TFL Talkin' Trucks Mar 13, 2026

These Are The Craziest Trucks At The 2026 Indianapolis Truck Show! | Ep. 322

Annotations will appear as you listen

0:00

56:32

Car

Chevrolet Silverado

LIVE

One of the biggest challenges of earning a degree as a military veteran is transitioning your goals

and experiences to your next phase in life. National University gets it. As a veteran

founded Yellow Ribbon School, they offer post-911 GI Bill acceptance. Dedicated military support and

advising services and credit for your military experience. That's why 30% of their students

are military affiliated. And you, education that serves those who served.

Live in a busy life, navigating a long distance relationship, becoming a first step father.

Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office.

I could speak with my therapist in the comfort of my home. I was never alone.

Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 co-pay. No

insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month with promo code SPACE80 when you

at Talkspace.com. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com. Save $80 with code SPACE80

at Talkspace.com. Oh boy, do I have a very special episode of TFL Talking Trucks podcast

for you right now. Check out some of the big trucks behind me. So if you're listening to us,

thank you very much. If you are watching, I think you're going to get a lot more value

from this particular episode because I'm at the Work Truck Show Work Truck Week in Indianapolis

2026. And I want to show you all the latest news. So basically what's happening with

small, medium and humongous trucks, bands, some of the technology trends from the show.

And anything from 1929, I guess, to 2026 and far beyond 2026 actually because

there's some technologies here that will be coming online in upcoming years to come.

So several big manufacturers are here. I'm going to start my podcast right now from the Ram booth

because they've introduced a brand new vehicle and it's over here on the stage. They have a

humongous space here and it's the new Ram ProMaster City. You could see a work van,

version of it, cargo van right here on the main stage and dozens of people around it.

And you can also see a passenger version of it right here. And I did a full deep dive video about

this. So I spoke with their main Ram professional director Dave Sowers. I have a video that you

could find either at tfltruck.com or oldtfl.com. Basically every detail about this van. But basically

it's going to go on sale in early 2027. It's going to start at about $40,000 when it goes on sale.

They're saying just under 40k. It has only one powertrain, one wheelbase, one roof height,

so it's a pretty straightforward configuration. But you can get cargo versions of it and passenger

versions. And then it's turbo. It's a 1.6 liter turbo, 166 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque.

And an iSIN designed 8-speed automatic transmission. It should be pretty easy to drive. We haven't

driven it yet. But these vans are all over Europe and some other markets because Stellantis sells it

with many other brands. So they've sold probably, they said about a million and a half of these

already over the last 10 or so years. So let me kind of show you a little bit of the interior here.

And this space is humongous. Basically nine feet on the floor. You can put three rows of seats

up to eight passengers or eight people total in this van. So three row. But you can put a

four by eight sheet of plywood. It has a payload of just about 2,000 pounds and it can tow 2,000

pounds. So Promaster City is back. So that's pretty good news. But they have several other news at the

show. Here's just another look at the Promaster City. I'm actually really excited by this because

of course giant vans are there and they can be used for work or for recreation. But I don't

have a big garage. My garage ceiling is only about seven feet at my house and you know me. I love

my vans. So I have an old van project that I'm still working on. But this can be very enticing.

If this passenger version was about 50k or maybe 55, here's what it looks like with some seats.

If that can be done, my gosh, you can remove these seats very easily. You can have a flat

floor or carry up to eight people in comfort. This could be something really, really interesting.

In the market. But now, let me show you something bigger. And I'm not talking about

NASCAR truck series. I'm talking about a diesel power wagon. This goes on sale a little bit later

this year and it's combining the power wagon brand and a road capability with a diesel engine.

This is not new news. I already told you about this a couple times.

Well, it kind of started around the first of January, this news. But basically this is their

only version of the 6.7 Cummins. 430 horsepower, 1075 pound feet of torque in this puppy.

And triple locked. So front locking, solid axle, front differential, center transfer case and of

course rear locking axle as well. So triple locked diesel with a tow rating of close to 20,000 pounds

and a lot of off-road capability. I think they could have gone even bigger. You know, maybe gave

it a slightly higher stance. Maybe bigger tires. These are 34 inch all-terrain tires. So I think

they could have gone a little bit bigger with a new power wagon. But who? Well, I'm not on their

design team and marketing team. So what do I know? Anyways, but these are backed up by an eight-speed

decolor torque flight transmission made by ZF or ZF. And I'm going to visit ZF

booth shortly. Here we have the 6.7 engine on the stand. This is the new one. And

you can kind of see the turbocharger. Pretty massive actually right there.

Holster turbocharger with Cummins. You could see

all the kind of tubing and of course the beginning of the exhaust system and the emission system.

And it's pretty massive. This is my hand next to it. Pretty massive engine. And in their work truck

chassis, there are 45 and 5500 chassis. The power rating is 360 horsepower and 800 pound

feet of torque. So it's a low rating, different emissions rating. But I love their Ram 5500

chassis. Let me show you one over here on this side because just the payload capability they

offer. Better turning radius. Different wheel bases. Excuse me. Different wheel bases. Here's one

right here. And here's a 5500. You can kind of see it's a wider front end. Better steering angle.

And still Cummins power. Speaking of Cummins, and by the way, I'm going to walk basically the

entire show for you so you can see everything that's happening. Speaking of Cummins, the Cummins

booth is right next door to Ram. So here on the stand, they have the B 7.2 liter diesel. And this

engine was painted red here with all the accessories. But it just looks humongous. Once again, here's

my hand for scale. This is a massive looking engine. And here's some specs for commercial

applications. The higher horsepower rating is about 340 horse, and the torque is about 1000.

So this engine is not really meant for a kind of consumer pickup truck, at least not in this

rating. It's meant for more commercial duty, bigger trucks. So a little bit lower stress,

but still very, very massive and should be very durable. Now, I also have, I wanted to show you,

excuse me. Hi, excuse me. There is the X10 engine right here. Once again, even bigger.

And really, those numbers mean leaders of displacement. So 10 would be about 10 liters.

Here's their B 6.7 octane. So still a 6.7 liter engine, but gasoline powered. So not a turbo

diesel. And this particular one is rated up to 300 horsepower and 660 pound feet of torque.

And this engine now can be found in the Freightliner trucks, their medium duty trucks with the ZF

power line eight speed automatic transmission. So that's pretty cool as well.

Now, I wanted to show you this too. This is a little model here on the table of their emissions

control system. So Cummins is working on different, different emissions systems. And it's packaged,

well, of course, it will be bigger in the vehicle, but it's kind of one section on top of another,

and it has two electric 48 volt heating elements. So instead of putting extra fuel

into their emissions catalyst system to clean up the emissions, they're using a 48 volt

alternator off the engine to heat up these heaters and make them work in the optimal

temperature range quicker, sooner, and more consistently. So that's a pretty,

pretty big deal. Here you could see this octane engine as well. This head, the head of this engine

looks insanely, insanely big. So this is really meant for commercial applications. So I'm not sure

if Cummins will actually bring these engines to the consumer pickup truck market.

So let me kind of, it was very crowded in there. So this is kind of the first day of the show.

And I tried to wait a little bit. I also kind of prepared and I walked the show twice already

to just try to find for you some of those little nuggets and really important pieces of information.

So now let me walk a little bit this way so I can show you exactly what's going on and get

outside of the some of the crowds and get into some of the other information and more trucks.

So basically several manufacturers are here. GM, Ford already did a special, actually two videos

about new Ford news for 2027. They're heavy duty news. Let's see. Let me orient myself a little bit

and actually head this way. So generally speaking, even though I have a CDL

license with air brake endorsement and I can drive basically every truck that's in this room,

that's not what I do every day. So every day I drive more of a heavy duty pickup truck type deal

but I do need a CDL because we tow trailers of up to about 30 or 35,000 pounds. So that's

definitely CDL territory. I wanted to bring you into the MAC truck display, some of the biggest

trucks of them all. So here we are. We are at MAC. Okay, they also have a pretty large, large space

here and they're showcasing, well also they use Cummins power and a lot of their vehicles. So there

is a little model engine of the X10. That's the engine we just saw. So this theme will continue

throughout this podcast but they can also power giant dump trucks like this.

Let me show you inside really quick. I actually did the video with their new semi-truck long

haul over the road truck just about a year ago and their new cabs are very comfortable,

really easy to kind of orient yourself. It's very driver focused and pretty easy to get into.

Even though you have to climb a couple steps, there's big handles. The mirrors are solidly

mounted, just really well built machines. But I also noticed one more thing here. So this particular

truck you see right here is a medium duty MAC but it's not only all electric. So they are showcasing

their electric powertrain. This is the MAC MD medium duty. Here you can see the inverters

underneath the hood, lots of high voltage wires all packaged within the standard medium chassis,

kind of this big truck body. But it's also carrying a level 3 charger on its back.

So this is kind of showing what's possible. Not only do you have an electric medium duty truck

but it's also kind of a tanker for electrons. So it's carrying this in charge

MG momentum system. And you have basically a level 3 charging capability. So if you need some

support, if you have an electric fleet of vehicles, this truck can get out there himself,

electrically powered. And I guess he could charge himself. So he brought all the fuel he needs

for himself also. Here's another look a little bit on the inside.

So it looks almost identical as far as the driver is concerned,

except some of the gauges are a little bit different. But you can see here,

so different batteries sizes are about 150 kilowatt hours or 240 kilowatt hours in this

chassis. And then it also has that high energy battery and dispensing system on its back.

So that's interesting. I did not expect to see this. All electric truck, that's also a mobile

charger for other vehicles. So that's something interesting. Here is a kind of a wide view of

this vehicle. It's hood prop open. One of the biggest challenges of earning a degree as a military

veteran is transitioning your goals and experiences to your next phase in life. National University

gets it. As a veteran founded Yellow Ribbon School, they offer post 9 11 GI Bill acceptance,

dedicated military support and advising services and credit for your military experience. That's

why 30% of their students are military affiliated. And you education that serves those who served.

So your knees can actually keep up with your life. It's like giving your body the support it

already wants while it heals. Just without all the extra pain and drama. Wear it to the gym,

wear it on a date, wear it while you're doing things I cannot say on this podcast.

It's comfortable, breathable and works 24 seven. Go to freesocks.com and grab the

credit wear knee sleeve and a free pair of socks with purchase. That's f-r-e-e-s-o-x.com.

Because if something's going to give out, let it be him, not your knees.

Now, let me let me keep moving a little bit. Sorry, I don't have case here with me or Roman or

even Mr. Truck or Nathan. I miss those guys. But the show is a little bit hard for us to get to.

And we're paying our own way to get here. So, oh, sorry, I got distracted. There's a classic

Ford F1. Oh, yes. And it's got a beautifully restored. It's beautifully restored and has a

beautiful, what is this, wood? Yes, real wood flatbed. Really nice. Yeah, so the show is a

get to because it's in Indianapolis and it's quite pricey as far as just to make sense for

us to come. And if there is a ton of news, we always, of course, try to be here. We want to be

here. So because of some of the news this year, I wanted to come here to show you what's going on

in the industry and also a lot of accessories. So even though this is kind of a work related show,

there is also a lot of awesome accessories at the show that I'll show you in a few minutes

that all of us, not even fleet buyers, but just regular consumers, you and I can

find very useful and in our daily lives and also work. So I'm in the General Motors booth.

They have a humongous space here as well. And they're showcasing a lot of their vehicles. My gosh,

how many, I don't know how many, maybe a dozen of giant trucks. So this is something that we

usually don't talk about at CFO truck. Here's a low cap forward LCF, basically kind of an

Asuzu chassis. That's GM, of course, also sells. These are kind of heavier 4500 vehicles,

but they have a new headlamp and a new face. You could see that at the show here.

An exhaust system kind of hidden over here. And here's another example of kind of the

emissions control systems and how it's stacked and positioned in the vehicle because basically

it's on the passenger side of the frame and it's protected by this outside plate. So nobody really

sees this exhaust system and exhaust pipe coming out. So because it could be quite warm. And then,

of course, you have your system basically tucked under. So packaging is really important

because it's a considerable unit here. So actually, I'm not seeing a pivot in the industry

because you might say, well, some of the government regulations are relaxing, right? So the EPA and

the enforcement of a lot of environmental emissions systems on vehicles are changing,

also including commercial vehicles. But I'm not seeing a pivot in the industry yet because

there's quite a few electric chassis. I'll show you more in a second. For example, from Mac and some

others. And also, Cummins had a big press conference this morning and they talked about their

emissions systems that I showed you actually, which uses now electric 48 volt system for heating.

So it can save a little bit of fuel but still keep your emissions system cleaner and better.

So everybody is still working on all those elements. So I think whenever you have a regulatory change

and I think you've heard other people's talk about this on other channels, it takes sometimes years

or decades to make those changes in the industry. So it's not something that happens within the year

or overnight for sure. Here's even a bigger GM commercial vehicle. This is a 6500. And guess what?

It's a Chevy with the Cummins. Did you ever think you would see one of these things?

A GM truck with a Cummins engine. Well, here it is. It's huge. It's humongous.

So basically, GM is offering a lot of trucks because of course you know that they work with

it international. There's a truck over there also available up to 6500 series.

But they also work with other manufacturers to bring you low cap forward designs. And here is one of my favorite vans.

The good old Chevy Express has been basically almost unchanged for over 30 years. And yes,

I know Ford also has the E-Series vans. Specifically, the cutaway like this Chevy,

basically where the cab is literally cut. So you still have the seats in the front and of course

the driver's area. But you can put now a shuttle body or a camper motorhome body on the back of

the system and still have a very durable because it's been around for 30 years chassis

to build your vehicles off of. And look just how flat the frame rails are. Actually,

this one does have a little kink over the rear axle. But normally speaking, when you look at

commercial vehicles, wait a minute, what is a Corvette C8 01X doing here? Oh, this is pretty fun.

But I don't think you're going to haul a lot of lumber with this one.

You'll be hauling something else going over 200 miles an hour. But if you look at this truck,

this is what I'm talking about as far as really flat frame rails. And they're straight as an arrow.

And they've been the same width and kind of the same size for decades because different companies

build different accessories. And you got to have that. So here is another Chevy SUV. They brought

a lot of vehicles. And look at this one doesn't have a rear seat. This is I believe this is a

new equinox. And it's showing what's available if you don't want to put seats in your

kind of remove the rear seats and have it for your business kind of secured weather protected and

lockable storage for your tools. Very neat. Okay, I want to swing by here because this is where ZF is.

I already showed you, of course, we talked about this that ZF has that 8 speed automatic

transmission in the RAM trucks now and now freight liner trucks, they're expanding. And they're just

kind of a testament to what's happening with their transmission. Sorry about that. Wow, somebody

is blasting music here. Here's what I'm talking about. They have several trucks in their ZF booth.

This is a Peterbilt. And they also have their transmissions right here. Hey, Roy. Hey, good to

see you. I'm doing my podcast. Yes, thanks. So just wanted to show you guys the ZF power line

transmission. And Roy, I was talking to you earlier about can you introduce yourself really quick.

Yeah, hi, I'm Roy Moulterhead of Marketing Communications for ZF Commercial Vehicle Solutions

Americas. Thanks, dude. We're talking earlier and just talking about, you know, you've been pretty

successful with the RAM pickup trucks. Now you also announced the freight liner, right? Yeah,

we're in the freight liner M2 106 plus. So we're a new option within that platform with the octane

engine only currently. That's the Cummins octane, right? Correct, yeah. But tell me a little bit

about the double PTO and the live PTO. All right, sure. Yeah, you see our transmission, we have

left and right dual live PTO. So dual live or live PTO, meaning it's always engine driven. So no

matter what state you're in with the transmission, whether you're in park or neutral or driving,

the PTOs are always operational, which really makes it great for things like

saw spreaders, snow plows, anything that you might need to operate, regardless of transmission gear

or neutral position. So and these, can you point to them really quick? Sure, yeah, right here we see

our, this would be the right hand PTO. And of course, we also have a left hand PTO, enabling you

to have multiple PTO options. And actually on the RAM, they've indicated that they have a dual PTO.

So you can actually have two PTOs hanging on one side so that they have a duplexer. So

that's a unique option within the RAM chassis cabs and other 3500 and up. And really,

in my mind, what that means is you're basically using some of the engine power

for additional tasks, right? And really just kind of, it could be a compressor, right? Well,

mega compressor or like a vacuum pump, right? Right. Or it could be like a hydraulic pump

also, right? Yep, yep. Any tool that you would need that vehicle to do, whether it's a dump bed,

vacuum unit, whatever it might be. And of course, it's always driven by the engine. It just happens

that like it's never disengaged with our transmission on others. It utilizes power from the torque

converter to operate those PTOs. This makes sure that you're always able to do those vocational

operations that you need your trucks built for and the reason you're utilizing it. So it's really

adding additional value for the truck owner. Awesome. Well, thanks, dude. I'm going to keep

walking. Thanks. Appreciate it. All right. So that was cool. I was able to catch up with Roy

and kind of learn a little bit more about the PTO system. And it sounds very, you know,

maybe a little bit expensive or intimidating. But of course, it's not. And I think it's useful.

It could be useful for something crazy you're thinking up for your dream.

I don't know, off-road motorhome or something like that for your big pickup truck,

because you could run maybe a giant compressor off of this if you are, I don't know,

maintaining different off-road vehicles in the field. So it could be a variety of different

use cases that you can use something like this for. So pretty sweet. And also, I wanted to mention,

so we're talking about Freightliner medium-duty, basically large, huge trucks using basically

the same transmission for the most part as your pickup truck. So this is kind of the testament

to the strength of that transmission. So when I was actually in Germany with Case visiting the ZF

Proving Grounds over there, we were actually talking to their main engineers of their transmissions

and asking, why not nine speeds? Why not ten speed transmissions? Because, you know, Ford and

General Motors are kind of heading that way with their heavy-duty pickup trucks. And they were telling

us that, you know what, for kind of return on investment, and basically what you can do with

the eight-speed automatic transmission as far as durability, strength, and capability that they

felt that was the good solution or the best solution. And here we can see some of the benefits

of that, because now, medium-duty giant vehicles and also your heavy pickup trucks are basically

using the same design. So that's a good, I mean, obviously, this is only about two years that

they've been in the Ram pickup truck heavy-duty. They've been in Ram light-duty trucks for decades,

and they've been in most German performance cars for decades. But now we're seeing their heavy-duty

side. But, you know, this is Indianapolis, and this is Indiana. And really, Indianapolis is home to

one very important company in my mind, which is Allison, and basically, which started out

right here with also the Indy 500, Indy race track. And, of course, they build many components,

and they have a pretty large booth over here. I'm kind of walking towards it now.

And, of course, Allison transmissions have been in many, many giant vehicles, military trucks,

big heavy trucks. So there's a huge presence from Allison, and this is kind of their home.

Their headquarters is not far away. I wanted to show you one of their transmissions called the 400

series. This is the Allison 400. And just look to have a cutaway here. It looks like, I don't know,

super complicated. But this is what you have to do to have multiple speeds, and all the refinement,

and all the controls, and still have capability of upwards, what, like over 2000 pound feet

of torque going through this, because this is meant for very, very large diesel engines,

in giant mining trucks and dump trucks. And, of course, different series of these

transmissions are also in school buses and fire trucks. Here, they're talking about 2360,

up to 2360 pound feet of torque of capability. So that's very impressive. Oh, wait, what's also

impressive is there's a dump truck in the air. So they have kind of this mobile lift solution,

and they've lifted a pretty large dump truck in the air. Let me show you. Here I am. I'm kind of

nervous. So I usually get nervous when we lift. We have a four-pors lift at our range in Colorado,

and I sometimes get nervous when we put our Chevy 2500 pickup truck on one. But

these guys are like, oh, yeah. Well, we could lift a giant,

and what's this lift system rated to, or how much weight?

Up to 74,000 pounds. Quite impressive. Thanks, guys. That's pretty cool.

So about 74,000 pounds capacity. Wow. So since I'm on this side of the show,

I wanted to show you what's happening at Ford really quick. So we visited Ram,

we visited Mack Truck, we visited Chevrolet and General Motors. Now we're going to visit Ford,

and I actually did a little tiny miniature walk around of the Ford booth prior to this. So you

they just started a loud presentation here.

So one of their trucks here is a police responder for the F-150. They also had some news about the

2027 Super Duty trucks here at the show. And just a quick overview. They did not announce any

powertrain differences or changes for their Super Duty vehicles or actually any other vehicles.

Basically, a lot of the powertrains stay the same. They did introduce Ford Pro AI,

basically an artificial intelligent search engine, or search capability, and response

capability for fleet management. So that was kind of an interesting solution because

all fleet managers have, I don't know, insanely big databases of data, service records,

where every vehicle is at any given point, who's driving it. So it can get quite complicated

if you have a big fleet, if you have a, let's say, I don't know, a delivery service,

Amazon logistics or something like that. But there are new solutions for Ford vehicles

and Ford enabled fleet management vehicles is that you could use their AI search capability

to just ask normal human questions like, how can I improve fuel efficiency for my fleet?

And the system will answer you with very specific answers based on your data. So

I thought that was pretty neat. And then over here, over here,

they also showed their 2027, oh, it's on this side, 2027 F-150. And this is

they announced some news where they're introducing new trim levels. So the new chassis cabs,

like the one you see right here, will have a platinum trim. And this is definitely a six-figure

truck, basically $100,000 plus just for the truck chassis, not the body. These bodies will be extra

cost. But of course, everything else comes with it. The luxurious interior, all the appointments,

you know, massaging seats. I believe this has massage as well as ventilated and heated seats.

This is a diesel. You can see right there, platinum F-550. So they're expending the

availability of the platinum and their beautiful tri-coat paint here on their work trucks as well.

Well, in quotes work truck, right? Because this is getting to be very luxurious and very premium.

But heck, if you have a business where you're driving your truck for eight hours a day,

you want to be comfortable. So this could be exactly what you need. And I wanted to highlight

something else here. And like I was saying, I paid my own way with CFL here. CFL paid for me to be

here. So I'm not sponsored by anybody. But I just wanted to mention that this Nephite booth here,

it says that they've been in business since 1848. 178 years in business. So that's pretty massive.

And that's why the symmetry doesn't change on a dime. Because why should it? Because those

bodies, different bed options have been the same maybe for decades or even centuries.

So if you change it, thank you. I have a small small camera. Thank you very much.

So why change the frame rails? And why change

some of the ways of doing things if it has worked for your business for decades?

So this is one of the reasons why once you kind of choose a path, you tend to walk that path.

And definitely it's successful because there's a lot of insanely large company representations

here, customers, dealerships that have a lot of different, I mean, hundreds and thousands of

different vehicles that they manage. So if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Here I wanted to show you

a little truck that's very peculiar. I think really fun. This is an Assella dispatcher four

by four. It's basically a Jeep Gladiator chassis, which they made into a two door. I have a separate

video and an interview about this truck. But basically, a lot of you have been asking for a

two door Jeep Gladiator. They only build a crew cab. So there's now another solution here from

Assella. They're taking orders about now. I think the first deliveries will be in May.

This truck with an aluminum flatbed, seven foot bed on this Gladiator two door extended cab

will start between about 56 to $57,000. And also you could have it on a variety of different

Gladiator chassis. Thanks, guys. I'll see you. So that's really cool.

Now, I wanted to show you this. I'm kind of interested in this. This is a crew cab,

cab over truck. Obviously two will drive because this one is sitting pretty low.

But I think Isuzu and GM Chevrolet, they could I think they offer also four will drive versions of

this in different maybe weight ratings and capabilities. So this could be an interesting

camper vehicle as well. You have a crew cab for your family. And then you have a flatbed in the back

and you have all your stuff, your camper in the back of it. So I'm always kind of keeping an eye

out and trying to find little, you know, different vehicles that might be useful either for my family

or maybe for for your family as well. So here we also have a Tacoma TRD Pro, which I did not expect

to see. But it's showing kind of several different bed storage, slider solutions. There's a cooler

in the back. And here's a I did not expect to see a TRD Pro here, but here it is. All right,

thank you for joining me. And let me know your feedback. Am I on the right path? Am I

kind of showing you what you guys like to see? Let me know. Also, is my thinking kind of in

the right place? Let me know that as well. Now, oh, wow, big international trucks, big dump trucks

that are like life size Tonka toys. That's pretty awesome. Whoa, what is that? That engine is massive.

Wow.

Sorry, I'm like a kid kid in the candy store. This is the S 13

international. Wow.

13 liter diesel engine. Of course, they go up to about 16 liters. But what I'm seeing is the

trend is that the displacement of these engines and these big trucks is going down

and the power and torque continue to come up. So it's kind of similar to what's happening with

cars and small pickup trucks, where if the engine used to be 16 liters, now it's 13,

if it used to be 12, now it's 10. If it used to be nine, now it's 7.2. And some of these bigger

trucks. But you're not losing power or torque. In fact, in some cases, you're gaining those

ratings. But the technology is improving. Fish and fuel efficiency is improving, but capability

either remains the same or increases. And that's the trend that I've been noticing.

Small displacement downsizing. But I think that's cool. It's basically technology is improving.

And there's an ability to build more efficient and powerful power train units.

Now here I'm in the Hino booth and they have another electric

L7E truck right here with the frame rails and some of the electric components that's

right here. And once again, notice the frame rails are basically identical to what I showed you

in the General Motors booth. And this has this giant battery, electric battery component

underneath the frame and on each side of the cab where the fuel tanks would have been.

But now that space in this truck is basically kind of taken by the batteries.

So here on this side, there's a giant Mercedes booth. And Mercedes is huge in the work van

community, but also van life, as you know. And here's a van that I found interesting.

This is a Mercedes Sprinter. It actually happens to be an E-Sprinter. So electric powered van.

But this one is a mobile pad grooming. Look at this. Mobile pad groomer right there.

Yeah. So I think it's amazing, except my personally speaking, my little dog,

Jack, he's a 25 pound cabinese. He'll be frightened by this because he hates delivery

vans because he's home alone most days when we're working. And he sees these vans and these

strange people walk up to the door with different packages. So he hates that.

But now if one pulled up and it was going to groom him and cut his hair, which he needs every

several months, and he hates cutting his hair. So this might be one of my dogs kind of unfriendly

van, but I think it makes sense for so many people. It's kind of cool to see

right here at the show. Actually Mercedes is leaning into some of the electric

electric technology here. I mean, most of the sprinters and they have about a dozen here

are showing their electric power train. This one does not. This one is a four-wheel drive

and just look at this storage capacity and possibilities. Wow. You have really cool lighting.

Thank you. Really cool lighting, shelving, drawers,

removable carts that are inside here as well. You can see right here.

And here's another thing. When they update this, the power train on a van like this,

for example, this is a four-by-four versus a two-wheel drive

version of the same van, they never change the interior dimensions. And that's because

companies like this have designed shelves and everything that works inside a van like this,

including partitions, walls, seats, everything like you see right here. So they don't want to

redesign that next year when you change your power train or your, maybe your grille or your lights.

So that's kind of another reason why it mostly stays the same. Wow. That's a big

eight-by-eight crane. Very cool. What is that? A five-axle dump truck.

Oh, here's another thing I wanted to show you. We're getting a little bit closer towards the end of

the show, but a couple more really cool accessories are coming up. Now, so the new Suzu cab forward

chassis or low-cap forwards, they recently changed their kind of front ends. And I think they're

looking a lot more, a lot more attractive than that they've been in the past. So kind of mostly

the same as far as size and capability. But here you can also see like a radar system is in this

front end. They also have like kind of cameras. I hope you could see that inside, inside of the

windshield. So they have the latest technology driver assistance systems, collision avoidance

systems, blind spot monitoring and many other technologies. But it looks now a little bit

fresher, a little bit better. Now there's a Detroit diesel here, another massive, massive engine.

And they're also talking about their emission system and their catalytic system right there.

But the size and weights of some of these engines is incredible. Excuse me. Oh look, I'm standing on a

railroad because this giant semi is one of those railroad maintenance trucks.

All right, so here's the Detroit diesel giant engine. Here's another giant truck. And here's another

one of those 6.7 liter octane engines from Cummins. So I've seen them in several different booths

and also in several different trucks, including this. So this is the freight liner. I believe this

is the, yep, this is the M2106 plus. That's the one we mentioned before with Roy. It has a diesel,

I'm sorry, that diesel, because Cummins is synonymous with diesel, but this is their octane engine.

And then the ZF power line transmission is in this truck. And they're talking also about fuel

efficiency gains using this combination versus what was there before as far as

either diesel or gasoline trucks. Now here on this side, we have a little bit more accessories. And

this is where it gets really exciting. For example, I think the star of this, well not one of the

stars of this show is the new X-Guard, EX-Guard front. I'm going to call it a kind of a grill guard

or a cow catcher. I mean, there's different names for this, but X-Guard was known for making

these grill protectors for semi-trucks and they're massive. Some of them have three inch tubing

that's kind of bent in this way to create a front guard. But now they have it for smaller

vehicles, including vans like this Promaster. Also on GM, heavy duty and light duty trucks,

Ford heavy duty and light duty trucks. And I think they're expanding into Ram trucks.

And maybe soon most vehicles, and it kind of ties into the front toe points of the system. And I'm

going to show you a couple more trucks with that grill guard. And also I hear they have options for

smaller tubing in the future because while the semi-truck needs that three inch tube,

because it's, you know, 80,000 pounds combined, some of the other vehicles may not need that,

especially lighter vehicles. Okay, so let me walk around here really quick. I'm going to show you

a Chevy with that grill guard. Let me know if you think it's kind of cool or not. Oh, here

we have Sumo Springs and some of their different different weights. They have handles here where

you can try out different, basically resistance on some of their on some of their bump stop helpers

and Sumo Springs here. So different colors mean different resistance. And I actually purchased

this blue one kind of light medium for my tundra. So so I've been trying this out. I've purchased

different different items there. I think this this Chevy has one of those guards as well.

Yes, you could see this. Yeah, it looks pretty massive. This kind of you kind of have to see it

in person. I think a lot of this. It's pretty interesting. It looks kind of cool. But it

needs to be a little bit more proportional, I think a little bit smaller, maybe for some of these

vehicles. Now, Harbinger has also they're kind of introducing several electric chassis. There

once again, it's it's their kind of electric platform. You can kind of see here all between

the rails. And they also have a range extended version. So right here in the back, in the back,

there is a 1.5 liter, right? And about you said 47. 47 gallons of fuel purely for to generate

electricity for the driveline. So just a range extender. So that's pretty neat. So basically,

just to kind of summarize what I'm learning here is Harbinger has this range extended electric

powertrain that can be fitted to a box truck, medium duty truck, like you see here, or a step van.

And you have that range extended capability. Basically, almost doubles the range,

which is what a lot of manufacturers are doing. So Ram is just about, well,

they don't have it at the show here. But Ram within a few months, I don't know exactly when,

but their REM rev 1500 truck is still coming. That's a range extended truck. Basically, electric

power is driving the wheels basically like a locomotive would be. And then gasoline engine

with a fuel tank is actually extending its range capability. And I actually saw recently,

because I'm a little bit into boats as well, even though we don't have a boat channel,

I actually saw a boat show online. And the company, the name of which I'm forgetting,

that has a range extended electric boat. So there's several electric boats,

like the arc boat, for example, which is a sports ski boat. But now even the boating world is getting

into range extended technologies right there. A lot of the times we go to the Overland Expo shows

that you see us go to. But this work truck show is actually a little bit similar to that in a way,

because some of the needs and tasks are similar. So of course, Warren Lynch is also here

and showing some of their recovery solutions.

So I kind of like there's several different companies that have new mounts,

new grill guards, like I was showing you. And a lot of like drawer systems and

just a lot of different bed options. I think we saw this truck at SEMA actually. Yeah, we did.

We saw this gigantic General Motors 6500 on these enormous, I think they're 42 inch tires,

315 80 R 22. Wow.

So and also there's a couple of companies here, for example, that are offering different wheel

options. So there's a lot of different aftermarket solutions. If you want to spice up your truck

with different wheel options and different bed options. I really like that. A lot of the

what work truck world has to offer is that custom ability, just customization,

just because you could have any number of different bed options, or you could even build

your own, right? You can build by a chassis, even like that Harbinger chassis, right? And you could

let your mind go wild, right? If you're an amazing craftsman, maybe like David, our friend David,

you can construct something, you know, maybe by a cab from somebody else. Or maybe you have a

classic truck that you need to repower. Maybe you can you want to use a new diesel engine,

a new gas engine, or new electric chassis. And you could put a classic cab on it. And

by any different, I was just talking to somebody, they said there is 31 companies that builds

flatbeds for United States consumption 31 companies. So there's so much going on.

And here's a there's a Roush clean tech natural gas powered

chassis cutaway truck here. It's a Ford. So yeah. But

like I was saying, the industry is not shying away from talking about electricity,

electric vehicles, different solutions, because different jobs require different vehicles,

including those new pro master city vans that I was showing you. So as always, thank you for joining

me. Hope you found this kind of cool finding what's what's happening in the world of giant trucks.

Thanks. Thanks for joining me. I will see you next time, probably from Colorado,

because we have another cool show happening. I did an interview actually with Ford.

And very cool. It's about how they test brand new vehicles like the F 150. So

because the new trucks are coming like the new GM 1500s, Silverado Sierra trucks are coming.

And also, of course, Ford is not going to just sit.

They're operating one of these kind of truck covers behind me. Ford, of course, is

also working on a lot of new stuff. So I have an interview that I can

introduce for you from the studio, and that's coming next week. So once again,

thanks for joining TFL Talking Trucks. I really appreciate it. We'll also love your support

on patreon.com slash TFL car. Thank you very much for your support. And I'll see you next time.

Same channel about the same time.

One of the biggest challenges of earning a degree as a military veteran is transitioning your goals

and experiences to your next phase in life. National University gets it as a veteran founded

Yellow Ribbon School. They offer post 9 11 GI Bill acceptance, dedicated military support and

advising services and credit for your military experience. That's why 30% of their students

are military affiliated and you education that serves those who served.

About this episode

Explore the 2026 Indianapolis Work Truck Show with a deep dive into the latest trucks, engines, and technology shaping the industry. Highlights include the new Ram ProMaster City van, powerful diesel and electric trucks from Mack, Cummins, and Ford, and innovative features like ZF's dual PTO transmissions and mobile electric charging trucks. The episode also covers advancements in emissions systems, luxury work truck trims, and a variety of custom accessories and flatbed options. From classic restorations to cutting-edge electric powertrains, this episode offers a comprehensive look at the evolving world of work trucks and commercial vehicles.

Chevrolet Corvette Chevrolet Equinox Chevrolet Express Chevrolet Silverado Dodge Charger Dodge Power Wagon Dodge Ram Ford F-1 Ford F-150 Jeep Gladiator Lucid Air Ram 3500 Ram ProMaster Ram ProMaster City Tesla Semi Toyota Tundra

Original notes

( https://www.alltfl.com/ ) Check out our new spot to find ALL our content, from news to videos and our podcasts! Andre takes us to the heart of Indianapolis for Work Truck Week 2026, where the big news starts with the return of the Ram ProMaster City. Launching for 2027, this compact van features a 1.6L turbo engine and a sub-$40,000 price tag, offering a garageable solution for small businesses and enthusiasts alike. Andre also highlights the massive Diesel Power Wagon, a triple-locked off-road beast churning out 1,775 lb-ft of torque from its 6.7L Cummins engine.

The tour shifts to medium-duty innovations, showcasing a Mack MD electric truck that doubles as a mobile Level 3 charging station—a "tanker for electrons." Andre even finds a rare Silverado 6500 powered by a Cummins engine, proving that the commercial world often blends brands for maximum capability. He also dives into the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy of the industry, noting how flat-rail frames on vans like the Chevy Express have remained unchanged for decades to support specialized upfitting.

Finally, the episode explores how heavy-duty tech is trickling down to the average truck owner. Andre discusses ZF’s durable 8-speed transmissions and new 48-volt heating elements in emissions systems that improve efficiency without sacrificing power. From massive 74,000-lb mobile lifts to rugged EX-Guard grill protectors for vans and pickups, this episode covers the specialized gear and shrinking engine displacements that are defining the future of the trucking landscape.

( http://www.patreon.com/tflcar ) Visit our Patreon page to support the TFL team!

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy