Season 2, Episode 19 - A conversation with the Chief Engineer of the 2024 Ford Ranger and the Ranger Raptor, Juan De Peña, Le Van Flex-Thru, MagnaFlow Exhaust update

 

 

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0 (1s):

And now our feature presentation.

Lightning (13s):

Oh, what is that?

Holman (15s):

How sweet it is. That is a, that’s a V eight

Lightning (18s):

Does sound like a V eight. You gotta tell me what it, what it powers

Holman (21s):

You walk right by it.

Lightning (22s):

Your 3 92 mm oh with the new MagnaFlow Exhaust.

Holman (27s):

That would be the 21 to 23 Jeep Wrangler Street Series. Catback Performance Exhaust system from MagnaFlow. Oh really? I went down there a week and a half ago and they replaced my bashed in muffler with a very bundle of snakes.

Lightning (44s):

I saw some photos that you posted at Sean p Holman on the gram. And Wow, when you say a bundle of snakes, you’re not joking. In order to weave around and get through those Exhaust valves, so to speak, so they can have quiet mode. So it has and, and loud and obnoxious mode.

Holman (58s):

It has the valves, it has, I guess technically it’s five muffler chambers on it. So it’s the rear one. There’s two inline after the crossover, and then there’s two helm holds chambers offset. So when you look at it, if you go to my my Instagram, you’ll see that I put the stocks Exhaust side by side. And you look at the stock Exhaust, you’re like, wow, how did they get all that in there? and then you Look at that MagnaFlow Exhaust, you go, holy crap.

Lightning (1m 27s):

Because it’s all exposed.

Holman (1m 28s):

It’s, it’s literally, no, not even because it’s exposed.

Lightning (1m 31s):

No, but you, you can see

Holman (1m 32s):

Artistry.

Lightning (1m 33s):

That’s what I’m saying. It’s that a lot, some of that stuff is packed in the stock Exhaust. Right? Like there might be, it might loop back on itself, but it’s hidden inside a canister. The MagnaFlow is all out for you to see.

Holman (1m 44s):

It’s, it’s all gorgeous stainless steel. It’s C N c precision welded. The welds are gorgeous on it. Everything about it, it, it just like super high quality. And they don’t use slip fittings. They use flanges, which is awesome. And, you know, keeps it from, from leaking and all that. The only thing I’m worried about is it’s got four inch tips on it, which look badass. Now

Lightning (2m 8s):

Do they offer them pre bashed?

Holman (2m 10s):

No. Just to

Lightning (2m 11s):

Save you the heartache.

Holman (2m 11s):

No. So at some point I may have to go to our friend Rich over there and go, can I have them re-weld it a little deeper in there? Because there’s a few, three or four inches before they get welded on. So I, I would’ve liked to have a removable tip or had it pushed back a little bit. But my god, the sound on the highway. Oh, you get into it, it just so smooth.

Lightning (2m 32s):

Well then why did you play a clip of it just idling in your driveway?

Holman (2m 35s):

Because I don’t have a clip of it driving. ’cause I in the car you’ll just have to take a video of me driving by or something.

Lightning (2m 42s):

Maybe at the end of this show, you can treat yourself to a little Holman on the gas. You

Holman (2m 47s):

Mean at 10 30, 11 o’clock at night. Maybe piss off all the

Lightning (2m 51s):

Neighbors. Maybe that’s what I’m saying. You don’t like the neighbors next door

Holman (2m 53s):

Who caress? It’s definitely I like them just fine. It’s, they’re the ones the issue. Listen, I am, it’s hard to stay outta the gas. Lemme just say that. It’s, it just, it just beckons that you go deeper and it’s like smooth. This is a three inch tubing. A true crossover. The muffler just the, I mean literally it looks like a bundle of snakes and then

Lightning (3m 17s):

It’s got an H pipe. Correct.

Holman (3m 18s):

This has a crossovers X pipe and it also has their integrated N D T technology. So that keeps the droning down at the lower engine speeds. And man, when it opens up in whales, it’s, it’s so good. My favorite though is paddle shifters from like 60, you know when you’re in like sixth gear and you’re like, it’s like a mix of tires chirping and the Exhaust screaming. You’re

Lightning (3m 44s):

Teasing the audience right now.

Holman (3m 45s):

No, it’s, it’s so

Lightning (3m 46s):

Good. That’s uncool All.

Holman (3m 47s):

Right? Here’s, here’s, here’s one more for you. And, and the rattling you hear is actually the vibration rattling the license plate against the bumper. Oh,

Lightning (3m 53s):

Well then you know, you can buy, who makes that? I bought some pads that you can put under the license plate. It’s called

Holman (3m 59s):

Velcro. Just put the soft Velcro on there. Yeah, yeah,

Lightning (4m 4s):

Yeah. You gotta do something about that license plate. Well,

Holman (4m 6s):

It only does it on startups you can’t hear while you’re driving or anything. It’s so smooth. Although, so. Okay, this might’ve happened yesterday. I

Lightning (4m 16s):

You bashed the pipes already? No,

Holman (4m 18s):

Oh No. Why? Why would you? How dare you. No, I was driving and there was a douchey kid who was probably like in his mid twenties in a four runner t r d pro. And that wasn all done up 30 threes high-end build on it. Had it all his windows down and he was bumping like gangster rap. And I pulled up next to him and that dude just wanted to go and I took him to the speed limit.

Lightning (4m 45s):

Listen, that’s a nice truck, but it’s slow.

Holman (4m 48s):

Exactly. I’m like, what? What are you like, why are you picking on the 3 9 2 Dude?

Lightning (4m 52s):

And so You know what our friend Rory Connell, yes. He’s got the good term for that truck. It’s a four point slow.

Holman (4m 58s):

It it is definitely a four point slow.

Lightning (5m 1s):

And he wanted some Holman.

Holman (5m 2s):

Here, I’ll play this for you. The audio’s horrible ’cause it came from my dash cam. This is the only way you’re gonna get to hear it. So the dude like tried to launch, you know, tried to boat race me off the line and I just walked him like it wasn it. So then I slowed, we hit like 45, 48 and I slowed down and he wouldn’t even pull up next to me. And I kept slowing down to force him to come next to me and he wouldn’t do it. So

Lightning (5m 24s):

He thought you were just a regular old JL with a three six. But

Holman (5m 28s):

How can you pull up and hear that beautiful MagnaFlow Exhaust and not

Lightning (5m 32s):

Because he was bumping gangster rap. That’s why you just answered your own question. Listen, I love how the, the input that the the microphone on your well

Holman (5m 45s):

Is my window’s down.

Lightning (5m 47s):

Oh, is that why the window’s hitting it and causing it to break up? So

Holman (5m 50s):

It just, the interior, right. So it’s nice. There’s a little clip in there where you can hear how sweet it sounds. And anyway, So, we, we’ll have to get a a righteous clip of me driving by, but man, that thing is, I I’m, I’m super impressed. So check out MagnaFlow dot com if you guys are looking for a really high end. Just beautiful Exhaust. I mean it’s, it’s, I’m impressed. Call me a fan. I mean it’s, this is my first experience with Mag Flow in one of my personal vehicles and yeah, it’s, it’s damn good. But

Lightning (6m 19s):

How does it compare to this?

Holman (6m 27s):

I I think it compares just fine. Yeah, it does.

Lightning (6m 30s):

I

Holman (6m 30s):

Was gonna say don, don’t, you might have a little supercharger wind up front, but yeah, All right? I got one more, one more present for you or surprise or you’re not gonna like it. You will. I don’t know. Oh.

Lightning (6m 41s):

Oh, he’s busting out glassware. Okay. All. right. What’s going on here?

Holman (6m 45s):

This is more your style. We had the, the, the island rooster, the chicken cock island rooster. And you made like funny

Lightning (6m 51s):

Faces.

Holman (6m 51s):

You look like you’re eating poop or something like that. Or acid or gasoline or ethanol

Lightning (6m 56s):

More. Yeah. Ethanol All.

Holman (6m 57s):

Right? You’re an L B C guy. Sure. This is Dirty Prospector distilled in Long Beach.

Lightning (7m 3s):

No kidding.

Holman (7m 4s):

So this is your hometown distillery right here. A guy by the name of Steve that I enjoy smoke with from time to time at the club. He said, Hey, we’ve got our new bottles. This is batch six. These are basically a single barrel batch aged in apple brandy barrels. So basically it’s a whiskey. So I’ll read off the back here. So it’s 49% alcohol by volume 98 proof does not taste like it. It’s really good. So it says a true local small batch of whiskey made proudly in Long Beach, California. Dirty Prospector whiskey embodies the California Gold rush in a bottle. As the 1849 prospectors traveled far and wide for the opportunity to strike gold. We search far wide for the best barrels to amplify the character and identity of each release.

Holman (7m 45s):

Each offering is a unique nuance and meaningful expression of our whiskey that displays possibilities and the full potential of each Oak Barrel matured for at least 49 days

Lightning (7m 55s):

Long Beach in the house.

Holman (7m 56s):

So I I, he gave me a bottle, they’re fans of the Truck Show podcast and he said, I want you enlightening to try this on the air. We know he’s a, he’s a Long Beach guy. All, right? Let me

Lightning (8m 6s):

Move some of the stuff.

Holman (8m 7s):

And so you don’t have to make a bunch of noise. I’m sorry, I’m just

Lightning (8m 11s):

Moving this stuff outta the way so you can pour it into the glasses. Here. There we go. All, right? Ooh, All. right. That’s a beautiful bottle by the way.

Holman (8m 21s):

Oh yeah.

Lightning (8m 22s):

That’s, it’s looking good. Okay.

Holman (8m 27s):

That might be too much for you.

Lightning (8m 28s):

Yeah, it probably is. We’ll do it. All right? All right

Holman (8m 32s):

To to Long Beach Local. Long Beach Whiskey. L

Lightning (8m 34s):

B C Bottoms up. All. right. Here we go. Bottoms up. Are we sipping? Are we, are we giving it to the nose?

Holman (8m 38s):

No, this, this is a sipper. I gotta give it to the nose. Okay. Smell that apple, right? Oh yeah.

Lightning (8m 41s):

Nice. Right away. Holy

Holman (8m 42s):

Mackerel. It’s, it’s really smooth. All, right?

Lightning (8m 44s):

Here we go. We’re gonna try, here we go. Ooh.

Holman (8m 50s):

Taste that apple on the front end side of your tongue.

Lightning (8m 52s):

Well that’s good. Caramel

Holman (8m 54s):

Butterscotch apple. That’s pretty amazing, right? Wow,

Lightning (8m 57s):

That’s impressive.

Holman (8m 58s):

That came from Long Beach, dude. Holy

Lightning (8m 60s):

Mackerel.

Holman (9m 0s):

That’s way better than anything you did in Long Beach.

Lightning (9m 3s):

That’s

Holman (9m 3s):

True. Maybe a clothing store or something. It’s really like, like super smooth caramel and butter scotch up front. But it does not, it’s 98% where 98 I’ll call by volume. What is it?

Lightning (9m 14s):

Just a, just a hint of like candy. Yeah.

Holman (9m 16s):

98 proof. so Yeah 49%. It’s really

Lightning (9m 19s):

Good. Yeah, this is good. I’m gonna, I’m gonna drink this throughout the night.

Holman (9m 22s):

So any of you guys who are whiskey

Lightning (9m 24s):

Guys, what’s the guys’ name again from Long Beach?

Holman (9m 26s):

Steve. Steve. And so it’s, it’s Dirty Prospector, Willie’s Tin Shop distillery. This is a limited batch number six non chill filtered. And this is the one with the green label that’s been aged in Apple brandy barrels, which you can app. You don’t always taste it. Sometimes it impacts the flavor, but you don’t taste what’s actually was in those barrels. This one you do. So you can go to, I believe it’s their hashtag is Dirty whiskey on the Instagram and it’s dirty whiskey and it’s dirty prospector.com. One of the best whiskeys I’ve had in a long time. Damn.

Lightning (9m 57s):

That is good. Yeah. Wow. And don don’t know much about whiskey and

Holman (9m 60s):

You don’t even like whiskey that much in this bottom.

Lightning (10m 2s):

I’m, I’m sucking that down.

Holman (10m 2s):

This might be my favorite whiskey ever. That’s How much. I like it All. right.

Lightning (10m 6s):

Thank you sir. Appreciate it. L B C in the house. So here’s the thing about Nissan Frontier spotting is

Holman (10m 12s):

It blew up or freaking

Lightning (10m 13s):

Box you out?

Holman (10m 14s):

Slow down. Oh my God, dude. Okay.

Lightning (10m 16s):

I don’t even, I don’t have time for a day job anymore. All I’m doing is like handr, well I, I probably shouldn’t say this. I got Mila in my office to help me import all of the addresses and put ’em on labels. ’cause before for the first like 60 or 70 envelopes, I was handwriting everything. Yeah. And I realized that that was just probably not a good use of my time. Hmm. So I asked Amila and I give her the printouts. She spits it out. I still hand sign every little note. You don’t know this, but I do. It’s

Holman (10m 43s):

It’s, I saw it on Instagram. Oh, you did? Yeah. Oh,

Lightning (10m 44s):

Okay. So I put a little handwritten note with a couple of stickers and send ’em off and we’ve done a bunch. You guys are gonna have to slow down because I’m gonna have to get like a part-time job or hire someone to help.

Holman (10m 54s):

So I’ll just go through really quick some of the ones that are sitting in our inbox because

Lightning (10m 58s):

Yeah. And, and by the way, for you guys that don’t know, if you spot a frontier from the cab of your truck, take a photo of it, email it to truck show podcast@gmail.com and stickers will end up in the mail to you, assuming you give us your address.

Holman (11m 10s):

By the way, that reminds me, I, this is a, a hilarious DMM exchange that, that you might appreciate. So one of our listeners, Ryan Corn Bloom goes by Ryan Corny, I think here on, on the gram. So he sends me a, a picture and he goes, does this count for Frontier spotting? And it’s him with the camera over his shoulder with a little itty bitty tiny frontier way back behind him. And I go, eh, l o l Then he takes a picture in a Chevy heavy duty mirror and he goes, eh, and it’s a little close. There’s another one that’s a little closer. And I went, eh, good effort. He goes, dang, okay, I’ll get one better. So then he takes a picture of one driving by him and he goes, eh, so I wrote back, eh, he goes,

Lightning (11m 50s):

Eh,

Holman (11m 51s):

So so what

Lightning (11m 52s):

Is this? E H H H? Yeah,

Holman (11m 53s):

Yeah, yeah. I think he’s in Canada, right? Yeah,

Lightning (11m 55s):

I I think so. Yeah.

Holman (11m 56s):

I think so. Anyway. And so the funny thing is that the, the pictures of different frontiers kept getting closer through that whole exchange. So that wasn, that wasn pretty funny.

Lightning (12m 3s):

And your ads got smaller in his egg got longer.

Holman (12m 6s):

Eh? He’s like, what do you mean I taking his damn picture?

Lightning (12m 9s):

I think I already sent him stickers, didn’t I? I think you

Holman (12m 11s):

Did. Yeah. Feel like this doesn’t count. Yeah, he’s, he’s just, he’s in the bonus round right now. Got it. All. right. So I’m gonna read off real quick because there’s a bunch of ’em. Matthew Turman, right? Lightning Holman spotted this guy from my 2011 Silverado while dropping my son off at daycare in Boom Texas. His words were, I like that black truck dad, we both love the show and we give it five stars. Hashtag frontier spotting, five star

5 (12m 34s):

Review. Five stars.

Lightning (12m 36s):

Thanks dude. Alright.

Holman (12m 37s):

I got this one here from Brian Crockett and Brian says, took this from the cab on my 2018 HD 2,500 with 215,000 miles and a six liter. Still doing great. Woo. And it’s, it’s one of the green ones that you like that color. Oh

Lightning (12m 51s):

Really? The the forest green. Oh yeah.

Holman (12m 53s):

Yeah. That’s a nice one.

Lightning (12m 54s):

It’s a good look on it.

Holman (12m 55s):

It’s from, from Thank from Bradley Bates. I got one from Rich Humphreys says the day I sent this, my wife finally went to the mailbox and to my lovely surprise, a letter from Banks, I got giddy as I slapped that on my pickup. Thank you guys again for an amazing show. Rich. So there’s one of our listeners who ended up getting his stickers. People are

Lightning (13m 15s):

Freaked out that after all these years we actually sent something that would, we said we were going to send.

Holman (13m 20s):

Well it’s a lot easier to send a sticker than as a teacher.

Lightning (13m 22s):

It’s true.

Holman (13m 23s):

All right? Got this one here from Brian Bet says, here’s a pick of my frontier for my freight liner Columbia. It’s a reliable three pedal glider truck. No d e f I know you guys have to tow the party line on emission systems and on pickups they might work pretty well. But from what I see from trucks running nearly 24 hours a day, the d e F equipped trucks have a lot more problems and are down for repairs quite frequently. My truck just chugs along happy the show is fun, but sometimes I wish you would let the guests speak more and pull back a little bit. What do I know though? I’m not doing anything successful like a podcast. So take it for what it’s worth. And that’s Brian bets by the

Lightning (13m 53s):

Way. We never said that you couldn’t take a photo of your own frontier from your own truck. Oh and people

Holman (13m 58s):

Have, yeah, Ben Klaus is a light man and Holting. Okay. Which is sort of like a syllable mix up. I snagged this pick of my neighbor’s new frontier while driving my junker oh one xj. There are a couple of new frontiers in my neighborhood, both Pro four X’s. That’s definitely what I’d get. I’m a sucker for the Offroad trim. I’m looking to get my first truck this summer, but I do have an oh five LJ Rubicon for the Trails Pick Attach. If I didn’t need to be able to tow my Wrangler, I’d look at either Frontier Gladiator since I won’t need that much truck most of the time. But with goals to tow out to places like Moab and out west, I want something I can tow a bit more comfortably. I’m looking for a DSS Ram 1500. Just hoping to come across one with a perfect combination of add-ons. Wish me luck. That’s Ben from Wisconsin and he’s got a, a picture of that metallic sandy beige frontier that you really like.

Holman (14m 43s):

Oh

Lightning (14m 43s):

Yes. That’s

Holman (14m 44s):

So good. That’s a, that’s a pretty sweet one too. So good. Thanks Ben Klau and I’ll do one more here. We’ve got one from Ken Mead says, saw this today. Parked on the side of the road mount those parameters, Mount

6 (14m 57s):

Monitor key engine parameters

Holman (14m 60s):

And it’s, yeah, that’s the red eye, like the cardinal red Trico. Oh dude, it looks so good on the frontier All. right. So now that we’ve excited you to go out and search for Frontiers, you should see if one is right for you. The frontier starts at 29,370, but for a really nicely equipped, the Crew Cab Pro four X starts at 38,900, under 40 grand for a super capable, super reliable mid-size truck. Of course if you need something bigger, you got the Titan, the Titan xd, those have the industry’s best warranty five year, 100,000 miles. Head on down to your local Nissan dealer or head over to Nissan usa.com where you can build in price.

Lightning (15m 34s):

This Instagram DMM comes to at LBC Lightning from Frank Petersen. Apparently one of our listeners, Hey Lightning, I’ve been listening to T S P since the beginning. I love Banks products. Just f y I I have a question for you. I have a 2018 Sierra 2,500 with a Duramax. I already have a Dinger tuner, I have a ID dash super gauge and a Ram air intake. But I’m thinking about getting either a pedal monster or a five inch Monster Exhaust. I’m leaning toward the pedal monster, but I want your opinion. I tool a 14,000 pound trailer about once a month with the truck. Thanks. And yeah buddy.

7 (16m 6s):

Yeah buddy

Lightning (16m 8s):

All. right. Well this is actually kind of a tough one because for the driving experience, I would recommend the pedal monster first. Holman’s driven with the Pedal monster. It’s an instant difference. I mean from the moment you turn it on, the driving experience is improved. However you’re towing, you need power and you need fuel economy. I lean towards the five inch Monster Exhaust because you will pick up some efficiency. It allows your engine to put more power to the ground and not waste energy trying to push Exhaust gas out during the Exhaust.

Holman (16m 41s):

But it’s not gonna be as noticeable as a pedal monster.

Lightning (16m 44s):

No. So that’s why I’m torn because if you put a pedal monster in, you will instantly feel, I mean it’s dramatic dude. I just put one in in a, I was telling Holman before we started the show and a 23 4 runner t r d Offroad and the guy hadn’t really heard of Banks and because Banks isn’t a big name in Toyotas and he came by the shop, put one on and he was like, oh my, I actually, I have his text, you’re not gonna believe this is real. hold on a second. So he text me a few minutes after he left and he says, holy mackerel gonna be your new brand ambassador for Four Runners. There you go. I mean like that’s legit for a guy who was relatively unfamiliar with Banks. So I, I don’t know Holman, what would, you know, both pieces of equipment that Banks offers.

Lightning (17m 28s):

Would you recommend the five Inch Monster Exhaust or the Pedal Monster? You’re leaning toward the pedal monster.

Holman (17m 32s):

I mean if you want daily Drivability Pedal Monster, if you want a little bit more efficiency, go monster Exhaust. The pedal of Monster is not gonna help you with efficiency ’cause you’re gonna be dipping into it more a little bit. So you’re actually gonna probably lose a little bit of fuel economy just from your driving style. Not because it does anything to the truck, but because your driving style will change it just like

Lightning (17m 48s):

Having a heavier foot a little bit.

Holman (17m 49s):

Yeah. And and Monster Exhaust can help but breathe easier. So you’ll probably get a little boost in fuel economy. So what’s more important, having a little more efficiency or having a little more drivability, if you can answer that question, that’ll tell you which product to get.

Lightning (17m 60s):

So Frank, we didn’t really answer your question, but I think we’re going to say of course

Holman (18m 4s):

We did. I just said he has to answer his two question.

Lightning (18m 6s):

No, no, but he wanted it. He wanted us to answer for

Holman (18m 8s):

Him.

Lightning (18m 9s):

We just did. No we didn’t. If you

Holman (18m 10s):

Want efficiency, yeah. Get the monster Exhaust. If you want Drivability get the pedal Monster.

Lightning (18m 14s):

But what if he can’t decide? We

Holman (18m 16s):

Just told

Lightning (18m 17s):

Him he wanted us to decide for him. Flip. Exactly. Here’s how you solve it. You go to Banks power.com, you type in 2018 G M C Sierra 2,500 HD with a 6.6 liter Durmax Diesel. And you choose the part that pops up first

Holman (18m 30s):

All, right? A product that won’t require a A coin flip is a set of new Bill Bilstein shocks. They are a no-brainer. If your truck has tired, worn out leaky shocks and your trucks all over the road, then you wanna head to bill Bilstein us.com. When the road runs out, bill Bilstein shocks will keep you going. They’ve got ride height adjustable 51 hundreds to the dual tube external bypass B 8 8100. They offer a wide range of direct fit options, giving you more time on the trail and less time in the garage. And even if you’ve got somebody else’s old clapped out lift kit Bill Bilstein has a lot of applications that will replace those crappy white shocks that are rusting out with a beautiful monotube. That’s gonna give you a a lifetime of service. And don’t worry if you’re not an off roader bill Bilstein will also help you out on the road, especially if you tow Bill Bilstein puts an emphasis on comfort and durability and that is the name of their game.

Holman (19m 17s):

The do not Compromise on Control. You can’t get a better shock in my opinion. Bill Bilstein us.com. So

Lightning (19m 22s):

Holman, I bolt on my bill Steins, I go into the forest and I get lost. What do I do

Holman (19m 28s):

Die?

Lightning (19m 30s):

What if I have and onX Offroad?

Holman (19m 31s):

Oh, well Then you won’t, you’ll, you’ll find your way out. And if that’s the case, I’ve just thought, you know, you were all by yourself. Yeah. I thought that wasn you. No,

Lightning (19m 37s):

No, I’ve got onX so I’m, I’m good. Okay. ’cause because what I did is the weekend prior. Yeah. I planned out my entire route on my laptop and then I synced it with all of my devices and then I plugged it into my CarPlay on my truck. Yeah. I was gold because I could see the route in advance. I didn’t have any cell reception. Didn’t matter because I downloaded the map right to my phone and I just, don don’t need any connectivity. So

Holman (19m 58s):

Are you saying that Onyx is the Offroad Map app that’s built for Adventure? I think I did All right. You can discover Offroad Trails. You can save maps for offline use like Lightning did in his hypothetical situation, which probably was true. Once you can track save and share trips, you can also find out public and private Land info, customize your map with markups and of course sync with CarPlay and Android Auto. There’s a bunch of new features that you’re gonna love. Route Builder is a new game changing in-app or on your browser feature. You can plan your entire route on your laptop. It’ll automatically show across all your advices that are logged in with, with your info. So whether you have it on your iPad like I do or your iPhone like I do, or your Mac like I do whatever you change in one changes in all of

Lightning (20m 39s):

’em. I actually did it on my PC at home and then I used it on my iPhone in my truck. The

Holman (20m 44s):

New feature is available to both premium and elite members. You can head over to to onX Offroad dot com and find out more. Or you can go to your mobile devices respective online app store such as the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and you can download the app right there. One of my favorite products that I use when I go out Adventuring onX has been an absolute, not only a lifesaver, but it has made planning trips and guiding trips and helping people along. It’s fun. I use it for everything that I do. And it’s fun though. It is fun And in fact I’ve used Onyx. They’ve got a great satellite overlay on top of, you know, a photorealistic satellite overlay on top of like the topo maps. You can use three D mode. There’s a few things that I was looking for in the desert that I was able to find that landmark using the three D flyover feature on Onyx.

Holman (21m 27s):

It’s, it’s a great product and we appreciate the support of the Truck Show podcast.

8 (21m 31s):

The truck show. We’re gonna show you what we know. We’re gonna answer what The truck, because truck rides with the truck show. We have the lifted, we have the lowered and everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on Diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. The truck show. The truck show. The truck show. Whoa, whoa.

9 (22m 3s):

It’s the truck show with your hosts Lightning and Holman.

Holman (22m 10s):

See now you didn’t have to pot me down that time. I

Lightning (22m 12s):

Yeah, you did a good job. Yeah, I, I heard a couple. Oh, OHSS, they were nice. They were in harmony with the

Holman (22m 16s):

Music. Yeah, yeah. Well I just got back from Detroit. I was there for 10 hours. That sounds like an awful trip. I left at Sunday on the Redeye from L A X I arrived in the morning at Detroit Airport and they had a room for me and then I slept for a couple hours and then a shuttle bus picked me up. I went to look at the brand new full lineup of Ford Ranger midsize trucks. I was there for about two hours and they dropped me back off the airport and I was home less than 24 hours after I had left. Oh. So, so I don Dunno what day it is right now. It,

Lightning (22m 51s):

It all sucks except for,

Holman (22m 52s):

I gotta see the new truck, the Ranger parts. So the new truck is, it’s pretty great. This was, this is the new, I guess would be the sixth gen. And it does share the platform with the Bronco. So there’s gonna be some familiar bits underneath and things like that. Although on the Ranger it has more payload, higher gross vehicle weight rating. That’s a, you know, is a function of Wheel base. The Ranger, except for the Ranger Raptor, which has a a Watts linkage in Coil Springs, uses Leaf Springs in the back. Outboard shocks now kinda stolen from F one 50. They’ve been doing that for a number of years and there’s a lot of really neat things that they did. This truck was imagined for the North American market for day one, whereas the last truck was Ranger got killed in North America.

Holman (23m 36s):

The Ranger was still successful everywhere else. They went, oh crap, we need a mid-size truck because mid-size is taking off again. And so they kind of made the old international truck work in America. Oh this new truck is was was North American in mine from day one. It’s two inches more Wheel base. I think it’s two inches wider, which means that you can now fit a Flad four by eight sheet of plywood between the Wheel wells.

Lightning (23m 59s):

So the last generation couldn’t fit a sheet of four by plywood in the back. That would’ve you,

Holman (24m 3s):

You could, but it would be at an angle. At an angle. Yeah. So that’s not good for drywall and things like that. Right. You wanna have that stuff Flad. So

Lightning (24m 8s):

That’s what it ends up on the freeway and I run over it.

Holman (24m 10s):

Exactly. So now they, they can accommodate that. There’s some great features on board. And now I was pretty sure they’re just gonna have one engine. They now have three engines. So the, the 2.3 liter that you are Oh, No and love in today’s Ranger is still there. They added the 2.7 V six from the F one 50 and now you can get that, that thing’s gonna be a screamer. So

Lightning (24m 32s):

That’s the turbo.

Holman (24m 33s):

That’s the turbo V six, the 2.7. and then, but the, they’re all turbos. Oh

Lightning (24m 36s):

Sorry. Yeah. I forgot the two three.

Holman (24m 38s):

And then the, the Raptor version of the Ranger gets the 3.0 liter 405 horse outta the Bronco.

Lightning (24m 45s):

That’s the truck that everyone was talking about last week. Like it that blew up all of my feeds. Yeah, what It’s real. They’re doing the Ranger Raptor. Are you serious? And you look at it and it is badass. Oh,

Holman (24m 57s):

It’s awesome. And it starts at 58, which is a lot cheaper than, you know, the F one 50 Raptor obviously not gonna have as much Wheel travel. The Bronco Raptor has 30 sevens. The range of Raptor has 30 threes. So it’s geared a little bit more toward overlanding and things like that. Not as much as this like raus, you know, go sideways and blast through. I mean you could do all that stuff, but Bronco has kind of taken that crown right in, in the, the Raptor realm. But for a mid-size truck you start looking at tier r d Pro and Trail Hunter coming out for Tacoma. You start looking at the, the new Colorado and Canyon with the, the a t four and zero two packages with 30 threes. I mean, I

Lightning (25m 36s):

Was wondering how it would stack up against that one specifically.

Holman (25m 39s):

Yeah, I think it’s gonna be a pretty hardcore race and then you add 30 fives with the AV package. I mean the mid-size truck market is blowing up right now. There is, there’s gonna be so much choice out there. It’s, it’s unbelievable. And you know, there’s a few things that I wish they would’ve done. They do have a, a big screen in the middle. The dash is very square. Now

Lightning (26m 1s):

Can I ask you a dumb question? Is it vertical or horizontal? I don it that wasn vertical.

Holman (26m 4s):

Okay. And the, it doesn’t have that clinging on head on there anymore. Like the old dash did where that wasn looked like, you know, a fiesta from, you know, 10 years ago or whatever, 15 years ago. Yeah. But I did like the, the dash to windshield clearance. It’s, it’s very short. Everything’s very upright. It feels like a proper truck when you get into it. It doesn’t feel like a car that has a pickup bed on the back, which is nice. It’s still body on frame. A lot of tech. It’s got a digital instrument cluster and it, unlike some of the future trucks from some other competitors, it maintains Android Auto and CarPlay, which people are gonna love that. Just so much great stuff. But one of the misses for me was the rear seat can both fold up to reveal storage under it, which is great, but there’s no like fold out panel that allows it to have a Flad load floor.

Holman (26m 51s):

Ah, and I think that’s a, that’s a miss. and then there they also allow the rear seat to fold forward and giving you a completely Flad surface for like soft bags and stuff. So it’s basically seat back folds forward and you have a shelf in the back. Got

Lightning (27m 4s):

It. You know, like even my truck where the, the Ram, the full-size Ram truck that I borrow from work all the time, the 25, 3500 it has that foldout deck and it’s perfectly Flad. That’s what

Holman (27m 14s):

The nut, the

Lightning (27m 15s):

So much stuff in there. The Titan

Holman (27m 16s):

Has that also. My

Lightning (27m 17s):

Truck ain’t no room. Yeah it’s blows.

Holman (27m 19s):

Well the other thing is it just the mouse fur seat fabric back? I feel like they could have put a plastic tray on the back with tie-downs in the corner and then you could bungee stuff and keep it from sliding around or you’d have a recess to put your fridge. So there’s a lot of manufacturers who have a seat that folds down. They all do it the exact same way. I just wish one of the oes, as much as I think Ford listened on this one, I wish they would’ve taken a couple extra steps. ’cause there’s some features that are kind of cool. Like they have a 360 lighting feature. You can light up your campsite with vehicle lights, you know, all the way around. Or on one side they have four zones. That’s pretty cool. But what would I use more that or having some sort of tray on the seat back that to lock my stuff course right into that kind stuff. Yeah. But I had a chance to sit with the chief engineer of Ford Ranger and we had a really nice interview sitting in the cab of the Ranger so you can hear how quiet it is.

Holman (28m 8s):

Alright, so I’m sitting in a 2024 Ford Ranger with chief engineer Juan De Pena. This is a pretty big deal for you. You’ve been at Ford for 29 years and Ranger at some point was a, a platform that Ford walked away from in North America, brought back for the last generation. But that was really the global truck. This is the first time in decades that a truck has been made for the mid-size market by Ford. And that’s a huge responsibility for you to bring that back. Where, where do we start?

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (28m 44s):

You know what, firstly, thank you for coming ate that. I appreciate that and thank you for the opportunity. Appreciate this is the sixth generation Ranger, so you’re spot on. It’s a, it’s a, a long nameplate. It is the F one 50 of the world. It’s an important product to us.

Lightning (28m 60s):

Holman. I’m just curious, which model are you sitting in? I’m dying to know. That

Holman (29m 3s):

Was X L T

Lightning (29m 4s):

And how’s it appointed compared to like

Holman (29m 6s):

They’re, they’re all nice. Yeah, no it’s, I think they did a good job on the interior. The seats are a little mushy for me. They’re not as firm. So I think it’s one of those things where you get in it and it feels good when you do your quick like two mile loop around the neighborhood. But on a long trip I wonder if it has enough support. Like they’re, they’re really soft, but they’re supportive in the right places. Like the lumbars in the right spot and the bolsters are real nice. and then Ford also put in steps in the bed, so behind the rear wheels and they’re not like the Chevys where they’re built into the bumper, they’re actually built into the body. So the steps are wide enough to put two shoes, two feet in there. Oh, smart. Smart. So you can reach into the bed a little bit safer. And they’re, they’re basically reinforced so that they can hold 300 pounds, which for me is like me holding a cooler.

Holman (29m 48s):

So I’m like, maybe it should have been more, they’re really proud of it. Oh, wanna hold 300 pounds. I’m like, have you seen some of your pickup truck tires? Anyway, it’s a nice feature

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (29m 56s):

In North America as you know, you know, F one 50 is a really, really, really big brother. My bestselling full-size pickup for the last 46 years. And you know, Ford globally is, is, I mean we own trucks. We were in hiatus. I’ll say, you know, I mentioned earlier that I had, I was a program manager 14 years ago on Ranger and I worked on the last gen on the last generation when we kind of, you know, balanced out. And that wasn a couple years quiet,

Holman (30m 23s):

Just so you know, I owned a 94 Ford Ranger Splash.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (30m 26s):

Okay. Look at that four by four

Holman (30m 27s):

Gruber always gives me a hardened time about that. That would be Mark Gruber. At one point he was the head of global vehicle De development in the I don Dunno if it’s truck space or everything, but he oversaw like future stuff. don don’t know what he’s doing now, but I knew him all the way back from when the original Raptor came out. Got

Lightning (30m 44s):

It. The chief engineer is overseeing both mechanical engineering and electrical. Correct?

Holman (30m 49s):

He’s over all of it, right? He’s in charge of the platform basically. Okay. Yeah. Like he’s, he’s the main dude. Like that’s the, that’s the guy that, that gets the thing. You know, he’s gotta work on several levels. He’s gotta work with the designers, he’s gotta work with the manufacturing, he’s gotta work with the engineers. Right. It may look good on paper and meet all these milestones, but you also have to build it and you also have to service it and you also have to make sure the designers are happy. And so it’s, it’s a pretty massively complex job. And, and Gruber said that he’s gonna have me work on the New Splash and we laughed. It’s that wasn a black one with a, with a Stepside bed that wasn a four liter. and then I also had a 2002 Ford Ranger FX four, which was basically the level two before they called the the level two. Yeah. Yeah.

Holman (31m 28s):

So I’m a Ranger owner in the past. There’s some of my favorite trucks. I’m really excited to, to see this.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (31m 34s):

Excellent. I’m glad to hear that. And, and watch the space. You know, So, we always have Splash, right? We have Splash right now Splash is our chance to kind of, you know, bring a little buzz.

Holman (31m 44s):

This is a little bit misleading ’cause Splash back in the day was a Stepside bed and it would look different than the regular Ranger. that wasn Rad that wasn more sporty. The new one is just kinda like a trim and badge package. There’s no different bed or anything. So he says they have sp Splash water down, but it’s, it’s not like that wasn back when I owned my splash, I’m like, dude, I got a Stepside Ranger. It’s, it’s rad.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (32m 3s):

I worked on, on the old one, we went quiet for a bit and then we, we reintroduced the fish generation, we brought it back to North America. And when we did that, you know, that product had already been on sale in the rest of the world for a while. So it wasn’t that wasn, that wasn something that we said, Hey, we think there’s an, there’s an opportunity here. You know, there’s, there’s some space here for us to play in and not encroach on F one 50. So let’s do it. And we essentially brought it back and we came essentially we came up late into the market. Sure. And we quickly became number two. Yeah. Which is pretty cool. So

Lightning (32m 36s):

Holman, I’m dying to know, when you interview guys like Juan, how do they decide when they’re cannibalizing one of their other trucks? Like he keeps talking about the F one 50. How do they decide Uhoh we’re getting a little too big, a little too close to its Big brother. Any idea

Holman (32m 51s):

There? There’s product planners that decide that. I think for the most part they’re handed the parameters that they have to build within. I think it’s already been decided for them with the size.

Lightning (32m 60s):

So they’re saying what’s the Wheel base and all that stuff. Don’t don don’t go outside. Well I,

Holman (33m 3s):

No, I don’t know that they’re saying what’s the Wheel base? I think they’re saying this is your target overall size, your weight, the room you need on the inside. and then some of those other things like Wheel base have to be sorted out based on rear leg room and cab length. And I, you know, things like that. I’ve talked to some chief engineers who are like, don don’t care about the other products. My job was to make this one successful. And if those other guys are threatened by it and we made too good of a product, well they should up their game. That’s my man. And I’ve had, I’ve had that conversation with several chief engineers who’re like, yeah, I don’t care. You know, and when, and they approach it like that, they don’t say there’s nothing sacred. We’re, my job is, you know, to help the company and the product planners who said we need to make

Lightning (33m 38s):

The best truck he can make, we

Holman (33m 39s):

Need to have 200,000 a year. Right. What’s it gonna take for this price point and this cost and this profit and, and this manufacturing and blah blah blah blah blah. To, you know, get to that number. That’s what they’re concerned about. And

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (33m 50s):

With that, and we future out, obviously we knew we’re gonna have Maverick. Right. And Maverick plays a certain role at the bottom then. Yep. And F one 50 is playing, is still playing the role. It plays something at the topic. This

Holman (33m 59s):

Is gonna be the sweet spot for a lot of people that are either adventurers and they don’t want a big truck or maybe in urban settings that need garage ability. That’s exactly And maneuverability. That’s

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (34m 8s):

Exactly it. That’s how claim to fame that we have. We have a fully authentic, capable, Offroad capable truck and functional truck. 7,500 pounds of towing. 1,805 pounds payload. And an interior like this, you could have a family. Yeah. I mean this could be your, your work truck. It could be your family conveyance and it could be a play vehicle as well for the weekend. It does it all. Well and

Holman (34m 31s):

Let, let’s just start with the fundamentals. It is a steel body, aluminum hood, fenders, and I think tailgate, right? You got it. Body on frame, fully boxed, hydro formed and solid axle in the rear with leaf springs. So it’s, it is the architecture of, of, of traditional truck. It’s not, you know, Maverick is the right product for some people and that’s obviously unibody. You step up to F one 50 extra capability, but you are coming to the market in the mid-size with an authentic truck. That’s

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (34m 58s):

Exactly it. It is. I’m glad you said that word. Authentic. It’s built for tough. It’s capable, it’s got the functionality. But what, what I love about it now, I mean since it’s all new, we managed to essentially, you know, grow that frame plus two inches on Wheel base plus two inches on, its on its track width and we repackaged the rear suspension dampers outboard of the frame that gave us better tuning capabilities. So now you know these customers, they deserve a better eye quality. Why should they have a nervous jittery ride? Sure. When the bed’s empty. I mean most of the time that bed’s empty. Yep. A lot of

Holman (35m 30s):

These trucks are gonna be

Lightning (35m 31s):

Hold Can I ask another dumb question? I’m, as I’m apt to do inboard versus outboard shocks. Why? What what is the major obvious advantage? Leverage lever outboard. Oh, leverage.

Holman (35m 42s):

So when your shock is inboard, you don’t have as much leverage to damp what the wheels are doing. So you move ’em outboard of the frame rail and they damp the wheels ’cause they’re closer to the ends. Right. You don’t have that lever arm on a solid axle. Makes perfect sense is yeah. Is with some, sometimes they’re outside and they’re, they’re pointed forward. Sometimes they’re alternate where one’s forward and one’s back. Like all the

Lightning (36m 3s):

GM trucks are one’s forward and one’s back.

Holman (36m 5s):

Yeah. Some of that is for axle hop. Some of the designs actually allow for like a passive rear Wheel steer. Like when the F one fifties went to outboard shocks, I think in 2004 there was a certain couple of degrees and turns where the accident they

Lightning (36m 19s):

Wanted that.

Holman (36m 19s):

Yeah. So that you would have a more turn in. So you can design that into it. But for most of all it’s, it’s, it’s more precise tuning because being outboard is, you don’t have the lever acting on it. And so you don’t have to have as much let’s say, valving in it. So the difference is, is when you’re going straight down the road and the body’s not pitching from side to side and the axle is moving in the same plane up and down, just soaking up the normal undulations, you want a smooth ride. Well if you have to put extra valving in to compensate for a Wheel hitting a big hit, you know, not affecting the cab or whatever, well that’s gonna mean you have tighter valving for when you’re going straight too. So moving to the outside means you don’t need as much valving which translates Yeah.

Holman (37m 0s):

Into a better ride the rest of the tire. Yeah. You’re killing,

Lightning (37m 1s):

Killing a couple birds with one stone. Oh

Holman (37m 4s):

But the packaging becomes How much room. Do you have in your Wheel well what’s your offset of your Wheel size? Because you wanna make sure that you’re still leaving room for the tires. You don’t want to have, you

Lightning (37m 12s):

Gotta bring the frame width in a little bit then, right? Not

Holman (37m 13s):

Necessarily. No. You can bring the body out and cover it. You can do do a lot with tire and Wheel width and so there’s, there’s a lot of games you can play to do it. It’s definitely the right answer, but it’s not always the, the easiest. And and you’ll see more and more manufacturers are going to upward shocks now.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (37m 30s):

And so now we’re able to tune this almost like that wasn like an s u v, you know, and, and so give the customers the right quality that they deserve when they, which is most of the time that they’re driving around with an empty bed, but also still give you an 1,805 pound payload. And we grew the, the, the, the frame of the vehicle we grew, like you said the hydro, the new hydro form front end structure. It allow us to, to package now the, in addition to the 2.3 liter I four that we’ve had true and, and tried and very capable, now we can offer the 2.7 liter equal boots V six, same engine as the Bronco, same engine engine as the F one 50 but two for range. So,

Holman (38m 4s):

So now you got 2.3 straight four turbo, you got the 2.7 V six, which by the way is a fantastic engine. Yeah. That engine, when it debuted an F one 50 people thought, well it just a smaller three five, but it’s not, it’s a completely different engine. Yes. It’s, and they also thought, well it’s two underpowered for F one 50 and it’s done really well in F one 50. So I can only imagine in in Ranger and you can hear right now it’s, you know, this I’m guessing is a force cylinder, how quiet it is while it’s idling. It’s, it’s pretty, it’s pretty nice how serene the cabin is. I like how you guys have a very upright dash now. It doesn’t have the cling on forehead like the last, the last design and the, the base of the windshield to dash face is really short. So it gives you that really upright truck feel with lots of room in the front.

Holman (38m 46s):

Yeah.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (38m 46s):

And great line of sight. You know, we were key. I think Gretchen, you know, our marketing manager mentioned that our customer demands garage ability and maneuverability. Right. Yeah. That’s why they’re not driving an F one 50. Sure. Oh that’s part of the reason why they’re not driving an F one 50 and this vehicle, I mean that’s, it gives you exactly that so you know exactly where your corners are and when you’re towing it’s got our backup trailer pro assist or backup pro trailer assist. You sure. It’s, it’s a mouthful but essentially it’s got 360 degree, you know, outside view now it’s got zone lighting when you’re backing up. I mean it’s wonderful to just see it on the screen and just use the the dial Well the

Holman (39m 20s):

Zone zone lighting is for people who are interested. You can light up 360 degrees or four zones say a campsite and use the vehicle lighting. Exactly. Which is great. ’cause now you aren’t setting up camp in the dark and things like that. Which which is really cool.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (39m 31s):

That’s, that’s exactly, yeah. So again, thinking about the, the customer experience when they use the vehicle, they go off road, they, they take the ATVs and and they go somewhere and then, I mean it’d be kind of cool if the vehicle could, could give you some lighting, right? Yeah. It’s again, I think we’re giving the customer just a lot more of a, of a total proposition. Making it more value. ’cause we used to have a super cab. We didn’t have a super cab anymore. Now they’re all a hundred percent crew cabs, you know, full size. So

Holman (39m 54s):

Rangers, all crew cabs,

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (39m 55s):

All crew cab. You gotta sell four full-sized doors now across the board. So our price inched up. Yeah. Because, We we’re offering more as well.

Holman (40m 3s):

Are are you, is it the same Wheel base and same bed length on all of them? Correct. So basically this body style is the single Ranger body style and I want to go back to the two inch wider track. Yeah. People may think about then they go, well two inches wider is not that big of a deal. Actually it is a big, a pretty big deal because it allowed you to push the Wheel wells out just enough where now you can haul a four foot wide sheet of prop plywood between the Wheel wells and not prop up on one side.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (40m 26s):

That’s exactly it. I’m glad you said four foot sheets of drywall. Yeah. Yeah. And, and plywood because that’s the standard. So when you, when you can fit him in between the Wheel wells Flad on the, on the, on the on, on the bed. Yeah. You’re essentially propping them up on something else and, and you’re losing some, some, you know, storage space in the nature or in the OR

Holman (40m 43s):

Or CAD drywall. You, you, you might break something

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (40m 45s):

With stress. Right? Exactly. Exactly. That’s exactly right. So, we allowed the ve the working end of the vehicle to now be even more capable and offer more functionality and then growing, you know, two inches wider and two inches longer. Wheel base overall, overall length, I think we grew by maybe like 35 millimeters So we did not grow with two inches overall length. But it, it allows to give the customer better ride quality. ’cause we can tune better. We package those, those rear suspension dampers, outboard of the frame So, we can, our, our tuning range got better. So now we we it rides better empty, it rides better full also when you are Offroad you have better our Wheel articulation as well. Because We are wider, but also it it, how we made it wider our, our, you know, lower control arms and upper control arms grew.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (41m 33s):

So

Holman (41m 33s):

You get more travel from the pivot point.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (41m 34s):

That’s exactly, exactly the point. The same

Holman (41m 36s):

Trick you you used on, you know, Raptor but not to the same extreme. That’s

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (41m 39s):

Exactly right. That’s exactly right. So I think we did it the smart way. It would’ve been crazy to maintain the same Wheel, the same level of Wheel articulation. Yeah. And you’re growing wider and not take advantage of

Holman (41m 48s):

It. Absolutely. And and you look at, you know, some of the features of the bed a spraying bedliner, the tailgate has the C channel clamps like you would have on an F one 50. You’ve got different storage that’s optional. Different tie down points. One of the things I like is you’ve got power both a 12 volt and a 400 watt inverter that can be used when the engine is off. Yes. Which is a huge thing. ’cause most manufacturers, it’s only while the engine’s running well that doesn’t help somebody running a fridge or something or power tools and you don’t want the engine running while you’re doing a project. Right. Yeah, that’s exactly right. So that’s something that you guys have done in the bed in addition to hauling the four foot wide sheets. And so that’s, that’s pretty cool. Exactly. And,

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (42m 24s):

And behind the center console, like right here on the inside we still have a 1 10, 400 wide and meter here as well. And U S B as well. So, so power inside empire outside one 10

Holman (42m 33s):

And now the rear seats fold floor forward. So you’ve got a, a Flad surface on the back. They’re completely Flad for loading soft bags and things like that. Maybe for an Adventure. I wanted to talk about durability because this truck has undergone some pretty extreme durability testing both here and internationally in places like South Africa and Australia, which have especially Australia, way more demanding roads than what we see here in the states. So, and, and I know that, you know, the 10 speed transmission and the chassis. Let me just walk through some of the things you told us earlier about durability testing. Definitely,

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (43m 3s):

Definitely. I had mentioned earlier that, you know, our Ranger customers choose Ranger because it’s built Ford tough. And I said, now how, how does Ford fulfill on that promise? We do it by testing the Ford Ranger just like we test all of our other trucks and we own trucks, So, we know how to do trucks. So this vehicle sees the same exact testing regimes that the F one 50 and the Super Duty seizes and, and that’s pretty aggressive. Just one Ranger test vehicle. When you consider its test cycle, which is supposed to represent essentially the, the, the structural fatigue life of a, of a vehicle. It’s it over over its testing regime. It’ll, it’s the equivalent of running around the us driving around the US twice, stopping at every step along the way.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (43m 47s):

Oh yeah. And when we factor back into smooth road driving that we take out to compress the cycle, it’s like driving around the US 11 times and that’s just one test vehicle. And we have more than 30, less than 50. So it’s

Holman (43m 58s):

Hundreds.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (43m 58s):

I mean Yeah, it’s thousands and thousands and thousands of miles in testing in Australia at, in New Zealand down to minus 40 in Australia. We did a ton of really, really aggressive harsh road, aggressive duty cycle. You know, driving, driving cycle testing in the US we did a ton of towing and hauling like up like Davis Dam. Right, exactly. Exactly. Which is, you know, it’s our measure for if you can survive Davis Dam at your maximum towing capacity, you know, you got bragging rights.

Holman (44m 26s):

Well and then you also, so the extremes of temperature minus 40 all the way to 120 degrees. and then a lot of that was done at full load and full payload to make sure that you had enough thermal management to make sure that the vehicle was gonna survive and the two 10 speed transmission over 3.7 million miles across various, you know, testing across various models. That’s a lot of durability that you guys are, are you’re committed to that?

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (44m 49s):

Y yes it is. That’s exactly right. And, and all in all, I mean the transmission by itself, 3.7 million miles, but the vehicle itself in total, the Because We, we, we, we summed it all up. It that wasn 775,000 miles of customer drive, no road Sure. Driving and 800,000 miles of rugged Offroad driving.

Holman (45m 11s):

Well I was taking some of the notes and you, we talked about all the the, the smart and connected stuff you, it’s wireless, Android and CarPlay and all the adaptive driving stuff that you have. I mean there’s so many features on this truck from a design standpoint, you guys really led with the North American market. So this truck feels like it is North American first. And I think the customers are really gonna appreciate the new redesign of the sixth generation. and then, thank you. I’m glad. Appreciate. Just one last quick question ’cause I know, you know, platform wise, Bronco and Ranger are stable mates in that way. Bronco has a coil suspension, rear Ranger has leaf and lets you go to Raptor. What are some of the other differences between Bronco and Ranger that, that you guys were able to do or changed between the different vehicles?

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (45m 54s):

You know, the frame, which is the backbone, it shared significantly with Bronco, you know, with our stable mate, they both go down Michigan assembly plan, the, from the eight pillar forward common frame, that hydro formed front end structure. It’s slightly different. The front, because Bronco’s got round headlamps. This has the C clamp headlamps. So you know that that dimension’s gonna be different. The, the middle stub of the frame, you know, this is the pickup truck, so it’s a longer Wheel base versus a five door, three door Bronco. Sure. Shorter. And so, so that middle we grew the length. and then in the rear we, like you said, we have a, a Hotchkiss leaves spring suspension. Bronco base Bronco has a five link pen, hard rod, a suspension.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (46m 35s):

And I think the Bronco Raptor has a, a

Holman (46m 38s):

Watts or something. I think we have

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (46m 40s):

A Watts. Oh. So, so So, we actually like if you could, if, if, if, if Bronco has a five link rear Yeah. We have essentially like a six link rear. ’cause you know, the Watts obviously has those two, two links. Right. Locating links off the pig. Yeah, exactly. And, and, and the reason why, you know, I, I love the fact, you know, Carl mentioned a Bronco is a rock crawler. Yeah. Right. This is

Holman (47m 2s):

Do everything, do

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (47m 3s):

Everything. But you also, it’s a watch linkage is gonna control your rear suspension placement better for, for more aggressive driving. Right. So, so So we can do some rock crawling, but we can also do the, the high speed hauling that, that raptors are known for in our Raptor shows the

Holman (47m 18s):

Flexibility of the frame. Right.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (47m 19s):

That’s exactly, it shows the flexibility of the frame So we have, so that that rear suspension, that rear frame is gonna change because of the different suspensions. But in terms of our, of our, we we, with Bronco, we share the same engines two three liter I four, 2.7 liter V six and three liter V six in, in, in both raptors. So our power chain cooling is very similar. Our G o r, you know, the, the, the whole cooling pack Sure. Is gonna be similar. Our a i s location is, is similar. Our ips gonna be unique because a Bronco’s IP is not like a traditional ip. No.

Holman (47m 53s):

And and this has a more sloped a pillar versus Bronco’s upright. A pillar that

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (47m 56s):

Exactly, that’s exactly, it’s a brick, you know, Bronco is straight up. Yeah. And Broncos line of sight are even better still than the Ranger. Yeah. ’cause you, you can see even, even yeah. Even lower into, you know, into the corner.

Holman (48m 6s):

I, I sure wish Ford would find a chief engineer that’s passionate about this.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (48m 11s):

Let me know. I want, I’d love to meet him.

Holman (48m 12s):

What, what was your, you know, you look at this as we know every chief engineer has battles and sometimes it’s design battles, sometimes it’s functionality battles, sometimes it’s cost battles, sometimes it’s manufacturing battles. What is the most proud thing that you have brought to market in this new truck where that wasn worth the effort to, to get it in the program? Is there one thing or something that stands out where you say, man, I can’t believe we did it, but it’s gonna really be valuable to the customer. I’m glad we got it through. It’s the real, that wasn the right choice.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (48m 41s):

I’m gonna say Raptor. Okay. In one word, I’m gonna say Raptor. And I say that because the North America Ranger customer had been saying for years, yeah, why don’t we have a Raptor? Why don’t we have a Raptor come hell high water. We were gonna give him a Raptor. So giving him a Raptor and still being able to give him two additional engines, right. All new interior, all that capability out in, in the back end working end of a truck. I mean, Ford was not kidding when we, when it invested, meaning we we’re not playing, we are serious about the mid-size pickup segment. so Yeah

Holman (49m 10s):

And, and it shows and I, I built a long travel Ranger with a supercharged V six manual transmission on 30 threes back in 2005. So I, trust me when I say and, and you can ask Mike Levine our involvement in the original Raptor F one 50, that my history with Raptor and Ford is very entwined over the years. And for that vehicle to finally be here is something that I’ve been a fan for so long that I had built one ’cause I wanted that type of vehicle here. Right. So seeing it in, in the flesh and it’s 3.5 wide inches wider per side. It’s got the Raptor styling, it’s got the Raptor mows, adaptive Exhaust. It’s got the 405 horsepower, three liter V six that’s shared with, with what I like to call Raptor Raptor Raptor.

Holman (49m 52s):

Right. And I think it’s 33 inch tires on the Ranger Raptor. Yeah.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (49m 57s):

33 inch tires. You, you spot front

Holman (49m 59s):

And rear lockers

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (49m 60s):

Fact 33 inch K o threes I think. Yeah, I saw,

Holman (50m 2s):

Saw the tread pattern.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (50m 3s):

Exactly. Exactly. And front and rear lockers, you’re All. right. I’m glad you said that. And

Holman (50m 9s):

So if you want to see what a B F G K O three looks like, go check out the Ranger of Raptor photos and you’ll get a sneak peek of the not K two. Nope. K o three. They are, they are on their way just saying Hmm.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (50m 22s):

Plus three and a half inch track width on the base. The base already grew plus two. Yeah. and then we threw another three and a half, eight. So it’s way wider. It’s way wider and it is so much fun. I love that. You know the, the act of exhaustion. Yeah. Because you can make that thing sound really, really rockish if you want. Perfect.

Holman (50m 39s):

Well I appreciate your time, man. Chief engineer, you, you were, you said you were a first generation Dominican, first, first

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (50m 45s):

Generation American. That’s right. Grew born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Yeah. Yeah. So I’ve come a long way. I, I was working towards a PhD when I was in school when I was young. And, and I, I tell people that I sold out ’cause you know, I, I was working at nasa but I was like, you know, working at nasa that wasn like being like, you know, in school. Yeah, sure. It’s very academic. And I sold out ’cause I came to corporate America. I came to Ford and I’m so glad that I did. And don don’t want you to, to your ride. Yeah. We’re good. So, so it’s been a great career. A great almost 30 years. Ford’s been great. It’s, it is a family run company. They treat its employees differently. And the people that you get to work with, like I mentioned, I actually specify that the diversity, the people that I work with, it is great. And, and it’s, it’s why I’m still at forward.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (51m 26s):

I mean I’ve, I’ve, I’ve had offers, you know, I’m sure you both have and I’ve stayed here. It’s four reasons. ’cause it’s a great company.

Holman (51m 31s):

Congratulations on the new Ranger. I think this gives you a PhD in trucks.

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (51m 36s):

Thank you man. I appreciate it. It

Holman (51m 37s):

Appreciate your time. Thank you

Ford Ranger Chief Engineer, Juan (51m 38s):

Sir. Thank you.

Holman (51m 39s):

Damn. That dude is a fireball. Yeah. He’s, he’s super passionate about the brand. I mean, think of that he’s been at, at Ford for 29 years. You think of all the programs he’s touched over the years and things like that. Couldn’t have been a nicer and more gracious guy. I’m wondering if we can get, get him on again at some point and, and, and talk more. I would’ve loved to have another 20 or 30 minutes with them. ’cause it just, it that wasn pretty awesome. and then I just wanna run over a, a couple quick notes that you may have picked up in there. So the 2.3 liter eco-boost that’s in today’s truck. 270 horsepower, 310 pound feet of torque. The 2.7 liter eco-boost, which is out of the Bronco, it is new to the Ranger platform.

Holman (52m 22s):

315 horsepower, 400 pound feet of torque. They both have 18.8 gallon fuel tanks and they can run off of 87 even with turbos. No kidding. What which is, which is cool. Yeah. Wait, really? Not super. Not super. So you can run off non-prem. Then the other thing about it is they come with 17 and 18 inch wheels. But the question that a lot of people are probably curious about, max towing 7,500 pounds and max payload on a four by four is 1,711 pounds and 1805 on a and a on a two Wheel drive, which is pretty damn good for the mid-size segment. There’s a lot of trucks that are down around 11, 12, 1300 pounds. and then of course packed full of technology and, and all that kind of stuff.

Holman (53m 3s):

Oh. And integrated trailer brake controller as well. So you can get that as part of it. So it’s got a lot of the features of the big truck with, you know, some downsized capability. But 7,500 pounds is what a full size towed, you know, 20 years ago. So that’s pretty, that’s a, that’s a hefty trailer. How

Lightning (53m 20s):

Close will a an X L T or a base model guy be able to get with Ford Performance parts towards the rap? The, the Raptor?

Holman (53m 27s):

No, there, there’s a lot of changes to the Raptor. I mean, maybe you could unbolt, you know, everything and bolt it on. Yeah. But the, like, the shock towers are taller on a Ranger for, on a Raptor for more travel. It’s not, it’s not just like they, I

Lightning (53m 40s):

Like the suspension’s radically different. But like, let me, how about just aesthetically, like a lot of the guys, here’s why a lot of the Ford F one 50 guys will get, you know, fender flares.

Holman (53m 48s):

Yeah. But a lot of that stuff stuff is aftermarket stuff that just looks like the Raptor. I

Lightning (53m 52s):

I’m curious, what does your gut tell you? How close will Ford sell performance parts to get those? They’re not entry. They won’t? No.

Holman (53m 60s):

Okay. No, you’re not gonna, Ford’s not Ford performance isn’t gonna sell wider fenders and bedsides for a Raptor to a non Raptor owner. And they’re not gonna sell you the suspension of the Raptor. They want you to go buy the Raptor. So the after market’s gonna be your friend. I mean you, there’s gonna be plenty of people who are gonna be looking for wrecked raptors to put those parts on the regular Ranger. So you may have a guy who gets an X L T F X four and then goes, you know, three wi, three inches wider per side with a high offset, Wheel it with, you know, a a somebody’s race kit, a cam or, or something like that. and then they want the Raptor fenders to cover that. So there’ll be some of that going on. But the Raptor architecture, the, you know, there’s a lot more features. The drive modes. I mean, if you want to get to a Raptor, just save your money and get a Raptor.

Holman (54m 42s):

Gotcha. Speaking of Raptor, the three liter eco boost V six in that is a 405 horse, 430 pound feet. And it actually gets up to a 20.3 gallon fuel tank. So they actually added a few gallons on the, on the Raptor. So you get a little more range for those of those you folks out there. Or maybe the same range with a high performance engine.

Lightning (54m 60s):

So what’s interesting here is that you had three 15 on the next model down. Right. Three 15 horse versus 4 0 5 with a Raptor, and then you had 400 pound feet of torque versus four 30. So you’re only gaining 30 pound feet, but significantly more horsepower.

Holman (55m 18s):

Yeah, no, it, it, it that thing’s gonna scoot no doubt about it. You can also get ’em with the, the full-time four Wheel drive system, which is cool. and then the other thing on Raptor for people who are curious, maximum towing drops to 5,510 pounds just still of sizable trailer. And that was,

Lightning (55m 35s):

That was down from 7,500, right?

Holman (55m 36s):

Yep. And payload goes from just over 1700 to 1411 on the, on the Raptor. So you get a little bit of a capability dip in terms of hauling and payload, but you get it way more, you know, back

Lightning (55m 51s):

It’s hauling ass in

Holman (55m 52s):

Hauling ass. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, if you guys want to check out the, the new Raptor, there’s lots of places you can go on the internet and, and see what the truck looks like. And it just, it again, it’s a, it’s a squatty, beefy, tough looking little truck that you just, you just wanna drive it around your sandbox like a Hot Wheels toy.

Lightning (56m 11s):

So, but like the truck news doesn’t stop there. We got Mo for ya.

11 (56m 15s):

What’s new in trucks?

12 (56m 17s):

We need to know

11 (56m 18s):

What’s new in trucks.

12 (56m 19s):

We need to know

11 (56m 21s):

What’s new in trucks

Lightning (56m 23s):

To

12 (56m 23s):

Know.

9 (56m 24s):

Lifted, lowered and everything in between. What’s happening in the world of

Lightning (56m 29s):

Trucks. Ah. Oh that was good. that wasn good. That was really good.

Holman (56m 33s):

Yeah. All, right? A lot more photos are starting to leak out of the t Toyota Tacoma. I haven’t heard testing Oh No. Wait, I’m not doing that anymore. I decided I’m changing it. What? Yeah. No, You Didn get the memo. Can you check your email today?

Lightning (56m 45s):

Don don’t get emails

Holman (56m 46s):

So that, that’s

Lightning (56m 47s):

Dead corporate? Nope.

Holman (56m 48s):

What do you mean have corporate email? No, you have Lightning at truck show podcast.com.

Lightning (56m 51s):

I That’s not dead. This is happening.

Holman (56m 54s):

You No, no, no, no. Go back. Listen, don don’t have corporate email. Yes you do. I pay for it every month.

Lightning (56m 59s):

All, right? Whatever. Listen, we’re not, this bit is not dying. Have I heard ask it?

Holman (57m 6s):

No.

Lightning (57m 7s):

See what you did there. No

Holman (57m 11s):

Lighting? Have you heard?

Lightning (57m 12s):

No. Nope.

Holman (57m 14s):

See, anyway, the Tacoma’s finally gonna be unveiled. But here I, I posted a post on my, on my personal Instagram and then shared it on truck show. Everybody’s like, what is it gonna look like? Oh my god. Here’s a teaser from Toyota guys. They showed you the entire truck in December of 2021. They

Lightning (57m 32s):

Didn’t

Holman (57m 33s):

Believe it. The entire truck. They, but they didn’t believe it uncovered. They didn’t believe it. All they did was have a blocked out grill and went, oh, this is the future concept for a Tacoma electric vehicle. And it doesn’t have a grill on it, otherwise it’s identical. and then three months later they brought out the patent drawing. It is literally exactly the same as the truck that got leaked this week. Somebody was poking around a Toyota’s website and found some unpublished page and stole some photos off of it of that white one drifting. It’s the same truck. It’s you guys. It’s not new. And anyway, to me, okay, great. It looks like a Tacoma. I think it’ll be fine. There’s a lot of great stuff you want. It’s

Lightning (58m 7s):

So obvious. He’s a hater. I love it.

Holman (58m 9s):

No, I’m not.

Lightning (58m 9s):

You just don’t mask I’m

Holman (58m 10s):

Not hating it. I’m I think it’s gonna be great. But even the trail hunter looks like it has 30 threes and spy photos. Man. Ranger raptors looking pretty good. A v bison looking pretty good. I mean, for that high end going after it, it’s

Lightning (58m 27s):

Gonna, it’s gonna hurt because it’s gonna hurt you because it’s gonna sell like hotcakes.

Holman (58m 30s):

No, it’s gonna sell like crazy. Yeah. And there’s so many people that are ready for it. It’s gonna fully box frame finally. And we know that it has rear disc brakes. Finally. What? Yeah. Which it should. But they only have a turbo four and a hybrid turbo. Four and four just went, oh, we’ve got a 2.7 V six now with 315 horsepower and what, 400 pound feet of torque or whatever. Yep. Yep. I mean that thing’s gonna be a, a monster. The the, I’m telling you, the trucks, the truck wars and mid-size are, are crazy. But at the same time, I I I posed the question. I I assume, is it evolutionary? Is it perfectly evolutionary for Toyota? Or did it not go far enough because it doesn’t look that much d I mean it’s evolutionary. It’s, it’s instantly recognizable as a Tacoma.

Holman (59m 12s):

You’ll, well, you may not have seen a Tacoma for 30 years and you go, oh, that’s Tacoma. So like, good kudos to them for that. It, it looks, and these things always look better in the flesh than they do in photos. Especially when you haven’t seen one in person for scale and all that. That being said, is it enough when the competition is getting this much better?

Lightning (59m 29s):

Yeah. I don’t know. And they don’t really seem to care about horsepower.

Holman (59m 32s):

Well they don’t, they don’t need to care. I

Lightning (59m 33s):

Mean, the Tundra came that wasn nice with it, you know, twin turbos. I’m wait, dying for, I think Burgers got a inline tuner for it. I’m dying to see how that works. Those guys are local. We should talk to ’em. I know it’s kind of competition for Banks, but they do Toyota stuff. So I think it might be worth reaching out to Burger. They’re up in what, Simi Valley? Something like that. I think I, I think I’m waiting for someone to make some big power with that twin Turbo Tundra. Haven’t seen it yet. I, if you guys know of one, let us know Truck show podcast@gmail.com. Hit me at Lightning at church show podcast and I’ll line up somebody who’s tuning Twin Turbo. Tundras

Holman (1h 0m 5s):

Lightning. Did you hear?

Lightning (1h 0m 6s):

No. Nope. So

Holman (1h 0m 8s):

There’s a big kerfuffle over the Ram announcements on the internet this week where everybody expected them after a little tease that they would be announcing the hurricane straight six coming to the Ram 1500.

Lightning (1h 0m 22s):

Nope.

Holman (1h 0m 23s):

And when that came to fruition,

Lightning (1h 0m 25s):

Nope. They got a moon rock, didn’t they?

Holman (1h 0m 26s):

They, they got a a, a new buzz model. They basically said, a, a new force is landing 5 10 23. Everybody’s like, Ooh, it’s the hurricane I six twin turbo. Woo. and then that wasn like, here’s the new paint color for you. I, I can’t tell you how many people reached out to me and said tomorrow hurricane. I’m like, no. My guess is you won’t be hearing anything about that till probably Q four of this year. So sorry to, to bust your bubble. But if you want lunar colored things, then you might like this new special edition that Ram is putting up there.

Holman (1h 1m 6s):

But no, it, that wasn not about the, the straight six kind of an

Lightning (1h 1m 10s):

Interesting gray, by the way, it’s not the cool cement color you see Porsche doing, or Toyota has that really neat dark gray, that nardo gray color. This is kind of a, if you took that and then put some tan in it. Are we No.

Holman (1h 1m 23s):

Are we sure not sting gray? It’s not the same sting gray I had on my Jeep. Is it?

Lightning (1h 1m 28s):

It did. And the float

Holman (1h 1m 29s):

Awful. Looks awfully familiar to me.

Lightning (1h 1m 31s):

Oh really? May maybe it just the photos I saw. So I, I, you know, I rescind that and I will see one in person. R

Holman (1h 1m 37s):

Ram Ram is very, very good. Well, St Stache is very good about using the same paint color across multiple lines and naming, naming them something different. Like Sting Gray on a Jeep is with Destroyer Gray or whatever on the Hellcat. Oh, same, same color. So my guess is it’s, it’s sting gray I think it looks great, but again, it’s okay. It, you know, it’s not the straight six. I I, I do like the interior on the T Rx. It’s, it’s gray with blue with blue, which looks kinda nice. It blue, kind of a,

Lightning (1h 2m 7s):

Like the, the the blue stitch you had on your Raptor.

Holman (1h 2m 9s):

It’s, it’s similar. Maybe a little brighter than the blue stitch on like a four x e Wrangler. But it’s real tasteful. It’s, it’s not gaudy at all. I think the black seats were the, you know, if you are familiar with the, the T R X interior where the red piping is on the seats, that’s gray. and then all the stitching is, is blue. I think it just, it’s tasteful but you know, it just another color. Hey lighting, did you hear? No.

Lightning (1h 2m 34s):

Nope.

Holman (1h 2m 35s):

More hints that Ram may be introducing a compact pickup truck to battle against the Ford Maverick. Somebody caught a photo of one under wraps on top of a car hauler. And so there’s a lot of people saying, is it coming or is it not coming? And my guess would be it’s coming right? You, you gotta think that it’s going to be here. Stateside Maverick is way too big of a market for Ram to ignore. Is it gonna be called something like the Ram 700, which is down in Mexico? Or is it gonna be like a Dakota? I I would love for them to do an actual Ranger Colorado Frontier Toyota Tacoma Fighting Dakota. I, I think the, the market is right for them to jump into that.

Holman (1h 3m 18s):

I

Lightning (1h 3m 18s):

Thought we had a different name that wasn. The, the the, it wasn’t the Dakota that wasn the,

Holman (1h 3m 22s):

Well nobody knows what the name is.

Lightning (1h 3m 23s):

Nobody. You came up with a name and I thought oh, that’s the name. That’s what it’s gotta be. Rampage

Holman (1h 3m 26s):

Rampage

Lightning (1h 3m 27s):

Could be. It’s gotta be the Rampage. I mean it, how could it not be the Rampage? Rampage is gray name.

Holman (1h 3m 30s):

It might not be the Rampage. It should

Lightning (1h 3m 32s):

Be a rampage. The idiot’s not to call it a rampage. How cool is that name? It’s kind of eighties ish. But man, the Rampage, that’s a great name. See? ’cause it says Ram in the name Get it Rampage.

Holman (1h 3m 45s):

That’s no better than the charging mat in Rams that say Ram charger, which I love that you ever seen your T rx, that pad that wirelessly charges your phone. Yes. Called the Ram charger. Look at it. There’s logo on there. Smart. Yeah, I’m sure they did that for trademark too. Hey lighting. Did you hear

Lightning (1h 4m 0s):

What? No. Nope. Didn’t hear.

Holman (1h 4m 3s):

So Lexus is out teasing the next generation GX SS U V, which is only notable because it’s built on the international proto platform. And if you’ve looked around for anybody who wants a basically a luxury overlander, gxs are everywhere because it’s basically a four runner with a V eight. And so the GX four sixties GX four 70, that have become the darlings of the upscale overland community and are sort of have taken the place of like the series 80 Land cruisers and things like that. They’re similar size. And Lex apparently is announcing the next generation of GX and the photos that they put out are dirty.

Holman (1h 4m 47s):

It’s teaser photos up close of it covered in dirt.

Lightning (1h 4m 50s):

Interesting. And I,

Holman (1h 4m 53s):

I think I could say this, I was called by certain people from a company that just put out photos of a dirty vehicle and said, would you like to fly out to Texas to see our vehicles? We’re not gonna tell you what they are unveiled next month. And I went, yes,

Lightning (1h 5m 9s):

Yes.

Holman (1h 5m 9s):

So I’m hoping you should hoping to see it in person. Pretty excited actually.

Lightning (1h 5m 13s):

Am I a dumb ass for just assuming that the Land Cruiser and the Lexus were the same?

Holman (1h 5m 19s):

There was and is a version of the Land Cruiser. That’s the Lexus. Oh,

Lightning (1h 5m 23s):

Okay.

Holman (1h 5m 23s):

But that’s the lx. This is the gx.

Lightning (1h 5m 26s):

Ah, thank you. Okay. So

Holman (1h 5m 28s):

Apparently they are embracing their off-road route and the new GX hopefully from what they’re showing will still be body unframed just like the current one. And it’s a much needed Update that, that model’s been around for a really long time. And I’m hoping that it’s on the, the new Tacoma and Tundra platform. It could be really, really good. And it could be a, again, a luxury fore runner vehicle for overlanding. And if Lexus is embracing that, that could be awesome.

Lightning (1h 5m 57s):

That is going to be big dollars. Can I guess? Sure. You don’t know. Of course you haven’t been there yet, but I’m gonna say it’s gonna start at one 15.

Holman (1h 6m 8s):

No way. Really? No, the, the the, the Lexus LX 600, which is the current land cruiser generation. That’s not Toyota version’s, not in the US currently it’s only Lexus that starts at 86 9. Hmm. And that can, that’ll get way up over a hundred thousand with options. This is solidly gonna be 69 72, somewhere in there. I bet. Okay. It’ll be Jeff to 90 or something. Okay. It’s a mid-size, you know, SS u v probably three row. I hope it’s still body and frame. I hope it still has a solid rear axle because that would be super rad and it might maybe hint at what the next four runner is. Obviously with Tacoma getting refreshed, four runner’s not far behind. So we’ll see. I, I’m, I’m excited about it. I don Dunno if anybody else is excited about it, but I am excited about it and I know there’s gonna be some, a-hole listener like Trevor MRO is gonna send me a note.

Holman (1h 6m 56s):

How can you hate on the Tacoma, but you like the Lexus? Because I can’t. So just shut up Trevor.

Lightning (1h 7m 2s):

I love preemptively shut him down.

Holman (1h 7m 4s):

Just, sorry. Trevor You didn’t notice. He never wrote back after I get my iPhone versus Chinese Ford. It’s

Lightning (1h 7m 10s):

So funny. It’s like we are doing a show for one dude. Yeah, right.

Holman (1h 7m 13s):

Used to be Declan, but he doesn’t listen to us anymore. He grew up, he does got a girlfriend and he Doesn he doesn’t need us anymore. The

Lightning (1h 7m 17s):

Office is riding lawnmower with headphones on and now he is got a girlfriend.

Holman (1h 7m 20s):

He has a dump truck now. Not listening.

Lightning (1h 7m 21s):

Yeah. Oh does he? He’s got a dump truck.

Holman (1h 7m 23s):

Speaking of dump trucks. Hey, did you hear?

14 (1h 7m 25s):

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Lightning (1h 7m 28s):

Nope. Didn’t

Holman (1h 7m 29s):

Hear it. Well you’re gonna be disappointed because you not being able to hear is a freaking shame. Uhoh, how about a 1997 Ford F three 50 dump truck?

Lightning (1h 7m 42s):

I didn’t know they made a Ford F three 50 dump truck. It,

Holman (1h 7m 44s):

It wasn’t that wasn a that wasn a either chassis cab or they took up the bed and put a dump bed on it. Okay. All right. Gateway Car connection. Missouri dealer. They’re known for finding really low mileage, well preserved vehicles. Think of this, it’s red. This

Lightning (1h 7m 58s):

Is 97 you said?

Holman (1h 7m 59s):

97. Okay. And you’ll see the importance of this in just a moment. Single cab F three 50. F three

Lightning (1h 8m 6s):

50. Okay. Single cab

Holman (1h 8m 7s):

Dually. Oh four by 4 0 7 3 Powerstroke. Oh five speed manual. Oh, 1500 original miles. The original owner was some rich guy that did you

Lightning (1h 8m 18s):

Just say 1500 miles

Holman (1h 8m 19s):

With red interior. The original guy was some rich guy that only hauled something in the bed once. Okay. In the, in the dump bed. This is the truck my friend with period. Correct. Weld duly wheels.

Lightning (1h 8m 32s):

Oh my God. It’s, it’s perfect. It’s perfect. It like that. wasn in a hermetic. what you hermetically sealed. Sealed.

Holman (1h 8m 38s):

Look at the look at the interior.

Lightning (1h 8m 42s):

What in the world? How is it stored? How, what’s the story there? How is it so perfect?

Holman (1h 8m 47s):

All? right. Well if you, if you head on over to the drive.com this is gonna be a story from Caleb Jacobs who we’re gonna get him on the show. Yeah, he’s, he and I

Lightning (1h 8m 56s):

Caleb’s my boy. Yeah. Yeah.

Holman (1h 8m 57s):

So we’ve talked about him coming on and he was busy for a little bit, but I wanna get him on ’cause he always had some of the best stories on the drive. Guess How much This thing sold for, so this is, keep in mind 1500

Lightning (1h 9m 10s):

Miles. So according

Holman (1h 9m 11s):

To Caleb’s story, the higher watermark for an O B S Ford was previously a 92 97 F series on bring a trailer that had a four 60 cubic inch V eight and 60,000 miles went for 59,280. Okay,

Lightning (1h 9m 26s):

I’m gonna say because this is a dump bed, so it’s worth probably less. Let

Holman (1h 9m 30s):

Me give you a little back. It’s story appealing before, just to give you more information. Okay. Before you guess. The truck was ordered by a guy that owned a Ford franchise. A big Ford store. He ordered it hauled one load of gravel in 1999. That’s the only thing that’s ever been in the dump bed. That the stock wheels are actually wrapped in plastic and stored in the back of the dump bed. He also owned a tire shop so he ordered the weld wheels and how had them installed right away on day one. And other than the load of gravel, he would drive it into his Ford store every once in a while just to have it serviced. It didn’t get a ton of miles, but it did go get driven periodically. What did this truck sell for?

Lightning (1h 10m 10s):

I’m gonna say 91,000.

Holman (1h 10m 16s):

It sold for a cool 84 800. Woo. It almost sounds like a deal for what it is. Oh, short Wheel based single cab dual rear Wheel, first generation power stroke Diesel with a stick.

Lightning (1h 10m 31s):

1500 miles U

Holman (1h 10m 32s):

1500 miles

Lightning (1h 10m 33s):

Unicorn. Totally

Holman (1h 10m 34s):

Unicorn. Totally unicorn truck. Wow. I just Look at that truck with red on red and I just wanna

Lightning (1h 10m 41s):

Do, that’s, I just

Holman (1h 10m 42s):

Wanna get excited.

Lightning (1h 10m 43s):

I can’t unsee that.

Holman (1h 10m 44s):

I just wanna fu I wanna thump my foot on the ground with excitement. That

Lightning (1h 10m 48s):

Was not

Holman (1h 10m 48s):

It.

Lightning (1h 10m 49s):

So good. Not your foot or the ground. that

Holman (1h 10m 51s):

Wasn so good now. Hey lighting, did you hear?

15 (1h 10m 54s):

No. 0, 0, 0.

Lightning (1h 10m 56s):

No I didn’t.

Holman (1h 10m 58s):

So I got one last story for you.

Lightning (1h 10m 59s):

All. right? Because. We are calling someone right after this All. right?

Holman (1h 11m 2s):

That’s fine. I got one last story for you. All. right? There are certain manufacturers who are embracing EVs and autonomous driving and all that. Well not the Ferrari. C e o. The Ferri c e o was in a interview.

Lightning (1h 11m 19s):

Are you talking the s u v Ferrari that’s coming out? Okay.

Holman (1h 11m 21s):

No. Nope. During a, this is according to a story on the drive said during a discussion of the Financial Times future of the car summit, Ferrari, c e o Benedetto Vigna said there are four kinds of software performance. There’s comfort software, there’s infotainment software and there’s autonomous. The last one we don’t care. And, and the drive, the drive has the perfect headline for this Ferrari, c e o on self-driving cars. We don’t care.

Lightning (1h 12m 2s):

That

Holman (1h 12m 2s):

Is good for them because it’s

Lightning (1h 12m 3s):

All about the experience of the driving experience. Right. That’s

Holman (1h 12m 6s):

That’s why you’re around a Ferrari. Yeah. Don’t, don’t do it Ferrari’s if you’re not driving done doesn’t matter. Brand dead. What’s

Lightning (1h 12m 14s):

The point of the

Holman (1h 12m 15s):

Car? What’s the point at that

Lightning (1h 12m 16s):

Point? Just wear it on your wrist.

Holman (1h 12m 17s):

Yeah. I just, yeah, that stupid

Lightning (1h 12m 22s):

Good for him.

Holman (1h 12m 23s):

I that’s what I’m saying. Yeah. Love

Lightning (1h 12m 25s):

That.

Holman (1h 12m 25s):

Anyway, I just, I gotta for it. I gotta

Lightning (1h 12m 28s):

Where, where, where? Where’s Porsche on Drive? ’cause Porsche is the car that I think of like the re the Dr. Well I guess yeah,

Holman (1h 12m 35s):

There’s a lot of grand touring stuff too though. So

Lightning (1h 12m 37s):

B BMW is what driving experience is their motto. Right? What’s,

Holman (1h 12m 41s):

What’s Porsche? Well now, now it just really ugly, blocky vehicles that look like crap with

Lightning (1h 12m 45s):

Giant gills on the front. That’s just,

Holman (1h 12m 46s):

That’s what the bmd

Lightning (1h 12m 47s):

But Porsche I think is gonna be another one that should step out and say, we’ll see we’re not into, you know, if you buy this to drive it All.

Holman (1h 12m 53s):

Right. Lighting. I got one more for you because this one really bothered me. Hey lighting, did you hear? I mean No,

Lightning (1h 12m 58s):

No, no I didn’t.

Holman (1h 13m 0s):

GM has started moving away from CarPlay Android Auto to offer their own interface. I think that’s death. I agree. And I think it’s

Lightning (1h 13m 10s):

Stupid. So I saw Jim Farley, I wanted to play the audio, but I know it could be copyright infringements.

Holman (1h 13m 14s):

Jim, Jim Farley basically said we lost that battle 10 years ago.

Lightning (1h 13m 17s):

I So we saw the same interview. Then he was sitting up on stage, he says, we lost that battle and we can’t. And

Holman (1h 13m 22s):

You have to remember, be

Lightning (1h 13m 23s):

Better at it than no. Than than Android and or and Apple.

Holman (1h 13m 26s):

And Apple and Ford said in the beginning when they partnered with Microsoft, ’cause you remember they had Microsoft sync. Yep. And they had Microsoft’s mobile phone. And I’ll never forget that wasn a failure. I’ll never forget being at the Detroit Auto Show in the Cobo Arena with Bill Gates on satellite in the big arena screen. And somebody asked him if it would work with iPhone and he choked over his words that wasn like Yes. And that wasn so funny. But I remember Ford saying, we’re not gonna embrace CarPlay because we’re not gonna let a $1,500, a thousand dollars phone, whatever that wasn at the time dictate the purchase of the vehicle. and then they realize, oh crap, we have to have it. And now they’re saying we lost it.

Holman (1h 14m 8s):

And CarPlay, I almost don’t ever use, I drive so many different things. CarPlay a godsend. ’cause I don’t have to relearn everything you plug in

Lightning (1h 14m 14s):

Consistent across everything.

Holman (1h 14m 15s):

Everything. Right. It makes

Lightning (1h 14m 16s):

It easy. My my brother is the same for all the Google products, right? Yeah. And he plugs in and he’s like consistency across. Yep. He rents cars in every state. Yep.

Holman (1h 14m 25s):

I think that’s a big mistake. I know. I, my understanding is the next generation trucks like the Colorado Canyon do have it and they’re gonna phase ’em out at EVs first. I bet they backtrack on that. I I think CarPlay has be become such a instrumental part of our daily lives. Ubiquitous. Yeah. You have to have it. How, why would they do that? The only people don’t have is Tesla Is it is crap Rivian, do they hate the

Lightning (1h 14m 46s):

Royalties that much?

Holman (1h 14m 47s):

Yes. Yeah. And they don’t like that’s

Lightning (1h 14m 49s):

So

Holman (1h 14m 49s):

Shortsighted. But but then it becomes data. It’s all about data. Everything’s about first party data. So they, GM doesn’t want to see the data that Apple gets. Go Apple. Yeah. Even though your licensing agreement covers sharing data, they wanna own you not have Apple own you with what you’re doing in the card. There’s a great article on it. I wish I could find it right now, but if you search, there’s a a few good opinion pieces out there on why from a consumer side though, and I get why the GM’s doing it from consumer side, I’m gonna tell you I would not buy a vehicle that didn’t have CarPlay. That’s How much. I use it.

Lightning (1h 15m 20s):

I gotta agree. I’m not a super apple. I the, I, I do have a Mac, I have an iPhone. I, I enjoy the ecosystem. I’m not a Homer like Holman is, but I really, really enjoy just being able to plug into any freaking car that has it. And like you said, it’s consistent. I know where my map is. I know, I know where everything is just by rote memory. It’s, that’s super sweet. Yep. I’m gonna change gears a little bit here. Remember on the last episode when we were talking to Randy Frederick’s, owner of two ballistic, the 91 Toyota mini truck. And we got off kind of on, on a tangent and he was talking about

Holman (1h 15m 56s):

What we got on a tangent We

Lightning (1h 15m 57s):

Did. He went on a hunt and found the Le Van Flex through Flex through window

Holman (1h 16m 3s):

Or more colloquially understood as the butterfly rear window.

Lightning (1h 16m 6s):

Right? And for those of you who hadn’t seen it, ’cause I hadn’t seen one. Well I did, but the story will unfold in a minute here. I posted a photo on at Truck Show podcast on the gram and within minutes we had a bunch of comments. Hey I wanted one of those on my Toyota so bad back then from a rust bucket. 65, Mike Finnegan, pat Nichols, ballistic Toyota is my favorite mini truck of all time. And the reason I picked Smurf Blue for my Toyota,

Holman (1h 16m 34s):

Now look at the reply underneath underneath Mike Finnegan, right?

Lightning (1h 16m 37s):

Yeah. At Finnegan. 9 9 9. When you coming back on bro? Yeah. Like I’ve seen a few Chevy loves in in the community but they’re very rare. I think. I guess they, Chevy loves one of the applications in which you could buy the window for that thing is so dope. I was wondering what you guys were talking about make sense now from Freedom Chariot and like just a bunch of comments guys thanking us for posting up a photo at Churchill podcast of what the thing looks like because it’s hard to kind of wrap your head around it. Holman did a pretty good job of painting the, the, the picture verbally. But I wanna get the backstory about the window from someone who actually owns one. Our buddy Sean Ramage who owns Empire Fabrication has this one on his wall up there in Ventura.

Lightning (1h 17m 24s):

And let’s give him a buzz and find out how he came about buying or getting a hold of this.

Sean (1h 17m 41s):

Hello

Lightning (1h 17m 42s):

Sean Lightning Holman truck show podcast. What’s happening?

Holman (1h 17m 46s):

Are you under attack by a dog right now? What’s

Lightning (1h 17m 48s):

Happening up there?

Sean (1h 17m 49s):

Hello is a trigger word for my dogs.

Holman (1h 17m 54s):

So last time you and I talked, you were standing in front of my Flad fender making rude gestures at it.

Lightning (1h 17m 59s):

Rude gestures.

Holman (1h 18m 0s):

Yes. Sending me pictures. Thank you for that. Remember Sean didn’t have time to do it. Then he offloaded me to his friend Josh who now hates me and hates Sean. Yeah, yeah. I gotcha.

Lightning (1h 18m 9s):

We’re calling Mr. Homage about the window that’s up the

Holman (1h 18m 12s):

Le Van Flex

Lightning (1h 18m 13s):

Through the Flex through. And you have an interesting story how you came upon that. ’cause when you showed it to me the first time, I did not understand the significance of that window. And you looked at me like I had, you know, like three heads. You’re like, how do you not know about the Flex through? And I’m like, I don’t know. And you were insulted but I didn’t, you know, there’s nothing I can do. I didn’t know about it. How did you come upon this window and tell us why it’s special to you?

Sean (1h 18m 38s):

So this window was my stepdad’s window and that wasn in his Chevy love. And he was in, oh man, get, I’m gonna have to let me see that wasn Pacific Coast Truckers was the truck club he was in. Yeah. And that was back in probably the late eighties, early nineties. And he was down in like Chula Vista, San Diego area is where he had this truck in that club growing up. He always had it when he got rid of the truck, he pulled the back window out and he had it in his garage and that wasn just hanging in there.

Sean (1h 19m 19s):

And I always saw like every time he went into the garage or whatever for anything that wasn just hanging up in there. And it took me about 15 years to talk him into like letting me get that from him.

Lightning (1h 19m 29s):

So why was the window so special to him? Was it that coveted even back in the day?

Sean (1h 19m 34s):

So it’s all airbrushed. The entire back window is airbrushed with the truck logo and everything in it. And so when he sold the truck he either had to scrape the airbrushing off and or pull the, you know, he would’ve to pull the logo off the truck. And so instead of scraping the airbrushing off the window, he just put the stock window back in, took the lavan window out and he just held onto it. Nice. Because it had all of the, it had all the airbrushing and stuff on it.

Lightning (1h 20m 3s):

So how, how did you know the history behind the company or why did you know that that wasn special back then? ’cause

Holman (1h 20m 9s):

It looks cool right

Sean (1h 20m 10s):

Back then. I didn’t.

Lightning (1h 20m 11s):

It just looked rad. Yeah,

Sean (1h 20m 12s):

I mean that

Lightning (1h 20m 12s):

Wasn just Oh, oh you didn’t okay it

Sean (1h 20m 14s):

That wasn cool. that wasn different. Like I didn’t really, I would say that wasn about in high school when I actually, like when I got into mini Truckin back in the early two thousands is when I started like looking at that and I started trying to look for one for a Toyota pickup that I had and I could never find one. And initially I always thought, ’cause I have my 70 Toyota Helix that I would just get a Chevy Love back window frame and grabbed it into my helix and run this back window. Which I used to wanna do but don don’t wanna do it anymore because one, I don’t want to pull the graphics off that window. I love the airbrush graphics on it and I just wanna keep it how that wasn when he had it.

Sean (1h 20m 54s):

And so it just a display piece in my shop now for the most part.

Holman (1h 20m 59s):

Which is awesome. This that’s how it should be. Yeah, it should be, it should be in a place of honor to be coveted and enjoyed by enthusiasts for generations to come. I mean

Lightning (1h 21m 9s):

It is. And it’s not gonna get stolen, you know, popped out of the back of his truck. Exactly.

Sean (1h 21m 14s):

Well that and I would just be scared that it would break and then you’d never be able to replace it. it

Lightning (1h 21m 19s):

Just weird. It’s kind of a feed of engineering for back in the eighties and for mini truckers. I mean Holman and I, I guess I didn’t know about it but Holman knew about it, had seen ’em in the day, but didn’t really understand that that wasn kind of the holy grail of mini Truckin.

Sean (1h 21m 32s):

Yeah, I mean they were super rare and they made ’em like all the eighties Toyotas had ’em, the, the early Mazdas and Dotson trucks had ’em, the late nineties they started making ’em for but they weren’t as popular for the late nineties trucks. But like all the early stuff you could find. and then even a few years ago, I even found some for like a square body Chevy on eBay a few years ago. And I almost wanted to buy it just to get it and I never, what was the price Probably should have that wasn actually like 450 bucks. I mean around there on eBay

Holman (1h 22m 1s):

You should have done it because you probably is, you could probably sell for seven 50 now.

Sean (1h 22m 5s):

Oh I’m sure of it. Like all the ones I’ve seen now. I saw one probably about a year ago for $1,500 for like an eighties Toyota pickup. Oh

Lightning (1h 22m 16s):

We got a get to the bottom of this. We gotta talk to someone who is at Lavan. I mean it couldn’t have been like a two person operation. Had to be like 10, 15 people working at this company. Someone around us, they were in SoCal. We, we gotta know somebody who knows them. Right. Lavan? Well

Sean (1h 22m 31s):

Like I have some early mini Truckin magazines that have all like the Lavan articles in them, like the, the for sale articles or whatever the, can’t think of

Lightning (1h 22m 40s):

What they called. But we need a name though. We need like, oh this is, you know, Janine Smith was the C F O or whoever. Like we need to, we need something to go off So. we can track him down. There’s got, there’s no, I never

Sean (1h 22m 50s):

Got that deep into looking for him, but,

Lightning (1h 22m 52s):

Well I’m just saying like, I, I really am dying to know the backstory about this little piece of mini truck’s, you know, history

Holman (1h 22m 59s):

I set up a search on, on eBay. Nothing.

Sean (1h 23m 2s):

Yeah I have, well I have a saved search on eBay. Yeah. So, so if anything ever gets posted on it, I get a notification for it. ’cause there’s certain things that you’re always looking for and that’s one that I’m always looking for. You never know, it’s, I might get another one and if I do for a good price then yeah I’m gonna grab it and maybe use it someday.

Holman (1h 23m 18s):

No, I know what you’re, you’re gonna do, you would find it and you would take it home or it would be shipped to you and you would immediately start searching for the truck to put it in and you would start with a new build. That’s right. Just so you could put it out while that’s exactly it. Yeah.

Sean (1h 23m 32s):

Well I kind of wish I bought that square body one now that I have freaking four of them.

Holman (1h 23m 36s):

That’s what I’m saying.

Sean (1h 23m 37s):

Yeah. What’s

Lightning (1h 23m 38s):

What’s in the shop right now, Sean, while we’ve got you on the phone.

Sean (1h 23m 41s):

Oh shoot. We’re wrapping up a C 30, a 78 C 30 dually lowered with a 24 valve. Cummins and then Allison.

Lightning (1h 23m 51s):

Nice.

Sean (1h 23m 52s):

So that one’s going on. I just brought my wife’s land cruiser back into the shop. It’s a 60 series. Okay. J Inspect.

Holman (1h 23m 59s):

Wait. Oh, was was that the one that my Flad fender was taking away from getting done? Yes.

Lightning (1h 24m 5s):

Hey, go, go back to the, the comments in the Allison conversion real quick here. Who did that? Do you know who did like the bell housing and, and all the, the conversion kit.

Sean (1h 24m 14s):

Alright, so the conversion kit is Diesel specialty conversions. We got the adapter plate from them and then it’s custom. Oh man, it’s c a I’d have to look okay for the, the control module for the Allison. I, I know the company’s based outta Florida. I can’t think of what it’s called offhand conversion, I think it’s conversion automatic TRA specialties or something like that. Okay. C a s But they’re based out of Florida and they make the entire like standalone harness to run the Allison behind the Cummins and then Diesel specialty conversions made the standalone harness for the 24 valve and they made the adapter plate to bolt it to the Allison first fire up is tomorrow.

Sean (1h 25m 1s):

Oh,

Holman (1h 25m 1s):

So you’re doing

Sean (1h 25m 2s):

A video So? we we’ll we’ll be doing a video for it. Yeah. All, right. So first fire up of the truck is gonna be tomorrow

Holman (1h 25m 8s):

We want to hear it and

Sean (1h 25m 9s):

Then yeah. So I’m, I’m stoked on that one. There’s that and then the Land Cruiser we’re getting ready to pull the motor ’cause we’re swapping in L B Z Duramax in it.

Holman (1h 25m 20s):

Yeah. So he sends me a picture of, he goes, oh, check it out. I’m, I’m doing a, a new engine and sends me a picture of a duramax just sitting all dirty and grimy and I’m like in what? you know, in the Land Cruiser. I’m like that’s gonna be a lot of work. Yeah. A lot of work.

Lightning (1h 25m 39s):

Does it fit, is the engine bay big enough? Are you having to dent out the, the, the insides of the fender?

Holman (1h 25m 46s):

So Yeah, nothing going from something that was originally designed for straight six to go to a big old dumb V eight Whew.

Sean (1h 25m 52s):

My wife wants to keep it a Diesel and I didn’t wanna do the Cummins or import another Diesel engine from Japan. And Durmax is slightly taller than an LSS and everybody’s swapping LSS in these land cruisers. so

Holman (1h 26m 4s):

Yeah, they’re nice swap Why swap? Why not swap a durmax? Brian at Goose gear has a real nice small block LSS swap same vintage as yours. Also Blue. See I

Lightning (1h 26m 13s):

Think what happened is he got done with lock John. He goes I can do that again. I can, I can, yeah I can fit a durmax in anything. Oh I mean

Holman (1h 26m 19s):

After he was done pulling the, the nails in and grate out of his eyes and all the blood and healed, he forgot about how bad that wasn. Yes. And he decided he would got it. Yes.

Sean (1h 26m 29s):

Yeah. Well I was lucky I didn’t have to do any of the wiring on lock. Y’all.

Lightning (1h 26m 34s):

True, you’re right. You got off easy. Although you are getting it back potentially and you’re gonna have to strip the damn truck apart and help us paint and put it back together for sema. Although we haven’t

Sean (1h 26m 43s):

That Yeah we’re looking forward for that one.

Holman (1h 26m 45s):

Alright, well listen, did I sense a sarcasm in your boys? Yeah,

Lightning (1h 26m 47s):

There’s a little sarcasm there but no, I think he wants to see it actually on the road. I think he does.

Sean (1h 26m 52s):

Yeah, I wanna see it done. I wanna see it actually drive and

Holman (1h 26m 54s):

Out of your, there’s actual

Sean (1h 26m 55s):

Videos of it other than like pulling into the one parking lot

Holman (1h 26m 59s):

And he doesn’t want ever boomeranging back into his shop. Yeah.

Lightning (1h 27m 2s):

All. right. Well if

Sean (1h 27m 3s):

It does come back into my shop after this, it might not leave with the motor.

Holman (1h 27m 7s):

Yeah dude. He’s get a Land Cruiser with a, with a need.

Lightning (1h 27m 10s):

A supercharged durmax in it. Yeah, he has asked for an engine so many times. I’m like well yeah, we had a little, what do you call it? A failure to launch on our turnkey engine program so far that engine is a a one of one

Holman (1h 27m 23s):

So far,

Lightning (1h 27m 24s):

So far, so far. Yes. All. right Mr. Sean Ramage of Empire Fabrication. If you need custom metal fabrication don’t call him ’cause he’s too busy

Holman (1h 27m 34s):

Or he’ll have a good night or he’ll refer you to his friend Josh, who’s also too busy.

Lightning (1h 27m 38s):

All. right All. right Sean. You’re the man. Thank you. See Buddy

Holman (1h 27m 40s):

All. right.

Sean (1h 27m 41s):

You guys have a good night. Bye bye.

Holman (1h 27m 43s):

Truck

Lightning (1h 27m 43s):

Show podcast@gmail.com. That’s truck show podcast@gmail.com. If you happen to have a Van Flex through window on your wall, take a picture and email it to us.

8 (1h 27m 54s):

The truck show. The truck show. The truck show.

Holman (1h 28m 0s):

And if you wanna catch up with us, it is up on our socials at lbc Lightning at Sean p Holman at Truck Show Podcast. And we have not heard from you guys very much lately. Please give us a call on the five star hotline, 6 5 7 2 0 5 6 1 0 5 and leave us a message. What’s on your mind? Do you need somebody to talk to late at night while you’re lonely? Maybe your truck’s in the shop and you just need, you need a little pick me up. Just, just call the five star hotline, let us know what what we can do for you. The listeners of the Truck Show podcast, love to hear from you and give you a little support and love while you’re missing your loved one. Is that weird? Yeah,

Lightning (1h 28m 32s):

You’re making ’em sound all depressed. It’s like you’re on antidepressants or if you’re

Holman (1h 28m 36s):

Super happy ’cause you got your truck back from the shop after a really gnarly swap, then call us up and let us know.

Lightning (1h 28m 42s):

You know what I wanna hear Holman. I want them to call 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5 and tell us what new truck they just bought. You just bought something. I know we have a big ass audience and some of you guys just bought brand new trucks. Tell us about it. What did you buy and why? Truck Show podcast 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 1 0 5 is a five star hotline. Call us, won’t you?

Holman (1h 29m 4s):

And if you’re looking for a truck to buy ahead on down to your local Nissan dealer where you can check out the hot selling Nissan Frontier mid-size truck, or you can step up to the slightly bigger and then even more bigger. I think the bad, bad grammar Mo, bigger mo, bigger tighten and tighten XD offering the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty. Great trucks. Reliable, dependable, priced well. A lot of value there. A lot of capability. We’re a big fan of Nissan and Nissan supports The, Truck, Show, Podcast.

Lightning (1h 29m 31s):

But on the flip side, if your truck blows, like if it just slow to get outta the hole, you can grow a beard faster than you get up to 60. You need a bank’s pedal monster. It’s the smartest, safest throttle controller on the market. It’s the only throttle controller with reverse safety. It’s the only throttle controller with active safety. It’s the only throttle controller with low speed adjustable trim. All because it’s the only one that plugs into your O V D port. That’s why Holman.

Holman (1h 29m 57s):

And where can I find out if you’ve got something for my car or truck?

Lightning (1h 30m 1s):

Banks power.com. Type in your year, make and model for the best throttle controller experience of your life. All, right,

Holman (1h 30m 9s):

We’re all about best year on The, Truck, Show Podcast. And one of our favorite products is the Bill Bilstein Shock. So whether you’ve got a, a clapped out old truck that’s in need of some new dampers or you’ve got a new truck and you just don’t like the cheap shocks that came on from the factory, you wanna head over to bill Bilstein us.com. You can also enter your year make model and see all the options. Everything from a mono tube, smooth body non reservoir, direct replacement shock two something with bypass tubes or extended length to replace whatever crappy rusted out white shocks came on your cheesy lift kit.

Lightning (1h 30m 41s):

Why are the crappy ones always white?

Holman (1h 30m 43s):

Because one manufacturer made them and private labeled them for everybody.

Lightning (1h 30m 47s):

Schmo. Nah,

Holman (1h 30m 48s):

There’s a few of, yeah, there’s actually a couple of manufacturers. Yeah, I mean they’re cheap and they worked well and everybody used them. Is white

Lightning (1h 30m 55s):

Paint the cheapest color? It

Holman (1h 30m 56s):

Probably. Okay. There’s no dye in it. There’s no pigment. Good

Lightning (1h 30m 58s):

Point.

Holman (1h 30m 59s):

So listen, I run Bill Bilstein on all my rides. Lightning loves his on his tx. They make a great shock. It’s really hard to beat the performance and ride comfort. You get both. Again, bill Bilstein us.com and you

Lightning (1h 31m 11s):

Know what’s better than being lost out in the desert or the forest or the back country

Holman (1h 31m 15s):

Not being lost out in the desert forest or back country. So if you don’t wanna be one of those people that is wandering around aimlessly because you made a wrong left turn and three rights and you lost your way and you ran

Lightning (1h 31m 26s):

Outta gas and you

Holman (1h 31m 27s):

Don’t, well this won’t help you run outta gas. Well I guess it will if it keeps you on the right track. Listen, head over to onX Offroad dot com where you can subscribe to one of the best mapping apps out there. Lightning and I use it for our adventures. I use it for trail guiding and I build out all my trips on my laptop and they magically appear across all devices, whether it’s my iPad or my iPhone. Onyx Maps are the off-road map app built for Adventure. You can discover off-road trails. Say if you’re going to a new place, you need a place to go. You wanna find out who owns the land you’re on top of. You can customize it with markups. And wait,

Lightning (1h 31m 58s):

This could keep me from getting shot.

Holman (1h 32m 0s):

Yeah, you, I mean if you ended up on Farmer John’s back 40, you may not like it. So

Lightning (1h 32m 4s):

It’s dude, it’s worth its weight in gold. Yeah,

Holman (1h 32m 6s):

Exactly. You can save maps for offline use if you don’t have a cell signal. You can track, save and share your trips and of course syncs with CarPlay and Android Auto. There’s not a better mapping app out there for your next Adventure. Head over to onX Offroad dot com or the Apple or Google stores. We can download the app directly to your device.

Lightning (1h 32m 23s):

All, right? That’s a wrap. Truck show podcast number 3,284

Holman (1h 32m 27s):

In minutes.

Lightning (1h 32m 29s):

No, I just, I have no idea how many this is. It’s what are we at two 80

Holman (1h 32m 33s):

Ish?

Lightning (1h 32m 34s):

Yeah, I think we’re now it’s closer to 300 I think if you include all of our SEMA episodes and such. That’s

Holman (1h 32m 40s):

A lot.

Lightning (1h 32m 41s):

Yeah, it’s a lot.

Holman (1h 32m 41s):

Lot of time. I You know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take another drink. ’cause doing that many episodes with you is trying

Lightning (1h 32m 47s):

All, right. I’m gonna suck down this lesson here, here.

Holman (1h 32m 53s):

And so thanks to Dirty Prospector for donating this bottle to, to the cause and making the show hopefully a little bit better.

Lightning (1h 32m 60s):

Do you need me to go by and go by and get you

Holman (1h 33m 2s):

Some? I’m going to buy another bottle. This is literally some of the best whiskey I’ve ever had.

Lightning (1h 33m 5s):

If you had to guess what? Does it run a bottle? I, I don’t know.

Holman (1h 33m 8s):

No. No clue. No idea.

Lightning (1h 33m 9s):

Would you guess that this is a $60 bottle? Probably. Okay.

Holman (1h 33m 12s):

But it’s also craft and niche and all that stuff, so who knows? Hmm. All I know is it is fricking delicious. That’s

Lightning (1h 33m 18s):

Good. It’s a lot better than our show, I’ll tell you that.

Holman (1h 33m 21s):

But it could make our show better.

Lightning (1h 33m 22s):

I doubt it. Yeah. Probably not. Nope. The Truck Show Podcast is a production of truck famous l l c. This podcast was created by Sean Holman and Jay Tillis with production elements by DJ Omar Khan. If you like what you’ve heard, please open your Apple Podcast or Spotify app and give us a five star rating. And if you’re a fan, there’s no better way to show your support than by patronizing our sponsors. Some vehicles may have been harmed during the making of this podcast.

19 (1h 33m 50s):

I don’t drink whiskey to be better than everybody. I drink whiskey because I am better than everybody. I love bourbon because of how smooth it is. what is this? Only age for two years. Get this toddler outta here.