The New Ram Dakota Will Be Successful If… | Ep. 315

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slash protect. Wow, dude, it's been about 10 days since I've been in the office.

Yeah, you've been out on the road quite a bit. You were in Detroit, which was a big trip.

I was. The Detroit Auto Show was happening in 2026, and then I actually did a side trip

to Phoenix, Arizona, because partially as a family kind of a vacation.

Vacation? Were you allowed to take those?

Small, very small vacation, I would say, because my daughter was playing in the

volleyball tournament, but I also took that opportunity to pick up a Hyundai Palisade XRT Pro

and actually bring it over here. I drove it back to Denver. Full family road trip?

No, just by myself. Oh, they didn't want to join you?

No, they flew home. That's a bummer. But I understand that. Can you imagine

what was it? 13 hours in the car or an hour in the plane? Yeah. Which would you

choose if you were my family? Fair enough. I chose driving.

Yeah, well, I don't blame you. Yeah, but on this episode of TfH Talking Trucks,

this is 315, 315. Nice.

Episode. I wanted to do a couple of items on rapid fire news, because I brought a little bit

of news from Detroit with me. And then I want to dream. I want to dream a little bit,

because I also interviewed, I actually had a great opportunity to interview

the CEO of Ram Trucks, Tim Koniscus. And he did talk to me about the Ram Dakota that's coming up

a little bit. He wouldn't, I tried to get an exclusive out of him, you know,

some powertrain stuff or some other features, but he wouldn't give it up.

Yeah, which makes sense. We're not going to find out any details about that truck

for quite a while. For a little while still. Yeah, but it is on the horizon.

But it doesn't, it's not going to stop us from dreaming, right?

Yeah. Yeah, so we could talk a little bit about some of the things that we would love to see

in that truck. Maybe send them this podcast and see if it helps.

Yeah, just a link. Just boom.

Free. Free of charge. R2 cents if anyone cares.

Okay, they probably don't. Anyways, you know what happens? Because they said the Ram Dakota

production will start like at the end of 27. Yeah.

Right? So I think a lot of design is probably already locked in.

Yeah. You know, so nothing we say probably will sway them too heavily.

It's well underway, but you never know. Sometimes there are some fairly last minute adjustments

made to truck lineups based on feedback. Like when we went to the Ram HD launch event, we,

as well as several other journalists, talked about how the payload figures on the trucks

were pretty low and they went out retested them. And several months later, they updated their

payload. Increase payload and that was based on feedback.

Yes, exactly. You know what happens?

So what we do does matter. Does matter.

That's what we're going to keep telling ourselves.

Yes. So anyways, so let's start with some rapid fire news.

So I was at the, right before the Detroit Auto Show opened, Ford had an off-road event

basically also on the show floor, but it was slightly separate right before the show.

And they dropped a couple of nuggets. They didn't show any image of this,

but they said the Ford Ranger Tremor edition is coming back to the U.S.

Yeah, which makes a lot of sense. A Ranger Raptor is one of our favorite off-road trucks,

one of our favorite mid-sized trucks, just new trucks, period, but it's not for everyone

because it's not the best truck for towing, hauling.

And it's also a little bit on the pricier side, even though it's still good value,

you know, at 57 grand. Compared to other top model off-road trucks for sure.

Even though it's a good value compared to others, it's still pricey. So it would be

nice to have a little bit more affordable off-road version, right?

Which is why the Tremor makes sense. You could have a truck that's still maybe a

little more work oriented, a little more affordable and not so aggressive on the off-road

end of the spectrum when most people realistically don't need that.

Exactly. And the image we're showing here, if you're watching us on TFL Talk Channel,

which thank you very much. And if you're listening, also thank you.

The image is a rendering that I took the liberty of making.

So this is not a Ford image. So please, I want to qualify all of this.

You will be seeing in this podcast several renderings that I commissioned myself.

So this is not coming from Ford or any other manufacturer.

Basically, I asked the tool to make a Ford Ranger with an F-150 Tremor grille.

And it did not work. No.

It showed, it put Ford, spelled out Ford in the grille for some reason.

Yeah, it's kind of an off-brand Raptor grille. It's got just one Raptor light at the top of the

grille instead of three. No, I think it's a painted, it's a painted accent.

Is that what it is? I'm hoping. I don't know.

Well, either way. Yeah, there has been a Ranger Tremor in the past.

I know. Before the Raptor Ranger, we had in the US a Ranger Tremor in the previous body

style, right? And we've tested many of them. You could watch it at oldtfl.com or TFL

off-road channel. We took it off-road several times. And it kind of, I didn't make any sense

why it went away. You know, why did they take it out of the lineup? But now they're doing better.

So recently, Unite did a sales show where we showed mid-size truck sales and Ford was

improving the Ranger sales. So it seems like they have more production capacity

at their Michigan facility where they built Rangers and Broncos.

And now, hopefully, you know, they're going to grow the family.

Yeah, which is all well and good. I'm happy for the Tremor to come back because it's a

trim that makes sense for a lot of people. It's a more practical trim for the majority

of people to buy than a Ranger Raptor or something. But it doesn't scratch the itch

of the Ranger Super Duty. Oh, I know. Do we do we just need to keep bringing this up?

I get the, to some degree, I get the argument that a Ranger Super Duty would cannibalize F-150

sales. But does that really matter if they're selling Ranger Super Duties instead of F-150s?

That's a genuine question. I don't know if it does matter. And the Ranger Super Duty,

which is a super heavy duty of the mid-size truck. Now, our producer call just pulled up an image and

the case just wants to grab it. This is the most rugged and the hardest working Ranger

in the world and we don't get it. No, we don't. Our friends in Australia get it.

Yeah. Our friends in other countries get it, but we can't. So no, there was no news about

this. Actually, I should have cornered some of those executives and said, Hey, man.

Hey, Super Duty Ranger. Do it. No, there is no news about this. But there is news about another

Super Duty. Are you ready for this? Maybe not. But let's do it anyway. Well, they showed this

image and a small clip because they said so for this partnering with Carhart, the clothing brand,

on actually several different kind of charity work, they're doing some, you know, supporting

the local communities and stuff like that, which is great. But they said they're also going to

build a custom, well, not customized, but a special version of the F Series Super Duty

with the Carhart edition. And at the time of recording, other than this teaser image

and the fact that they're doing a collaboration, we don't have any details on this truck, do we?

Not really. We just have this teaser which shows the wheel. And it's cool.

I wanted to ask you, what do you think about this? Well, I think I think it's neat. Yeah.

It's kind of like almost military looking, right? For sure. Yeah, it's very utilitarian looking,

which is kind of cool. I like some of the more unique wheels that maybe other people aren't

into the kind of phone dial wheels that they do on some of the HDs, I think are sort of neat.

But I understand why people don't like those so much. My other question would be, is this

color on the Super Duty? Is this just not a very frequently spec color? Is that a unique color?

I'm hoping it's unique to the Carhart. It's a little hard to tell. But it's not a Carhart color.

Yeah, it's kind of a dimly lit teaser. So it's hard to get a feel for exactly what this color

would look like up close. But it's almost kind of a khaki color. And then I'm sure

on this truck, they're going to do some things to the interior. Now we've seen some warranted

feedback from comments, feedback from people that this is going to be a too expensive

truck and unreachable for hipsters. Yeah. Fair enough. I would still be interested to

test it and I'll be interested to see what all they end up doing with it.

Well, cool. Can you close this image and a little bit down below on this tfltruck.com post?

I have a little bit more. Chevy did a Carhart version of a Silverado Heavy Duty. But their

version had very kind of minimal touches, I would say. They had like a pinstripe. They also had

a kind of a unique seat version. And I'm hoping for, by the way, they stopped doing that, right?

GM is no longer doing a Carhart edition Silverado. But I'm hoping Ford goes further,

you know what I'm saying? It seems like they might. Yeah, integrate those brands

a little bit more, maybe make a completely unique interior as far as materials are concerned.

Well, I would think that would be one of the main things you would need to do is

some unique fabrics, not just branding in your existing interior and exterior,

but some unique fabrics, especially. Hopefully they make it kind of rugged.

We'll see. We'll see exactly what it ends up being. And the teaser from Ford also showed the diesel

logo, you know, 6-7 Powerstroke logo in red. And red means high output in the Ford logo.

So it is going to be expensive. So that's going to be an expensive truck. But hopefully,

like we said, maybe they'll offer multiple engines. That would be nice, you know,

to offer a little bit more affordable version of it. Yeah, maybe theoretically,

you could get a slightly more affordable version of it. We hope. Yeah, we don't know yet.

Ultimately, we realize everything these days is very expensive. But we,

it's still our job to cover the industry. But also, I just want to point out that we also

are doing a lot of kind of use truck videos this weekend. Also, we have another video on

TFL truck where I show in Test Drive a 2021 Chevy Silverado 1500 with a lot of miles.

So we want to do those more long term videos with more affordable vehicles.

That truck is under $20,000. Yeah. Used. So, so yeah, we want to do more of that stuff.

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All right. So are you curious about what happened at Dakar? Do you think a lot of people

who listen to this know what Dakar Rally is? Well, I think the majority of people listening

would know what Dakar is. They're maybe not following it closely, which I would hope they

should be in that camp. You've actually been to Dakar. Yes, I was last year. Yeah, I was.

So maybe Cole can look up our some of our Dakar stories from the past.

Dakar Rally started in 1978. It used to be in Africa, Dakar Africa. Yep.

But it's since shifted. First it went to South America. Now it's in the United Emirates in Saudi

Arabia. So it's in the Middle East. And Ford has kind of entered the race in a big way.

They have four factory racers. They're calling them Raptor T1 Plus. T1 Plus is the name of the class,

which is, you know, there's a lot of regulations. But also, there's some freedom. For example,

they're using a five liter V8 in these race trucks. So you would expect them to use small

engines, right? Maybe turbocharged engines. But they said no, you know, they put 37s on this

race version of this truck with the unique tube frame chassis and a Coyote V8 in the middle.

Yeah, which is pretty cool. And they ended up finishing pretty well. Ford didn't win

their category. Yeah, they really wanted to win. Yeah. But they did get second, third,

fifth, and twelfth with their vehicles. And the American racer, Mitch Guthrie,

got the 12th position. I was rooting for Mitch, you know, in a very big way.

I did meet him last year as well. This is actually, oh, that shot of it drifting was Mitch

letting it rip a little bit in the sand. So unfortunately, the first place did not

fall into their lap. Yeah, so it's a really cool race. It's 12 days of racing,

dude. Something I'm a little jealous that you've gotten to go check out in person.

12 days of racing. I don't know how many miles, you know, thousands of miles of racing. So that's

a really, really hard offroad race in dunes and rocks and everything else. So enough of that.

Let's switch gears to Ram, right? That was our kind of our headline. And so first of all,

you went crazy with the image generator. Yes. So I apologize. You got light up wheels on.

Andre. Dude, I think the next big step in the design have to be LED lit wheels.

Andre is going on the record to say he thinks the next big thing in the truck industry is not

only light up grill and light up doors, but light up wheels, light up wheels. Yeah, this image

generator really, really went for it, really went for it. So, so I asked my image generator

to create a couple of things. So first, let's let's set up the stage for this. So

when I was interviewing this Ram CEO, Tim Kuniscus, basically, what was announced even

before the Detroit Auto Show is that the next generation Dakota, and by the way, he confirmed

it's going to be called Dakota. Yeah, because there was a lot of speculation. Is

are they going to call it that? Are they going to call it something else?

And I had seen a quote from him that was essentially why would we not call it Dakota?

Exactly. It just the brand exists. It was well respected. They still own the brand,

the Dakota name. So I agree. It makes sense. Boom. But but it shifted kind of where it was

going to be built. So they announced it's going to be built in Toledo, which is where

Toledo North Assembly plant, which is also where the gladiator is built. And also in that

similar location, the Wrangler is built as well. Yeah, but it sounds like it's going to be

dramatically different from the gladiator. Yes, I mean, similar, I guess philosophy in that it is

going to be body on frame. It's it's not going to be a unibody like Ridgeline kind of competitor.

It's going to be a more traditional midsize truck. But it's not going to be just a reskin

gladiator. No, no, and I think that probably be the wrong way to do it. Yeah, I agree.

Because excuse me, Tim was saying there is room in their showrooms because first the point he made

was when you go to a Stellantis dealership, it's usually several different brands, right? Like our

local dealership here in Brighton, Colorado, right? You might see a Dodge there. You might see

Chrysler. You might see a Ram or Jeep basically almost sharing the same showroom, right?

So they're selling multiple brands in the same place. So if you have a gladiator and next to it

a truck that almost looks identical to it, why sell both, right? Yeah. So the Dakota needs to

be a little bit different. No removable doors, obviously, it's not going to be like it's unlikely

it's going to be a convertible. Yeah, right. So it will be really laser focused in my view.

This is I'm speaking, not Tim. Just a straight up competitor to this Ford Ranger Chevy Colorado

and Toyota Tacoma, right? A straight up, probably a crew cab because short cabs are no longer a

thing. Yeah. Yeah, and it would the interesting things that we'll have to wait and see are going

to be if they make the Dakota more similar to the rest of the midsize truck segment in

terms of wheelbase because the gladiator is on the long side. Yeah. If with the Dakota, they go

independent front suspension instead of solid axle, which they might, which they might. Yeah,

which is definitely a possibility. So if they make a truck that's more directly targeted at the

rest of the midsize truck segment, make it more similar to those, not so similar that

it's pointless to have around, but at least similar in its platform and kind of use case,

how it's laid out. And then of course, a big question mark is going to be

powertrain. What are they going to put under the hood of these trucks? I'm fingers crossed

that is not just going to be penistars. I'm not going to hold my breath for a V8, although,

you know, it's Tim Kineski. It is Tim Kineski. So maybe and I wouldn't be mad at that.

Right. I think as much as I would love. And Cole, can you show the next image,

please? Because I have another generated image that I commissioned. Fewer LEDs.

A little bit more down to earth image of what Dakota might sometimes look.

But this one's not a RAM as as our producer Cole noticed. It's a dam.

I apologize. So this is, you know, the generator tool. Small mirrors, Andre.

Small mirrors, but that's okay. It's a midsize truck. Why does it need big mirrors?

Okay. Okay. Sorry.

As far as I would love a five, seven hammy underneath a hood of a midsize truck,

you can just stop there. What were you going to say?

I don't know if it's make sense for them. No, probably not business wise. Yeah. So,

so the five seven is back. Tim Kineski said that they're going to build 100,000 of those

engines in the ram 1500 truck this year, which is a huge number. But I think that's mostly

pointed to the full size truck market, right? You're thinking more 64 or Hellcat,

elephant. No, no, I'm thinking two liter turbo. Hurricane. Yes. Yeah. So one of the hurricanes,

one of the hurricanes, because they have many. Yeah, because they're six cylinder and their

four cylinder are both called the hurricane. I don't like that branding. I know I love the

hurricane branding, but I don't like that they're using it on every engine. Yeah, you should have

different names for different engines. Although you know what? Duramax is a name that spans

different engines. So I mean, it's been done before in the industry, you know,

you know, you have a three liter Duramax. You can have a six Duramax to me feels more

like a its own kind of sub brand rather than a name. You know, you know what I mean, because

it's a combination of different durable Maximus maximum maximum. Yeah, something like that.

But I agree. Probably the two liter hurricane makes the most sense. So they just redesigned

an engine, the two liter, it's going to be appearing first in the Grand Cherokee,

the redesigned 2026 Grand Cherokee. It is a two liter. So you're probably commenting

right now and saying too small of a displacement, unreliable, you know, crap. Well, so first of all,

we have to still drive it in the Grand Cherokee. Yeah, let's drive it. Let's drive it first.

Give up, but but it's super power dance. Yeah, that's true. It's an impressive leader. It's

cool. Can you can you look this up so I'm not, you know, pulling this number out of the air

of the 2026 Grand Cherokee hurricane engine. I think it's like 320 horsepower

from a small displacement engine, which is 324 and 332 pound feet of torque. So that

yeah, that would make it competitive with other midsize trucks for sure.

How cool would it be if they had the hurricane six in a midsize truck? That would be a lot of

motor in a cool that would be 420 horsepower. But remember that engine is a little bit longish

because it's a straight six. So would it fit underneath the hood of a midsize truck? That's

a different I'm just going to say yes. It would be nice because straight sixes I will be

nice are super smooth when that straight six engine in the Ram 1500 is idling. You don't

know I can't tell the difference. Well, and okay, since we're talking about our dreams, our goals

for this Dakota. Yes. Why not Dakota TRX? Well, maybe you can't call it a TRX unless it has a V8.

Why not Dakota RHO? Okay, with a three liter turbo six. I like it because a ranger raptor has

got a three liter turbo six. Yes, a V six, which is the wrong six, even though I do like

the ranger raptor a lot, but yeah, I see where you're going. That would be pretty interesting. I think

that would be a worthwhile truck to make. Yeah. No, I think fitting a straight six would be tough.

Might be difficult. But I think that Dakota will have a full range, right? There will be a

tradesman probably write a work version of the truck, probably very simple steelies,

right? Because that price of that Dakota has to be in line with the Tacoma and the rest of

the trucks. And Tacoma, I think, starts, what is it like 33 grand, 34 grand right now? Yeah. So it

has to be in line with that price on the Tacoma. And Tim Kaniscus and management at Stalanta,

they've talked about wanting to make an affordable truck. They definitely have that toward the

top of their priorities, which is great in theory, when we'll see how it materializes

when the truck actually goes on sale. But yeah, it would be great to have some

more affordable, hardworking versions of it at the low end. But I really do believe you,

even though you've got the gladiator, they have the gladiator, you've got to make an

off road version of this truck. Totally. I agree. In this day and age,

having some halo off road truck just makes a lot of sense. And then a midline metal model,

a middle of the road version of the truck in the off road space, like a Dakota Rebel.

Yeah, even a little big, big horn, maybe a Laramie. I mean, you could, you could use a

lot of their branding on the Dakota truck. And the reason the image I have created here,

this is my image again, is showing kind of like an RHO, you know, showing a very off roady version

of what that truck could look like. So but I think totally, they'll have many different

trim levels probably because they have to compete. If they don't, it's not going to be a competitive

vehicle. Yeah, so that could be that could be really interesting. So and the other image

with the lit up wheels, if you can come back to that, that was my concept thinking like

what would be something insanely wild. And I've never seen, I've seen, you know,

guys light up there under, you know, the wheel wells with lights. Yeah, and even inside of the wheels.

Yeah, but I've never seen somebody actually putting lights inside of a wheel itself.

Maybe you're on something. Could be, could be something. Maybe I am on something. Maybe not.

Perhaps. But can we keep dreaming? Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Okay. What do you

got? More light up wheels, Andre? No, my God, let's say it's a white wall. Let's say it's painted.

So, so he did. Tim, Tim is also looking across brands. So he's a Ram CEO, but he has

responsibility of kind of looking across North American brands and what they're doing.

So he's also basically said, not to me directly, but to some of the other journalists,

specifically, I was listening to the wheel bearing podcast with Sam and Nicole and Robbie.

Big shout out to them because Sam also helped me at the Detroit Auto Show. Right. They said the

gladiator is going to continue. There was a lot of fears that gladiator is going to go away

after 2027, you know, it's going to be discontinued. But it sounds like Tim and the team at

Stalantis want to keep the gladiator moving forward, which is good news.

Because we like the gladiator. It's been a good off-road truck specifically for a long time.

It'll be interesting to see what they do with it because at this point,

not only does the design in the platform feel dated, but powertrain especially.

Do you think V8, man, it's the solution to all these problems, but also, oh,

one other point on the powertrain is that Stalantis has just literally like days ago

discontinued their 4xE plug-in hybrids. The story about this with Tommy, right?

Yeah. So they started clearing them out from their website.

So that's worrisome because I think the world is moving into the hybrid direction, right?

Not all electric. I'm talking about, you know, some sort of hybrid electric electrification.

So do you think there will be another hybrid in the future of Jeep or Ram?

I mean, you have to suppose it could be something on the horizon, maybe a different hybrid system

because the 4xE specifically had its fair share of problems, recalls, and

Just reliability issues.

Yeah, for sure. So it was far from perfect. And, you know, maybe second time around,

they could have a better execution of it. I do think, I think if nothing else,

they're going to need to leverage powertrains here a little bit to try and keep up with

how much competition there is on the market, mid-sized trucks and otherwise.

Well, because they need to stand out, right? So one big thing is

Tim can say, oh, Dakota has brand value, but less Dakota existed in 2011, right?

I mean, people were, you know, I was going to say, how old would you be in 2028?

Like almost 16 years old. So people, some people who are driving,

were not even born when the last Dakota existed. Yeah, you know what I'm saying?

It's true.

So you need to bring something new and fresh. So I'm hoping, what do you think?

Will they keep a solid axle in the front of the Gladiator still?

I think in the Gladiator, you kind of need to.

And the Wrangler?

I think you kind of have to.

Because it's unique. That's what makes it different.

At this point, I'm not sure how much further refining it makes sense for them to do on a solid axle

platform. You know, you can keep kind of redesigning the skin of it and the interior and the tech

that's in it. I think for a solid axle vehicle, a new Wrangler or a new Gladiator drives

decently well. It's maybe, you know, it's not final solid axle G-wagon level of refinement,

but it's decent. But you definitely need to make some updates on powertrain with the Dakota in

particular or a potentially next generation Gladiator. What I would hope is that they're

not just benchmarking the existing midsize trucks and then it's something that comes out

and it is just kind of right there in line with the other midsize trucks that you could already go out

and buy from a dealer right now. Because that's always a little disappointing. We felt that way

when the new Tundra came out, for example, that we kind of had this feeling that-

It needed to leapfrog, right?

Exactly. And it didn't.

It needed to go above and beyond the trucks that were already on the market and we felt

like that's maybe how it was going to go. And then it came out and it was just kind of

at best as good as some of the other full size trucks on the market. So I would hope

with these midsize trucks, they're putting the effort into trying to actually go above

and beyond what you can already go out there and buy.

And there has to be some sort of highlight feature. I think the Gladiator has to

keep its convertible top, right, and removable doors. If it doesn't, why build the

Gladiator? So I think it does have to retain those features. Whether they keep the solid front axle

or not, I think it's up to debate. I mean, I'm sure they know what they're doing, but

it's up to debate there. But there has to be something distinct that separates it from the

rest, right, that just pushes it forward.

Yeah, so it remains to be seen exactly what they're going to end up doing with these

trucks. But it is something that we're looking forward to as well.

What do you think about them moving away from the circle headlamp, right? The circle headlamp

on the Jeep vehicle has been signature on the Wrangler and the Gladiator for many years.

But they've also done square or rectangular lamps.

Yeah, like YJs. Yeah. Where do you stand on rectangle versus circle?

It doesn't bother me necessarily. I like XJs a lot, and I like the Comanche. I've got some nostalgia for

square headlight Jeep, so I don't think it's...

I think, yeah, and the new Recon, the new Recon Jeep does not have a round headlamp.

So I think there's a lot of freedom. I think, in my opinion as well, I think they have some

freedom. They can go different style because they've used the circle headlamp for so many years

that I think maybe it's time to refresh it a little bit and keep moving forward.

It could be, yeah. I understand wanting to stick with the more traditional

round headlight on the Wrangler specifically, but I think outside of the Wrangler,

you can kind of go a little crazier with the design and you're going to upset some people,

but not quite as much.

But there's also other vehicles coming online, like I'm looking at Scout.

That's an old electric truck or maybe a range-extended truck, right?

But there's also other vehicles in this space that might meet the Gladiator,

the next-generation Gladiator on price at certain levels, right?

So we're not certain exactly how much a Scout truck will cost, but a fancy Gladiator will

probably be similar priced, so they need to watch out for that and see how that plays out.

And again, that just furthers the point that as time goes on, there's going to be more and more

powertrain options out there for trucks in all different segments.

So I really think that's going to be an area where they need to continue to be competitive.

It can't just be the two-liter alone.

I think they need to do more than that, because if it's just that two-liter hurricane,

then yeah, there's a lot of other trucks that have powertrain.

But what if there was another midsize truck with a removable top and removable doors?

What would you say to another option from Ford?

I would say sure.

This is my dream.

Well, I dreamt up a little image of a Ford Bronco four-door pickup truck.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So I think, would you think this truck, so if Ford built a off-roady version of a

four-door Bronco pickup truck, do you think it will totally eat into their ranger sales?

Or do you think it would be a nice addition to their lineup?

Or maybe they should not ever do that?

I think this would be a really cool project for somebody who's very talented

to make as like a SEMA build.

Like David?

If he's feeling up for it, because it wouldn't be easy to do necessarily,

but I don't know if they would have necessarily a business case for this.

Okay.

Yeah, I wanted to hear what our listeners and viewers would have to say.

But it looks cool.

So I kind of was looking into this because I wanted to build my own.

Well, that would cost a lot of money, actually.

But what if you could buy, you could find like a salvage title Bronco, right?

And then you could hack it up a little bit because you would need to extend the wheelbase,

right?

I don't think you could ride on the same wheelbase as a four-door Bronco.

Unless you did a two-door.

You could have done, yes.

If you turned a four-door Bronco into a two-door pickup.

Like a half cab, like they used to have in the original Bronco.

Yep.

Yeah, you could do something like that.

But if you wanted to keep the four doors, I think you would have to extend the wheelbase.

Then you're chopping the frame and extending the frame, which is not a small job.

No, I think David could be up for that.

Yeah, the frame for sure.

The sheet metal.

The sheet metal is something else.

Yeah.

The sheet metal would be hard to do.

But maybe I could 3D print something.

Sure.

Yeah, you can make a plastic Bronco pickup.

Probably, yeah.

Probably.

Oh, dude, speaking of 3D printing, this also relates to Ford.

I know we spoke a lot about Ford.

But they're going into F1 with their powertrains with Red Bull racing and Ford racing.

And they're 3D printing a lot of the components on that engine out of titanium.

So they're talking about coolant lines, exhaust systems, turbocharger housings.

These are intricate designs, right?

I mean, there's so many like little tiny, and it has to be small because it has to fit into a Formula

1 car.

So now a lot of the components on those high-powered engines are 3D printed, actually.

Yeah, which is pretty cool.

I mean, I'm pretty sure people have 3D printed nearly functional organs.

So there's a lot of possibility there.

And also guns and enough money.

And weaponry.

Yeah.

So you could 3D print almost anything.

All kind of thing.

You could get an F1 turbo, a new gun, and a new liver.

Wow, one stop shop.

We could live forever.

Yeah, well, we should get into 3D printing from the sound of it.

I know.

Why are we doing this podcast?

Yeah.

Okay, let's move on, because I have more exciting dreaming for you.

Yeah, you went crazy.

I went crazy.

You know, I melted some ice caps on the polar regions with this image generation.

So here's where I am on this.

So I dreamed up a Lexus GX pickup truck.

Which is absolutely never going to happen.

But why?

Listen to my business case.

Okay, listen to this.

Yeah.

So the Raptor R exists, the F-150 Raptor R, because it's a status symbol, right?

It's a super capable truck.

I'm not saying it's all vaporware, right?

I'm saying Raptor R is super, super capable.

But a lot of people who probably own one don't usually jump dunes with it, right?

True.

They're driving it on the street.

They know the capability exists.

It's a really high-powered vehicle, which is very awesome.

But it's also kind of showing to the world the status.

Yes.

Because they spent $115,000 on a pickup truck.

And it can haul a trailer, it can haul some payload, it can tow a trailer.

It also looks nice.

You could take it to dinner.

So why not have a status machine, which is also a Lexus?

How well did that work in the pickup truck space for Lincoln?

Oh boy.

You know what?

I just saw a Lincoln, I went to Barry Jackson's auction in Scottsdale.

Because I was in Phoenix.

Yeah.

And I pulled up.

I haven't seen one in person in a very long time.

I saw a Blackwood.

Nice.

Dude.

I think.

I don't know if I could send this image to Cole.

Was that a good thing?

Were you happy about it?

Was I happy about it?

Well, I would be happy about spotting a Blackwood.

I don't know if I want to own one.

Well, it was on sale.

And it's...

Did you bid?

No.

Because the sale wasn't going on when I was there.

It was, let me see if I can...

But otherwise.

Had you been there during the auction?

Would have been a done bid.

Cole, are you receiving this?

So this Lincoln Blackwood was a two wheel drive only, right?

So I think they made some mistakes with the Lincoln Blackwood.

So other than that, you think this would have been a...

This Blackwood that I saw, hopefully you could see this on this on TFOTalk.

I'm actually kind of hoping you can.

There's three images here.

Because the front of it looks like a navigator of the same era.

But it has a bed behind it.

But it kind of looked tired.

Yeah, it does look tired.

You know, the paint was like sunburned.

The bed was not super useful.

It was two wheel drive only.

But I think Cole maybe...

He's impressed.

Are you impressed Cole?

No, he's not that impressed.

It's carpeted bed.

Yeah, yeah, it's fancy.

So it made some mistakes, but we could learn from mistakes.

I'm just saying, I don't know if a luxury brand pickup truck necessarily appeals in general.

You're not feeling that.

But especially, Toyota is obviously a very conservative.

Yeah, you're right.

Look at the new RAV4 that they just came out with versus the old one.

It's like the same thing.

But I know, but RAV4 is a slightly different use case

because the RAV4 is the best selling car in the country.

This is way too out there.

I know they said they're not going to do any more boring cars, but...

But listen to this, the RAV4 sold like half a million units, right?

So you can't change it too much

because if you change your best selling vehicle too much,

you may offend the customers that are buying it.

Exactly.

But this is a low production volume GX, so it could be a pickup truck.

I'm saying.

I think in a completely different universe.

Okay, maybe I'm in the wrong universe.

Yeah.

What about this?

LX, how about, let's go deeper.

How about an LX Lexus pickup truck?

They don't even bring us the dang 300 series laying cruiser.

I know.

Okay, this is...

No, take it cold.

Remove this image.

Remove it.

Take it out of here.

So next up is this.

A rich line on 37s, Andre.

Yes, listen to this.

Okay, this is my business case for this truck.

I think you've lost your mind.

I'm getting there.

So listen to this.

We recently had a long-term test with the Passport Trail Sport.

Right?

Yes.

It was a super capable vehicle with a couple of negatives.

Ground clearance was one negative.

Would you agree?

I agree.

Also, slow speed off-roading.

It has a really good oval drive system, but it doesn't have low range.

Right?

So slow speed off-roading was kind of an issue.

But Honda has a hybrid powertrain coming out soon.

Right?

And their hybrid powertrains are very heavily into electrification.

So electrification is a big part of it.

So that means a lot of torque, a lot of low end torque potentially.

So why not create a bridge line on 37s?

I think your rendered ridgelines got a solid rear axle.

Ooh.

This is ambitious.

That would not work because they don't have a solid rear axle.

They, and I'm sure they could engineer one,

but they don't even put big tires on their side-by-sides.

Cole, can you do the next image, please?

Something a little bit more realistic.

There you go.

Yeah.

I buy it.

Well, I would buy the idea of it.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So now I've created my own image of what would happen

if the new 2026 Pilot, by the way, Roman and Nathan just did a video on the 2026 Pilot

Trail Sport.

What if it was the next generation ridgeline?

I would like that.

Now this, I'm not going to argue with.

I think that this makes a lot of sense and is even practical and realistic

because Honda has been leaning further into their Trail Sport vehicles.

And they should.

It's been very successful.

So I could absolutely see the next ridgeline Trail Sport they end up doing,

being more aggressive, the current ridgeline Trail Sport,

which is a vehicle that we have here at the office actually.

Exactly.

Is in the spectrum of Trail Sport vehicles on the milder side.

So the Pilot and the Passport Trail Sports are definitely more aggressive

and the ridgeline like the CR-V are much less aggressive.

But they could change that.

Yeah.

As time goes on, it seems like they might lean more and more into it,

especially as people buy them more often.

I mean, the most recent Trail Sports, the Passports,

there are three trims of the Passport and two of those trims are Trail Sports.

Exactly.

And I just, I heard.

So they see the value in it.

I heard some data.

I didn't verify this data, but it was from a credible source is that

a lot of the Passports, like a majority of them,

are Trail Sports that are selling.

Yeah.

So it makes sense.

I think they cannot build them fast enough.

But if they make it a little bit more like higher off the ground,

maybe a Trail Sport X.

Yeah.

An X edition.

I think they might be starting to see the value in this, which is great.

I think so.

And also if it tows more than 5,000 pounds,

which current ridgelines are limited at 5,000, right?

Yeah.

If it tows a little bit more than that, maybe 6,000,

it'll be a little bit more competitive with the Tacomas

and some of the other vehicles in the segment.

And so I think this is, by the way, this image is not from Honda.

This is something I created once again.

So this is all in a dreaming space.

Yes.

This is what it, this is the slideshow in Andre's head every night

when his head hits the pillow.

When they close my eyes at night, I see lifted ridgelines hopping.

Yes.

Hopping the fence.

Do we have any more?

Or are we?

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

That looks possible.

So you know that out of most of the sales that we talked about

in the midsize truck segment,

the frontier, Nissan Frontier, was not doing so hot, right?

The other pickup trucks in the segment are doing quite well.

The Tacoma had a sales growth best every year.

The Colorado increased in sales.

The Ranger increased.

Even the Gladiator increased a bit.

Yeah.

But the Frontier was struggling.

I think they need to make a wide body Frontier with a lifted suspension

because the pro for X is great.

But once again, like Honda, it needs to be a little bit more butch, I think.

Yeah, and put the old GT-R motor in it.

A twin turbo?

Yeah.

So they have the twin turbo V6's in their Armada now, right?

What if it fits underneath a hood of a Frontier?

Yeah, you would think it plausibly could, right?

Which would be pretty neat.

So I like that idea.

I think that would be cool.

So I think it would take a big investment and obviously

seems like across the board Nissan's trying to cut costs right now.

It might take a little while but maybe some time down the line.

That could be a cool thing they could do.

It is a bit unfortunate that Nissan is financially struggling a bit right now,

right?

So they probably couldn't invest a ton of money into a project like this.

But the XTERRA, they've said is coming back, which is exciting in itself.

So while they're building the XTERRA, maybe on a similar chassis,

maybe somebody could say, hey guys, let's do another version of the Frontier.

So hopefully there's some energy there.

I like that idea.

So because I want to see, I mean the Titan is discontinued,

I want to see Nissan to do quite well.

And they're also asked to partner with other companies, right?

So there is like for example,

Ford and Volkswagen had partnered in Europe,

where the VW Amarok is mostly a ranger underneath, right?

And then a lot of the Ford electric vehicles in Europe

are mostly VWs underneath.

So there's come some cross partnership there.

Nissan could do something similar maybe and draw from another company.

Maybe, you know what?

The new XTERRA I believe is co-developed with Mitsubishi.

Interesting.

Hey, Cole, as we're getting closer to the end of this part,

can you look up, I think it's on the car side,

a Mitsubishi Montero prototype.

So these have been running around even in Colorado.

We're seeing some images from you guys.

Yeah, this.

I think this was in California.

So something that looks like a Mitsubishi,

a pretty sizable SUV actually, not super small.

So if they're working with Mitsubishi,

maybe there is another connection that they can use

to maybe extend some of their development.

Which would be good because Mitsubishi needs that as well.

Yeah, they need a little bit of help also.

They need more vehicles and I think more interesting vehicles

that get people into dealerships.

Yeah.

By the way, you also did a video,

an off-road video with the Ridgeline, right?

With versus Santa Cruz.

We did do that.

How did that go?

Can you give me some hints?

Great.

Not great.

What happened?

Well, they're not very tall.

See, we couldn't go far.

You're making my point.

The Honda's IVT-M4 all-wheel drive system is really good.

Yeah.

And it didn't struggle in that sense at all.

We just pretty quickly ran out of clearance

and had to back down.

Like approach angles also.

Yep.

So see, Honda, it's a great vehicle.

37s.

No, not, no.

Once again, you made a great 33s.

Can we split the difference?

I like 33s.

33s.

Attyardy Protocoma is on 33s.

So, hey, I mean, I know a lot of these companies

are conservative, right?

You know, Honda, Toyota, even Nissan and Mitsubishi

are pretty conservative companies.

But still, for an American market,

I think they need to make their vehicle

a little bit more aggressive.

And it doesn't have to be every single one of them.

I get that for a vehicle to be able to have

31s or 35s on it.

Fundamentally, it has to be built in a way

that it could accept those in some trims.

So it's not just-

And it's not easy to do.

No, it's not just as simple as chopping up body work

and throwing 33s on a Ridgeline.

But maybe over time, we can lean a little more

in that direction continuously

and make some vehicles that actually

belong on some trails.

But we'll be doing several more videos.

So with the Ridgeline Trail Sport

that we have in our fleet now,

which doesn't belong to us,

but it's kind of a long-term vehicle

that you guys brought from California.

Yeah, we picked it up in California

and we have a first-generation Ridgeline

that we can make some comparisons to,

which is going to be pretty cool

because those first-generation Ridgelines are-

Are pretty tough.

Yeah, are actually pretty useful.

Yeah, so we have that.

We also-

I want to do another kind of a towing comparison test,

right?

Maybe old versus new.

And when other vehicles show up in our fleet,

we can do a little bit more comparisons.

Exactly, we got lots of plans.

Nice.

So stay tuned for that.

You also have a TFL bike.

I mean, TFL bike is doing pretty well, right?

Yeah, we're doing some fun videos

with mini bikes especially,

which is one of my favorite things.

So that's a stay tuned for that.

So you could see all of that on altffl.com

and also you can also support us

and get some also future live shows

and call-in shows potentially at patreon.com

slash tfl car.

So if you join that,

you can find out when we were doing some

live call-in shows and stuff like that.

Yeah, exactly.

So we got a bunch going on.

And like you said,

you can check all of that out on altffl.com.

Thank you guys.

We'll see you next week.

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The New Ram Dakota Will Be Successful If… | Ep. 315

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