

The other one is the price point is not an obstacle.

In that environment either.

So that's the other thing.

And we're not talking about, oh, will Ford's supposed $30,000

EV pickup get cannibalized by the Maverick, which I think there

is a high likelihood of that happening.

Totally different scenario for something like this, which is

a well established suburban fixture.

Nissan got something a little bit different going on.

We were talking about the Leaf last week.

That's their electric car, but they've got the complete opposite of that.

In the works for the next couple of years, unlike Toyota, which builds

the Tacoma in Mexico, Nissan builds the frontier.

It's body on frame pickup truck in its Canton, Mississippi factory.

And now it's talking about adding some new models as the next

generation truck platform comes up in a couple of years.

One of them is a new XTERRA four by four off-roader

that will compete directly against the Toyota four runner,

the Ford Bronco and the Jeep Wrangler.

That was a great vehicle from a couple of decades ago

that they bailed on when they started going more into the crossover area.

One of the other vehicles they had that transition from truck to crossover,

the Pathfinder might be going back and becoming a body on frame truck again

with this new XTERRA and the next generation frontier.

It's an interesting move.

I mean, you know, I know Toyota sells tons of those four runners

and even the Land Cruisers, which are more expensive

than all those Lexus trucks that really don't need to be trucks.

They can easily.

These people would probably be more comfortable if they were crossovers.

But Nissan is going hard into this body on frame deal.

That's what they're telling their dealers, apparently.

And I wouldn't be surprised if infinity

followed them with versions of these vehicles.

It's funny, right? What's all this new?

This is the exact formula when Pathfinder and XTERRA

and Frontier were all built off that same platform back in the day.

I had back then the second generation Pathfinder,

which was on that truck chassis.

And I love that thing.

I think there's a few things at play here.

Nissan has other crossovers.

They have this new Murano, which is pretty big, you know, mom, dad, duty type thing.

What this does is we see it now.

There's so much juice around something that's a little more rugged,

a little more off-roading.

You even see Honda doing it with its trail sport versions of their unibody, you know,

SUVs, if you want to do something that's a little butched up,

go and body on frame, let you do that.

If the styling and everything is good,

the rest sort of takes care of itself, in my opinion.

Toyota has demonstrated with the Land Cruiser and the Lexus GX

100% for 99% of people that are even buying and driving those.

They would be so much more comfortable and better served in,

you know, something that's less trucky, but they look cool.

And they they put forth that sort of aura.

And I think Nissan is going to try and, you know, jump on top of that.

And there's a lot of evidence from Toyota, especially,

that there's a they're there.

So they're going to go and do that and roll the dice.

I love the idea of the XTERRA.

I'm not sold on the body on frame, Pathfinder.

I just don't think they really need that.

But I guess with the rollback on fuel economy,

regulations, it's making it a lot easier to do this.

And we know trucks are generally cheaper to build than cross.

Yeah, the XTERRA is really interesting because I'm very curious to see what the

styling is, because one of the cool things about the original XTERRA

is that a lot of the unique styling elements were really dictated

by limitations in the design.

So hopefully this is not just trying to sort of cosplay

off of something that was unique because it needed to be.

It'll be interesting.

Also, the differentiation between XTERRA and Pathfinder is going to be super

important because Pathfinder still has to be a three row vehicle.

Otherwise, you know, it's totally redundant, right?

One other interesting note on Japanese vehicles being made in the United States.

Subaru has moved assembly of the Forester Hybrid and all foresters,

but now the Forester Hybrid from Japan to its factory in Indiana.

And guess what?

It actually lowered the price.

When's the last time you saw the price of a new car drop cut

eighteen hundred and sixty five dollars off the price now starts at thirty six

thousand one eighty.

That's for a thirty five mile per gallon all wheel drive hybrid.

I tested the Japanese built one a couple of weeks ago and it's great.

It's a super Forester.

I mean, what are you going to do?

And the best part is that powertrain is actually borrowed from Toyota.

So, you know, it's going to be pretty good.

They've also got the regular Forester.

That starts at thirty one thousand four hundred forty five dollars.

That's actually the twelfth cheapest vehicle that's currently built

in the United States, the cross track, which built there as well.

Twenty eight thousand four fifteen.

That's the sixth cheapest vehicle built in the United States.

We may have talked about this before.

Cheapest vehicle currently built in the United States.

Going back to Toyota, the Corolla twenty four thousand one hundred twenty dollars

and the only American brand vehicle in the bottom

twelve cheapest cars is the Chevrolet Bolt at twenty eight thousand nine hundred

and ninety five dollars.

Everybody's talking about affordability.

I'd like to see the other U.S.

brands maybe actually make it happen, at least here in the United States.

It would be nice to see, but getting back to the Forester for a minute.

That's one of my favorite cars I've driven of the current,

like sort of new models in the last year.

I drove back to back with the new Land Cruiser,

both of which were owned by a good friend of mine.

And we're driving around, you know, Charlotte area all week

and swapping between the two cars.

And I've driven older Foresters, this current Forester,

hybrid gas, whichever one you want to get.

That is an unbelievably good car and an absolute pleasure to drive.

So it's nice to see Subaru go all in and just build all of them here.

Subarus used to be good, but you kind of put up with them being a little noisy,

a little unrefined.

This latest lineup is absolutely spectacular.

It matches up against anything else.

I actually just handed back the new Outback,

which used to be built in Indiana, but that one has moved back to Japan

in part so they can make more production capacity to build more

Foresters, which is Subaru's best seller by far in that compact

crossover segment, a new Outback wilderness, also a blast.

I was out in the snow with it and great on the highway, very refined,

the whole nine yard Subaru's just firing on all four flat cylinders

because it still has that flat four engines in their vehicles.

Could we get a different kind of SUV this week to test the Ford Bronco Sport

with the Sasquatch package?

I'm actually going to check that out in the rocks.

So we'll see how hardcore that little thing is.

But we'll be back to tell you about that.

Alex, good to talk to you and can't wait to follow up and see

who won the Daytona 500 next week.

The gas is a production of a car, media and American cars and recent dot count.

Mini Tyrrell Is NASCAR's Next Big Star

About this episode

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from The GAS: An American Cars And Racing Podcast