S3, E82 - Have You Heard? Truck News!

Have you heard? It's Truck News! No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no! No!

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Have you heard?

So you didn't hear.

So Jeep has just dropped number five in its 12 for 12 campaign.

And that is the...

Well, it's not the Gladiator 392.

Got to wait a little longer for that one, but this one is the Rock Slide Edition available on either Sahara or Rubicon Wranglers or Mojave Rubicon Gladiators.

This one is a little bit about the off-road content and a little bit about styling and design. It's kind of cool, actually.

If you know the JTJL line, there hasn't been much difference in the interiors from contrast stitching. It's basically black, black on black on black.

There's been red seats. There's been tan seats. You can get, I think, in a Mojave cloth as green seats.

And there's a few little things here and there, but this is the first time that they've put blue in there.

So blue Gave, Jean blue and indigo blue are all accents that are layered within the interior of either of these vehicles.

And actually, I think it looks really great. So starting on the outside, you get an anvil body-colored roof and matching grille surround.

And then you get standard steel rock rails, and that's a feature that Sahara hasn't had since 2017.

So it'll get it this year on the Rock Slide only package.

And you also get blue Gave side stripes, hood decal and a classic four-wheel drive graphic.

On the inside, the indigo blue instrument panel surround, which looks, again, like I said, looks super cool.

Center console and door armrest accents, contrasting silver stitching throughout.

And then original Jean blue cloth seats, which also look really cool.

It reminds me of the old Levi's edition. And then you also get some signature details like the swing gate plaque and things like that.

As far as other standard content, deep tint windows, gorilla glass, heated mirrors, automatic headlamps, all the LED headlamps and DRLs,

body-colored fender flares, then on the advanced safety stuff, you get adaptive cruise control, forward collision warning and advanced braking.

And Jeep wants me to remind you that in the industry's only open-air pickup, you get class-leading 7,700 pounds of towing and up to 1,720 pounds of payload.

You get best-in-class rear-seat legroom and, of course, front and rear headroom.

That's with the top on, but of course, the top off headroom is limitless.

The order banks for the 2026 Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Gladiator Rock Slide models will open up in April and pricing will be $695,

which isn't bad on top of a comparably equipped model with a body-colored hardtop.

On Rubicon and Mojave, Rock Slide adds body-colored fender flares, and on Sahara, it adds a unique rock rail.

All for 695 bucks. Pretty good.

So other manufacturers are starting to eye the Ford Maverick's success, including Toyota.

However, Toyota says, be patient. When the market's right, we might have something.

And part of the thought is the Tacoma absolutely prints money.

It had its best sales year ever.

When you look at Maverick and Ranger, Maverick is clearly cannibalizing ranger sales.

Toyota doesn't want the same for the Tacoma.

So right now, the Tacoma's hot, and Toyota's saying, well, that's something that we are looking at,

but we don't have any announcements right now.

And according to Automotive News, Toyota Motor North America COO Mark Templin had said at the NADA,

National Automotive Dealer Association Show in Vegas, that it's a really intriguing segment for us,

but the whole segment right now is only 160,000 to 170,000 units.

So remember that Tacoma sold something like 275,000?

I think they're waiting for it to evolve a little bit more.

It's not quite big enough yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have something in the wings

that they're working on for when the time is right, because as Toyota will remind you,

they invented the compact pickup truck here in America.

And also Rams, Tim Kaniscus was asked about bringing the little Brazilian rampage to America,

and he said he'd love to have it in the lineup.

But if you read between the lines, it's not something that's coming soon.

I think for the same reasons as Toyota, they want to focus on their new midsize Dakota,

and it would be bad to have two somewhat overlapping products come out at the same time.

So stay tuned.

If you are a fan of the little compact, or I guess midsize-ish, compact-ish, unibody pickup trucks,

sounds like there might be some competition.

The other thing is, I think I brought you guys in the last news, that Hyundai is dropping out.

Santa Cruz is going to end production.

That's also going to leave some market share on the table for another manufacturer to gobble up.

So stay tuned on that one.

All right, for those of you who love following presidential motorcades,

you may have noticed that the beast was replaced in Davos with a, until now, not seen Chevy Suburban counterpart,

a new Cadillac Escalade armored vehicle.

And while this one's new, and it looks like it just got put into service,

it has a front clip that's more akin to the 2020 Escalades with the vertical kind of waterfall lights

and everything versus the newer version, which has the horizontal lights on it.

And it also has rear tail lights that are Cadillac Escalade.

Obviously, not a lot of information out there other than it's heavily armored,

heavily intended for communications.

And a lot of the spotters were wondering, okay, what's this built on?

Is it a medium duty platform?

And it looks like it's at least an eight lug wheel on it, heavy duty, everything.

And it even has Escalade trim going down the side of it, which is pretty cool.

When Sean Kern visited GM, he's the director of Secret Service,

they had on display behind him a concept drawing of a next generation Escalade,

which looked like the current vehicle.

So this is believed to be not that.

This is either an update of the older platform or a new version of the older platform.

In any case, I think it's pretty cool to see the presidential motorcade

and limos evolving with the times and styling and all that.

It's a looker.

All right, a while back, we had reported that GM and Allison had a little bit of a spat

and all of the 26 trucks that had an Allison transmission were going to be rebadged at the factory

or if they got out ahead of time at the dealership.

Well, I'm happy to report that GM and Allison have ended their spat

and there's a new licensing agreement in place.

And of course, that means the Allison transmission badge has been reintroduced

to the production 2026 models on the Chevy and GMC HD trucks.

And as you know, Allison has a great reputation for heavy duty transmissions

and obviously, GM finds value in that.

So get on out there and get yourself a 2026 heavy duty truck with an Allison transmission.

Branded transmission.

So this one isn't truck related, but it may be a sign of things to come.

Tesla is ending production of the Model S and Model X.

That's the sedan and SUV.

And they're going to be repurposing their manufacturing space in Fremont, California

for the Optimus humanoid robot line.

So with declining sales and competitors getting stronger,

this marks the end of the line for Tesla's oldest products.

And honestly, I think some of their best.

I still think the S is beautiful.

Not a fan of the X. It's kind of goofy looking.

The S is beautiful and the performance and power, all that.

I've never really been a fan of the three or the Y.

They're just okay.

But anyway, wonder what that means for those vehicles

and even the Cybertruck down the line.

I guess we'll find out.

Maybe you won't need a car.

You'll just hop on the Optimus humanoid robot

and it'll give you a ride to the office.

All right.

And basically it's no longer rumor.

I just wanted to put out there.

It looks like the brand new 2027 Chevy and GM trucks will 100% be debuting this year

as confirmed by the CEO.

So I know we've talked about it a little bit,

but both of those trucks will be debuting.

Later this year, I think probably end of third quarter

would probably be a good guess or beginning of fourth quarter.

So more to come on the 2027 Chevy and GMC truck redesigns.

And did Ford CEO actually hint that there's a Ford Raptor hybrid coming?

Hmm.

So car expert Australia did some interviews with Ford executives

during the Dakar rally in Saudi Arabia.

And Jim Farley said, quote unquote,

our best selling F 150 is the EcoBoost hybrid.

You can expect our performance off road vehicles,

more and more hybridization, but more on the performance side.

We've accelerated the investment in hybrids across our lineup

and that will include off road.

And then will Ford who is executive for Ford racing says, quote unquote,

it's pretty clear that hybrid is the performance drive train in the future.

We're not going to get ahead of ourselves and do something that customers don't want,

but we absolutely need to make sure we continue to push Raptor in every way

to make it maintain its position as the most off road capable vehicle.

That's the nice thing about hybrid is it might allow us to keep the V8 alive

a little longer, hopefully a lot longer.

So hybrid Raptor, but then also hybrid V8 Raptor.

Are they talking about the F 150, the truck,

or are they talking about that race car that they had been teasing?

The question mark new Raptor product that is loosely imagined more closely resembling

the Dakar T1 plus.

Hmm.

All right.

I don't hate it, but would you put your V8 hybrid Ford Raptor up against a blown Raptor R or TRX?

What do you think?

Truck show podcast at gmail.com.

And for all you truck drivers out there,

because I know I have a ton of you guys that listen to the show,

I know the typical semi is somewhere around 80,000 pounds.

But now there's a push with Bill HR3372 that proposes a pilot program

that would allow states to increase their maximum tractor trailer weights

from 80,000 to 91,000 pounds on six axle combos.

And the idea is moving more freight.

But it also has a lot of detractors who are worried about the impacts of these heavy trucks

on infrastructure here in the United States.

As we know, there's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be replaced

and will this wear and tear cause issues or accidents or things like that.

So I'm kind of curious.

Does anybody in the audience have a thought on 90,000 pound semi trucks

and what that could mean for moving freight, infrastructure, accidents, traffic,

all that kind of stuff.

We'll keep our eye on this bill.

Again, it's HR Bill 3372 and see where it goes from here.

For those of you who own your own business, you'll be happy to know that Ram Professional

is bringing back the ProMaster City for 2027.

But no longer is it a little guy, it's going to go up a size class to a midsize van.

And it'll be powered by an efficient 1.6 liter turbo four cylinder

paired with an Eisen eight speed automatic.

It'll put out 166 horsepower and 221 pound feet.

It's a nice looking van.

Interior looks pretty nice, but Ram designed it to do the work.

So it's going to be over 2000 pounds of payload, about 2000 pounds of towing,

and it should be able to fit two regular size pallets in line in the cargo area.

By the way, the cargo area itself is pretty big.

It's 167 cubic feet and this will be a unibody van with independent suspension

at all four corners.

The ProMaster City will be available in both a passenger wagon as well as a cargo van.

And you compare it to the 2022 Ram ProMaster City, which was the last generation.

Wheelbase goes from 122.4 to 129 point inches.

The load floor length from 87.2 to 111 inches.

That's quite a difference than to get cargo volume 131.7 to 167 inches.

And the width between the wheel wells 48 so you can put those sheets of plywood in there.

And the overall height is 80 inches with a turning diameter of about 42 feet,

which is what the previous generation did.

So Ram put a lot of thought into the ProMaster City and what it needs to be

for the current generation.

We're excited to see it.

All right, that's going to do it for this episode of The Truck Show Podcast.

Thank you, Amsoil.

Thank you, Kershaw.

Thank you, OVR Magazine.

And don't forget to follow us on social at Truck Show Podcast at Sean P. Holman.

Or, of course, you can email us at truckshowpodcast.gmail.com

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S3, E82 - Have You Heard? Truck News!

About this episode

Rock Slide Edition

Jeep Gladiator

Jeep Wrangler Rubicon

steel rock rails

LED headlamps

body-colored fender flares

gorilla glass

DRLs

forward collision warning

adaptive cruise control

advanced braking

open-air pickup

payload

towing capacity

Jeep Wrangler

Ford Maverick

Toyota Tacoma

Ram Rampage

eight lug wheel

Tesla Model 3

Tesla Model Y

Dakar Rally

V8 engine

six axle combos

infrastructure wear and tear

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