Season 2, Episode 37 - Return of Hardbody, ’24 Ford F-150 Walkthrough, Joys Of Flying

 

 

The following transcription of The Truck Show Podcast was generated using a speech recognition software, and will contain errors. Please review the timestamp and listen to the corresponding audio for accuracy. 

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Sean P. Holman (0s):

So I had an interesting trip home yesterday. I love Flying. No you don’t. That Flying is the greatest thing.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8s):

No, you don’t.

Sean P. Holman (8s):

You know what’s awesome about Flying.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10s):

Sean. Holman loves traveling but doesn’t like Flying.

Sean P. Holman (13s):

I try to not travel on nine 11 and I every year for like the past three years. I seem to be like Flying on nine 11, so that’s weird. But no, it’s really awesome when you go to the airport and you realize that your flight’s gonna be late enough to miss your second flight. So you have to get a new flight to a new city and then somebody has to pick you up in that new city to take you to another airport within that city. Pick up your car.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35s):

No.

Sean P. Holman (36s):

Yeah. This

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (37s):

Is an awful standup routine by the way long. That’s, are you practicing to do some Wait,

Sean P. Holman (40s):

It gets, it gets better though. Okay. So you know, I call up Delta I said, listen, I have to get home tonight. What can you do? And they’re like, well let’s see what we got here. I’ve been Flying Delta for 20 plus years and I’ve got status on Delta and I’ve got like 700,000 miles or something. They’ve always treated me right. In all those years I’ve only been stranded once. And that was with Jason Nerman in Minneapolis, St. Paul for a night. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 0s):

Fly Delta because you fly Delta. Yeah. and I, they, I used to fly American and I thought, oh it’s oh, American American’s seats are horrible. It’s the cats me out until I flew Delta. I’m like, I’m never going back to

Sean P. Holman (1m 8s):

America. The American seats are so thin. Like I just, I can’t feel they’re like Southwest can’t feel my butt after a while.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 13s):

Horrible. Like spirit.

Sean P. Holman (1m 14s):

Yeah. So So. anyway, Delta’s never left for me. Stranded. So I called ’em up and they said, oh, Mr. Holman, what can we do? I said, I need to get home. And I said, how about, how about anything left for Santa Ana? And they said, Nope, we got nothing. I said, I know there’s a flight that leaves here in like an hour and a half that goes through Salt Lake City instead of Minneapolis St. Paul and I can get home. He goes, yeah, there’s no seats on that plane. I went, oh. I go, how about Long Beach? And he goes, Nope, nope. I said Ontario, huh? Don’t have anything there either. Then he says, Los Angeles. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 47s):

Oh man hates LAX. Anybody

Sean P. Holman (1m 50s):

Who knows the

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (1m 51s):

Only

Sean P. Holman (1m 51s):

X, the only reason I’ll go there for his international flight or an emergency. and I had to get home last night. So. I’m like, All, right? I’ll take the freaking LAX flight, which, and I, if you don’t fly into LA, you don’t know. It is the world’s worst airport in every way imaginable. It’s old, it’s compact. It has the same amount of travelers as like a Chicago hare. Like You know Atlanta heartfelt or something close to that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 12s):

Look, everyone complains about their local airport. No, I get it. No, no. LX is horrible. But no, no, go with me. I know. Everyone does complain about their local

Sean P. Holman (2m 19s):

Airport, right? I don’t. I love Santa Ana and Long Beach best airports in the country. Oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 23s):

I. Mean. Our listeners around the country.

Sean P. Holman (2m 24s):

Nashville’s pretty good. Charlotte’s pretty good I know, but

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 26s):

They think it’s crappy, right? They think it’s crappy ’cause they live I know about that. When you come into LAX you will go, you guys

Sean P. Holman (2m 32s):

Are right. It’s full hate. It is worst. So it’s a horseshoe with an upper deck and a lower deck and an inner ring and an outer ring. And the inner ring is for shuttles. The outer ring is for pickups. It’s $50 a day to park. There’s usually paparazzi and celebrities running around. There’s always some issue going on. Something’s always broken. Something’s always under construction. Now they don’t I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (2m 51s):

Mean. If you listen carefully, you can hear it sucking. Exactly.

Sean P. Holman (2m 53s):

Oh, you can definitely hear it sucking. And it’s even worse because you have to go, like now they’re like, oh, well we’re, we’re building a tram now, so everything has to be offsite. We’ll just shuttle you in ’cause it’s too busy. Your rental cars are offite, your taxis are offsite. Your Ubers, you can’t pick up anything from the curb. You have to take a shuttle that takes you to another shuttle to take you to your car or your taxi or it’s, it’s awful. I freaking hate the place. And, and I left, this place blows. And there was, he says, I got you an aisle L seat. It’s like All, right? And I’m a window guy ’cause I literally tuck into my window seat and I sleep for 4, 5, 6 hours. Like they wake me up when the plane land. I, when I fly, it’s like a time machine. They’re like, sir, you have to get up now we’re at the destination. I’m like, I just fell asleep. This is amazing.

Sean P. Holman (3m 33s):

You feel refreshed and everything. Yeah. Not yesterday. I pull up the app and I go, oh there’s gotta be a, there’s gotta be a window seat. Right? And sure enough there was one left on the plane that had no one sitting in the middle. I’m like, boom. 45 minutes or 40 minutes before boarding. I swap seats, bam shows up on my app. I’m good. I’m golden. I’m like, yeah, All right. I got my window, I’m sleeping. Get on the airplane. The pilot’s like, Hey, so we’re having some really awful weather and the stewardesses probably aren’t gonna be able to have meal service or, or food service or beverages. ’cause I’m gonna have ’em sit the whole way. Basically. It’s gonna be really bad as we leave Detroit till about Iowa and it’ll smooth out for about 45 minutes and then it gets worse. ’cause we have all this like hurricane monso flow stuff coming into SoCal.

Sean P. Holman (4m 16s):

So all the air in the west is all unsettled right now. So, I sit down, I get myself all in there and here comes a family with three kids and the dude on the end is holding an 18 month old. Oh

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 28s):

No. And he

Sean P. Holman (4m 28s):

Wants to crawl in my lap and look out the window and kick me. And he’s sitting in the middle seat that he didn’t pay for and Right. All that stuff. I Mean, he’s a cute kid. And You know I was, you know, friendly with him and all that until his mother and his father swapped and she wasn’t paying attention and spilled in a tire cup full of cranberry juice all over my leg and my, my my shoes. The floor.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (4m 53s):

Is this

Sean P. Holman (4m 53s):

Your a trip? My passenger? Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was the kid sitting next to me for about half the flight. He didn’t even go to sleep or anything. It was, it was super rad. So shout out to my dad for picking me up at fricking LAX late to driving me all the way down to John Wayne Airport where the car was. That’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 12s):

The ultimate dad right there.

Sean P. Holman (5m 14s):

You know what the thing was. The day before we were having bratwurst at Bilstein and checking out their shock room where robots and people assemble. Awesome. 8,100 shocks.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 26s):

So what you’re saying is you went from heaven to hell.

Sean P. Holman (5m 28s):

Yeah, it was, it was not great.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (5m 30s):

So by the way, a shout out to Bill Stein and our crew over there, Steve, great host. Yep. And they took us on a tour. Great facility. They had a little miniature Shocktober Fest. Shocktober Fest. Yes. and you wore your leader hose in, well your fake, so

Sean P. Holman (5m 43s):

Leader hose in Colin Coates, he’s been on the show before, built to Wander. Anyway, he told me he was coming from Colorado and bringing his whole leader hose in setup. and I was like, sweet, I’m going, I’m gonna do the same. He goes, Oh dude, it’s gonna be awesome. We gotta get pictures. What he didn’t know is that I had bought a shirt off Amazon that was silkscreened with liter hose on it. Yeah. So from about 30 feet it looks like I’m wearing full liter hosen. And when you get up on me, it’s just a t-shirt that has airbrushed Terry chest coming outta the top and stuff. And it was awesome. I I feel like it was,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 13s):

You had a little bit of Santa Claus going on. I, I’m not gonna lie, I feel

Sean P. Holman (6m 16s):

Like it was a little bit of a a a a letdown for him and then humorous for everybody else. So it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 21s):

Was entertaining. Yes.

Sean P. Holman (6m 22s):

Yeah. So they were celebrating their hundred and 50th anniversary as a company and invited us down to the San Diego facility, Poway to be exact for their Shocktober fest. And they had Bill Stein beer and they had bratwurst and sauerkraut.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 37s):

Did you get a, A Growler ’cause I had

Sean P. Holman (6m 39s):

A growler. I did, I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 40s):

Did Bilstein one 50 right on the side of the Grow Growler.

Sean P. Holman (6m 43s):

Yeah. Oh, so bitch. And then also had some pretzels and all sorts of mustards and some delicious fricking German potato salad. And

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (6m 51s):

How many, how many brotts did you eat? Because I had zero

Sean P. Holman (6m 54s):

Missed. No, I only had, I only had one brought. Really? Yeah. You sure? Yeah, but I had some of the chicken schnitzel that was pretty good. I missed it all. I also had the potato salad.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 1s):

I was hunting down the beer and pretzels. So we got a tour through their shock building room where they were doing all of the bespoke kind of one-off setups for their racing programs, correct?

Sean P. Holman (7m 8s):

Nope, that was the room. That was all the AV xp, 81 hundreds for Prospector XLS and Wrangler jls. And then also their new 81 twelves, which are the click adjuster 81 hundreds Yes. Series for the Tacomas with that new finish they had on it. Oh my god. Those things look awesome. The

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 28s):

One, yes. It looks like a, like a Sara coated finish. And then they broke the used it’s paints. I was like, there’s no way that’s paint.

Sean P. Holman (7m 33s):

And they said, because they have such strict salt spray and durability requirements, it was the only coating that was that was gonna last. And then we also went to

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (7m 40s):

Wait before you move on, what about when they gave us the tour inside, we went through the, you know, kinda the cubes in the offices and that huge bypass made out of one giant piece of extruded

Sean P. Holman (7m 49s):

Aluminum. Yeah, the Black Hawk. They don’t make those anymore. Oh. That was the trophy truck shock phone from probably 10 years ago. Oh really? So anybody who races the, the Black Hawk was legendary. It was amazing. Extruded aluminum, massive, just those things were, were badass. And we also got to go to the CNC room and they were doing I think some dirt track parts and things like that. And so that was pretty cool. And then in the room where they’re building all the AV stuff and the Tacoma 81 twelves, 100% of shocks that come outta the room get shock dyno tested for quality before they leave the room. They’re all handbuilt and they, everyone gets put on a shock dyno before it goes in a box, which is pretty cool.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (8m 22s):

It’s what this is, it’s a kind of a, a glass box about four or five feet tall and they bolt the shock in there and they’ve got it connected to a computer and they run it through a set of rhythms basically. Yep. Right.

Sean P. Holman (8m 32s):

If you wanna check it out, go to to my Instagram at Sean P Holman to my reels. And then I’ve got a reel of that room with all the shocks being built in the, you see the robot arm that cleans ’em and you can see the shock dyno. It was just super cool to see it all in person. and I love seeing all that blown apart where you see the, the pistons and all the seals and the You know piston rods and well you were, you were looking at a piece of CNC that wasn’t quite anything. It looked like a ball and socket almost. And you’re like, what’s that’s, well

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 1s):

That’s before it was fully machined. That

Sean P. Holman (9m 2s):

Was a piston rod in for that would have a bolt hole through it basically. So just a, a cool, cool experience. So I. Shout out to our friends at Bill Stein for that Holman.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 9s):

What I liked about it is that Bill Stein is a massive company. I forgot how many thousands of employees they have lots. But this was like kind of their skunkworks division, right? They’re building, well this is, yeah, the, the the off-Road super. It’s like their, this

Sean P. Holman (9m 22s):

Is off-Road stuff and this is their West Coast headquarters. And so a lot of the production is in Sto, Ohio and then elsewhere. But if they are doing a new shock, all the prototyping happens there, they’ll do the fast production stuff. So like the first production run will be handbuilt and everything will come out of there. They’ll evaluate it, make sure it’s ready to go, and then they’ll move it off to mass production. So there’s a lot of cool stuff that goes through that building. A lot of the engineers recently had my, my jail there and had my 81 hundreds valve for my specific weight. And it’s just, it’s you, you haven’t gone for a ride in it yet. It’s

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (9m 54s):

Unbelievable. No. Is that pre, is that pre-wet weight or is that post

Sean P. Holman (9m 58s):

Marriage weight the way post marriage weight? It’s actually 3 92 weight versus not necessarily me weight.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 4s):

And tell me the, the effect of this said valving.

Sean P. Holman (10m 8s):

It’s magical. It’s the best riding solid axle vehicle I’ve ever been in. Seriously. Bar none. Yep. I took a cross ditch in my 3 92 and at 55 miles an hour it handled it almost identically to the TRX going through the same ditch. Really did not fully bottom out. Did not kick up in the rear. Was like wonk, wonk. And it was, it’s like butter. I can’t wait to take it off road.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 32s):

So on this episode of the Chart, Show Podcast Detroit Auto Show Coverage, well actually early Detroit Auto show coverage because it’s

Sean P. Holman (10m 38s):

Literally happening right now as we’re recording this. It’s in the middle of the start of the show, but fortunately I have been privy to a couple embargo pieces.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 49s):

Embargo.

Sean P. Holman (10m 50s):

So a couple of those things that, that haven’t been announced yet but have been announced by the time you hear this we have on this show. So we’ll do half the coverage this, this episode and then the rest of it next episode.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (10m 60s):

So the stuff that is embargoed now embargo will be not embargoed later, but the stuff we’re gonna record later will be not embargoed. Right. By

Sean P. Holman (11m 7s):

The time you hear it, you’ll be good. But us doing it right now is stuff’s in the future. Gotcha. It hasn’t happened yet. So. I. Totally

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 13s):

Am confused. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (11m 13s):

So two, two big products in this one. We’ve got the Ford F one 50 Mid-Cycle Refresh. So the 20 Ford. Lots of great news around that. And then we also have an interview with here in Patel from Nissan. He’s been on the show before. He was one of the lead designers for Frontier. He’s gonna talk about a really special model that’s coming back that is being announced at the show this week,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (11m 34s):

Uts. And coming up on this episode, we’ve got news and five star hotline calls, but not before we thank Nissan are presenting sponsor.

Sean P. Holman (11m 41s):

So Nissan has been supporting the show since the beginning and they’ve got a great lineup of trucks, whether it’s the Nissan Frontier, Nissan Titan, or Nissan Titan Xd. Of course the Titans have the industry’s best five year, 100,000 mile warranty. And I’m seeing Frontiers literally everywhere. People, by the way, are starting to send us more. Have you I know, have you seen that? There’s another batch come in. I know. I know. Well and I’ve got some actually here and we haven’t even talked about Frontier spotting No. In the last like seven, eight episodes, few episodes. Ah, we have, have we? Yeah, not the last few episodes though. There’s people catching up and they’re like, oh, oh I want in. So yeah, the, the, the Frontier is a, a great mid-size pickup truck. And with the news we have today, I think it might make it even more compelling for some of you people who love a little bit of that retro vibe in your mid-size pickup truck.

Sean P. Holman (12m 26s):

I’m so curious of what this is. You find out more and build and price at Nissan usa.com or head on down to your local dealer. And for all those times that you’ve looked at your dashboard, You know like what freaking gear am I in? What’s my trans temp? I’ve got a turbo Diesel, I don’t know my exhaust gas temperature. Ooh, I got one. What was the hottest my oil temps have ever gotten? Boom, got that too. Or I have a Toyota Tacoma and my dashboard tells me nothing at all other than speed and RPM. You need a bank’s ID dash because it displays everything that the manufacturer doesn’t want you to see. All. right? So this is my buddy Jason Riggs who unbeknownst to us at all.

Sean P. Holman (13m 8s):

I was just scrolling through and I catch a reel and he’s talking about the I dash for his Jeep. and I was like, well okay, I gotta hear it ’cause I have that too.

3 (13m 17s):

I’ve been using the bank’s I dash on the Jeep for a while, the thing’s awesome. It’s an OBD two reader. I can check codes, clear codes, monitor diagnostics on the engine. I also have the Derringer programmer, which is super rad. I can dial up the power with a couple clicks of the button. So love that hate this thing. This is the mount that it comes with. It’s a little suction cup dash windshield mount. It blocks my visibility. And then when it hits like 110 here in Phoenix, that rubber just says no thanks. And the thing falls off. So it sucks, but this thing’s gotta go because I upgraded to their new stealth pod that they just came out with and it’s super

Sean P. Holman (13m 53s):

Rad Whoa

3 (13m 53s):

Boom. Basically just run the wires up the a pillar through where the grab handle was and then the pod goes on the top of the grab handle where the little bolt cover used to be super clean. The plastic looks like OEM, it’s accessible So I can dial in the power or scroll through menus, but it doesn’t block my visibility at all. So I just wanted to share that with you guys. 10 outta 10 recommend. I love it. And it’s good for any gel, not just for diesels. So,

Sean P. Holman (14m 23s):

So there you have it, a unsolicited review from just one of my buddies on Instagram about the, the I dash and 10 out of 10 he says, for the stealth pod. So get in there and get one for you at Banks power.com,

4 (14m 34s):

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, the lower 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.

5 (15m 4s):

Whoa Whoa.

6 (15m 6s):

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

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 15s):

All, right? Well Holman is on the other side of the bench here and he’s fiddling with his laptop. What’s, what’s, what’s doing over there my friend

Sean P. Holman (15m 22s):

All. right? So the other day I had the opportunity to interview here in Patel, here in the studio. You were at work and it, he wasn’t available during our You know the late at night when we normally do the show. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 32s):

By the way, I gotta This is a solo run. Hold on a second. Let’s go inside baseball for a second. Yeah, So Holman calls me, I’m at work and he goes and I, but the audio sounds really clear and I go, where are you calling me from? I said I’m in the pod shed. I had

Sean P. Holman (15m 43s):

To test it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 44s):

And I’m like, the audio was really clear. I had never been on the other side of this before. And So I am now feeling good about the

Sean P. Holman (15m 51s):

I should have played

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (15m 51s):

Jingles for you. What, what our listener, what our, our guests hear. Like it’s actually pretty decent on that end. Well

Sean P. Holman (15m 57s):

Unfortunately, our our guest had some, a little bit of audio issues with his side of the phone call, but we got it all sorted out so, oh. So it’s a little crunchy here in the beginning, but I think it’ll be fine. So This is a here in Patel from Nissan.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 9s):

Hit it Steve.

Sean P. Holman (16m 10s):

Alright, so we’ve got here in Patel from Nissan who is the senior manager for Exterior design. And, and you guys may have heard hearing before ’cause he is been on the show a couple times and he had a different title every time. So here and welcome back to the show and congrats on yet another title change.

7 (16m 27s):

Thanks very much. It’s nice to be back.

Sean P. Holman (16m 29s):

All, right? I got a quick jingle for you and then we’re gonna talk about some special upcoming Nissan news.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 48s):

So this is super freaking weird. Well, you can’t play a jingle without me in the studio, dude. This is just like, why? I don’t know.

Sean P. Holman (16m 55s):

I programmed all the buttons on that board. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (16m 57s):

Know, I could tell they’re my steps, but like, dude, that’s not okay. That’s like me wearing your underwear.

Sean P. Holman (17m 3s):

That’s not okay either. So here and as the senior manager for exterior design What do you do for Nissan? So

7 (17m 16s):

Now I work on, i I work on kind of all of the exterior design programs that we’re working on within our studio. So they are ranging anything from really advanced upstream work, You know five, 10 years out and beyond to full production vehicles that we’re designing in the studio right now. So it’s a, it’s a big range and now, now I’m lucky enough to, to work with, with a team of designers who are working together with me. So we’re working on any number of products at the same time.

Sean P. Holman (17m 48s):

That’s awesome. That has to be a dream job for somebody who loves automotive design. To be able to have your thumbprint on You know a whole, a whole brand essentially.

7 (17m 58s):

It’s kind of weird. Like whenever you go to a party, like I, I’m always a little guarded about what my job is because I know then everyone is gonna wanna talk about what I do for a living. It’s a great job to be in and it’s, it’s really rewarding when you get the opportunity to see some of your products come out onto the road. And I think that’s kind of the ultimate reward. So that’s really cool. So

Sean P. Holman (18m 22s):

The, the most recent product that actually went from your sketchbook to the road that we would be aware of on the truck show is obviously the Nissan Frontier. And you’ve been on the show before you, we did a walk around down in La Jolla, California at the Nissan Design Center where you kind of walked us through the choices and, and some of the reasons for doing certain things. And the frontier has turned out to be I. Mean really an unabashed hit for Nissan. Sales numbers are up, I see ’em everywhere now and by all measure people who, who’ve been buying them and, and people I’ve talked to absolutely just love the truck and the first thing they say is, it looks so cool.

7 (19m 1s):

That’s a, that’s a, a very nice compliment to the team that worked on it. And so that’s that’s really nice to hear.

Sean P. Holman (19m 7s):

So one of the questions I have for you is, are you You know you see your, your vehicle on the road, it went from pad to reality and now that you’ve seen them, they’ve been out for a couple years and you see one driving down the road, does that inspire you as a designer and you see one modified or one that a owner made their own or is driving in certain lights or certain colors, do you think Oh man, maybe for the next one we should You know do a little of this or that. I Mean, is there anything that comes from seeing them on the road where, where you, the design evolves with you or matures with you and you’re like, I gotta try this next?

7 (19m 42s):

Yeah. I Mean in in short answer, yes, kind of yes to all of that. We were like constantly looking at truck buyers and how they’re using their truck differently when we were designing this generation of the frontier and now that they’re on the road, we’re seeing how, how, how people are actually using them and modifying them and doing things to them and, and what trends there are emerging as we are now thinking about like You know potentially what we could do in the future. It’s kind of a interesting thing, like for us as designers, we are not always the target like target buyers for every segment that we work on. Sometimes I might work on a, a category of a vehicle that I really don’t know too much about the buyers.

7 (20m 27s):

And whenever we have projects like that, instantly we start to become really acutely aware of like everybody on the road that has that particular segment of vehicle and, and how they’re using them differently so that we can get a better understanding of how they might You know what, what what might be valuable for them when, when the vehicle comes out on the road in the future.

Sean P. Holman (20m 50s):

So that’s a perfect tie in for the three modified concepts that you guys released back in February of 2022. So about a year and a half ago. And those were, I believe those were released at the Chicago Auto Show and they all had a different take. And again, each one was to what you thought a specific category of buyer might be and if you could walk us through those three concepts and, and refresh us with what those were, I think that leads into where we’re going next.

7 (21m 18s):

So those, those kind of all started off with daydreaming after Frontier had finished, we were, I think I was working on another project or something like that and then I just was messing around on my desk and had different types of frontiers because You know, like as you know, like there’s not one particular type of truck fire. There’s so many different, you know, subcultures and different genres and people who do different things with their trucks and So I had You know I had a bunch of little like little sketches of different frontiers doing different stuff and it started kind of a conversation in the studio and then it started a little bit of a conversation within the company.

7 (22m 3s):

And so we were fortunate enough to build all three of those trucks in our studio and that was kind of the first time we’d ever done that. Also built a show truck purely in our studio. Everybody was working on fabricating parts and kind of re re-imagining three different concepts based on one truck. So the, the the three trucks that we showed at the Chicago show, the first one was called the 72 x and that was built off of an S grade frontier, which You know I Mean people. I think whenever people think about a truck, they always think about off-roading or something like that as that’s the first thing.

7 (22m 44s):

And this time I built that we, that concept was kind of based around all of the, all of the cool trucks I see around my neighborhood and in Southern California. And you know, you see a lot of people who have trucks in the seventies and they’re super cool, like they’re lifted and they have like cool steel wheels and they’re narrow and they’re approachable. They’re, they’re still really cool without being over the top. And so that, that truck was based on an S grade, it had a lift on it and it had white, white steel wheels and a cool graphics package. It was a pretty simple build, but it was really effective. It was like, I think people could get the vibe, get the fun for what that concept was.

Sean P. Holman (23m 27s):

I think that concept was really successful in what it wasn’t, it wasn’t over the top. It was going back to You know, a more simple truck build and I think with so many complicated builds and, and the vehicles getting more and more complicated themselves. It was really refreshing to see something that was just a, a simple solid truck that looked good that you just wanted to take out and drive.

7 (23m 52s):

Yeah, cool. I Mean, that’s kind of what that was. And and, and all of them were meant to be like trucks that we could imagine on the road. You know people, different people doing stuff with their, with the trucks and, and that, that one certainly was that, that was really cool. Steel wheels are really cool and especially white ones. I’m glad that we got especially white ones for sure. And, and a little tidbit, those are, those are actually the spare wheels that you get with the truck. So we just painted ’em white, they come black and we just painted ’em white and put ’em on the truck with pro four X tires. They’re they’re, they’re hiding underneath your, your truck bed. So that was, that was the first one. That was the, that was called Project 72 x and that was kind of like a little bit of riff off of the, the, the era of the Dotson slash Nissan seven 20 truck before the eighties trucks came out.

7 (24m 41s):

And that was also the first think that was the first import truck to be produced in the, in the US

Sean P. Holman (24m 47s):

So I believe in 1983 for the 84 model year in, in Canton, I believe.

7 (24m 53s):

Yeah, see You know your, you know, your stuff. So yeah, that was the first, first product to come out Canton for us. So that’s a really cool, cool project to have a chance to work on

Sean P. Holman (25m 3s):

Holman stun right there. Why? Just ’cause I have some sort of knowledge of our guest I Mean. I’m not used to that. So it happens when I’m left my own devices.

7 (25m 13s):

Yeah. And, and then the, the second concept was really like, you know, it’s, it was the second concept was an adventure truck. So we took a pro fourex grade truck did, did an adventure truck off of it, a big lift on it, really big chunky tires. And we widened it, we widened out the stands and gave it a custom wrap rooftop tent. And it, that one highlighted a lot of our accessory parts. The, the bed carrier and things like that. And then the speaker system also in the, in the back of the bed. So that was a highlight of like a mixture of some parts that we offer from the company. And then also You know what you could do with a, with some aftermarket parts.

7 (25m 55s):

That truck was really cool because we got to design and build our own snorkel for that truck and we built a functional snorkel You know, we routed it through the fender. And it was a interesting, that was an interesting one because, you know, snorkel is like kind of, I, I don’t want to say it’s just an engineering object, but we turned it into a design object. It’s a carbon fiber snorkel that we labored over and we, we tried to make it look like super cool on the truck and like it fits really nicely and the mesh mesh is the mesh on the grill and you know, really cool integrated part. So that was a, that was a lot of fun. That that version and that one was called Project Adventure.

Sean P. Holman (26m 40s):

That one was one of my favorites just because the colors were right. It was a white, a white truck with a black and gray graphic with orange running through it. A rooftop tent. The bed rack, yeah. And Max I Mean. It was your basic You know the overland build that you would want to see somebody do. and I, I, it’s funny, when I’m in the, the frontier groups, a lot of people reference that project as inspiration for their own frontier builds, which is really neat.

7 (27m 4s):

The third, the third concept is a take on the, the original Hardbody truck. That one builds off of an SV grade, kind of the mid grade truck for us. And we kind of added some parts from the pro fourex, the pro grades like the over fenders and the, the lift on the pro Forex and the tires. And we built and You know we can kind of design and build a new set of wheels for that truck. They’re not exactly the same, but they’re very reminiscent of the, the original three spoke kind of block wheels that were available on the Hardbody at that time.

7 (27m 44s):

And that that truck we blacked out the front end. So it has kind of a similar vibe of the original Hardbody. It was like a sport truck You know it had the, the sport bar with the, with the light.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (27m 56s):

Dude, this thing sounds so rad. I Mean. It’s so, and I Mean, the

Sean P. Holman (27m 60s):

RAD eighties Rad. Like it totally, I wanna see the graphics. I I know I Mean, we’ve talked about the concept. There’s pictures of the concepts, but keep in mind I wanna see the real thing. Yeah, it doesn’t come out for two more days. So we did this interview under embargo knowing that our podcast would come out after the truck. But Lightning, if you play your cards right, I might have a little bit of a teaser for you to see.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 24s):

What do you mean, like a

Sean P. Holman (28m 25s):

Photo? I might, but we’ll get through the interview and then you can see. So is the photo under, it’s all under embargo. You can’t leave the studio tonight and tell anybody that You know anything? No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (28m 36s):

No.

Sean P. Holman (28m 37s):

It’s gonna shut your hole. It’s a Hardbody. Well you’re just gonna have to sit on it a little bit. Don’t be jealous.

7 (28m 44s):

Lights on it. And, and the graphics on the, on the rear tailgate and had a big four by four graphic on the side, on the lower portion of the front door. And so it was meant to just be like a sport truck. Again, You know, not super off roady, but like just a cool sport truck. And the idea for that one was, we’ve got a lot in our bank in terms of heritage and the Hardbody is one of the most iconic trucks I feel You know on the road. I think it’s still one of the most recognizable trucks. And so we wanted to just pay a little homage to that truck. And that was also kind of interesting because it was the first project that was completed at our studio with the Hardbody.

7 (29m 25s):

And so it just kind of felt like a full circle kind of moment to, to have a chance to work on something that pays, pays homage to that truck.

Sean P. Holman (29m 33s):

So I guess the, the, the real news here and the reason for the interview is one of these three concepts is actually coming to market, which we are, we are super excited about. And if you would reveal which one of the three is making it to your local Nissan dealer.

7 (29m 54s):

Come on now. Yeah, it’s it’s awesome news. We got a chance to take something from Sketch to the road and we got a chance to take the special one. What is it from Sketch to Road, what is it? And it was cool to see all of the feedback from all three of those trucks in the media and the overwhelming kind of support and kind of longing for a new Hardbody. Yes. And so we’re gonna build the new Hardbody truck. Yes. Come to the dealer soon. Super, super

Sean P. Holman (30m 24s):

Exciting. I’m so stoked on that. For, for somebody who is in their, let’s say early forties to maybe mid fifties, that was a truck you grew up with or friends had in high school or college and it brings back a lot of st vibes, So, I. Think on the concept, the, the hint of the three spoke block wheels back at the original was one of the things that made that successful. So what of the concept makes it to production and what will the Hardbody be based on?

7 (30m 54s):

So a lot of the, a lot of the, the truck that we’re gonna offer to everybody is gonna be very, very similar to the concept truck. It’s still based off of an SB grade truck. It has the blackout front end and the different finish treatment for the grill. It has the over fender from the Pro Forex and it has a a, a modified graphic on the, the front lower door still really cool. You get the, the step rail without the foot loops. So it’s kind of a, a modified kind of, almost a rock slide type still protector. You get the sport bar, the cool rear graphic, the blackout rear bumper.

7 (31m 38s):

And kind of most importantly you get the three spoke wheels. You get the Hardbody kind of,

Sean P. Holman (31m 44s):

We are so excited about the wheels, it’s awesome.

7 (31m 48s):

The wheels made it,

Sean P. Holman (31m 49s):

They made that. That’s, that’s the best part right there. I i I can’t tell you how excited I am for that.

7 (31m 55s):

Yeah, yeah. And, and, and it, it’s really cool. It fits, it fits with a bit of a lifted stance and it’s got the Pro Forex tires and so it’s chunky and, and they’re cool. Like it’s, it’s kind of weird. Like we just, it’s concept truck and it was You know, it was really cool working on the concept truck and immediately how nicely they translate to the production Wheel. They, they look really cool and, and they look, they look kind of nice on the truck too. We would’ve never designed them this way from the very beginning. But I’m really glad that we got a chance to, to build these ’cause they look really cool on the truck.

Sean P. Holman (32m 29s):

It’s one of those things where you don’t know you, you don’t necessarily wanna go back to the playbook. It’s in history, it’s already done. Retro doesn’t always work on newer designs, but This is a case where that Wheel looks really good on the current frontier body style. And, and like you said, it just works.

7 (32m 46s):

I think like, you know what, when people think of like Nissan enthusiast cars, they think of You know TTRs and Zs and stuff like that. But I think a lot of people forget that we’ve got, we’re strong in a lot of categories and I feel like Frontier’s one of those categories where there’s a lot of enthusiasts and there’s a lot of people that recognize our history and stuff like that. and I remember the first time you saw the, the, the Hardbody concept and like you kind of lit up over the wheels and it was our first time really almost showing it to public and we, we weren’t sure in the studio because

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (33m 17s):

Like, I loved it

7 (33m 18s):

And it was You know, it was a bit of a contentious debate going on. Yeah. And we’re we’re still lucky and happy that we had the opportunity to, to build this truck. So

Sean P. Holman (33m 28s):

It’s cool. It’s, it’s super special. Where will it sit in the trim walk or the hierarchy of the frontier pricing scale? Is it gonna be below Pro four X and above Ssv? Is it gonna be limited production? Is it something that interested listeners will, will be able to go out and get fairly easily or

7 (33m 47s):

From my understanding, I don’t exactly know how it fits in terms of like full grade walk and pricing. I do know it’s gonna be limited. I do know that it will be limited production, but I’m not sure about pricing and I. I think the information on that will come soon.

Sean P. Holman (34m 7s):

Perfect. Yeah, we’ll follow, we’ll definitely follow up on that. Who would you say the customer is for the Hardbody? Who is it aimed at? If there’s somebody who’s looking at the front,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 16s):

It’s gonna be limited until they sell all of them. They’ll

Sean P. Holman (34m 19s):

Sell all of them. I I, there’s no doubt

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 21s):

In my mind I know they’re, ah, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea to limit it.

Sean P. Holman (34m 24s):

Well, I think for somebody who do they

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 26s):

Not understand how important this truck was to millions? They

Sean P. Holman (34m 29s):

Do Americans, that’s why this concept is getting green lit for production. That’s huge and it’s gonna build a bunch of buzz around Frontier. But here’s what I think, I think for somebody who doesn’t need all the hardcore off-roading stuff, wants a tough truck with a good amount of off-road ability, but wants a more affordable version that doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that has a cool buy.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (34m 49s):

Oh, but you don’t, you don’t think they’re gonna build all the bells and whistles into this

Sean P. Holman (34m 51s):

One? No, it’s based on an ssv. It’s not a Pro four x, it’s a based on a, a lower trim class. So it’s not gonna have like the LED headlights. It’s not gonna have leather seats, it’s not gonna have all that. Oh. It’s designed to be a middle of the road, nicely equipped four by four model that har hearkens back to the simpler times of truck dumb. And that’s what I love about it.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 12s):

Okay.

Sean P. Holman (35m 13s):

Who, who’s the one that says, ah, that that one’s for me.

7 (35m 17s):

Well, well, I Mean. It’s for me.

Sean P. Holman (35m 19s):

So you built your own truck.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (35m 22s):

Nice. That’s what I would do. Three and you

7 (35m 25s):

Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (35m 26s):

Exactly right.

7 (35m 28s):

I don’t know I Mean, we were obviously pulling on a little bit of heritage when we put this truck together, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t meant to be like, well if, if I don’t know what the Hardbody is and I can’t really relate to this product. So hopefully people who are looking at this truck You know it’s hopefully not gonna cannibalize or or step on anyone that wants a pro grade truck because it’s, this one is not a pro grade truck. It’s built off of an SD. If you want to cool truck, go for a frontier, I guess. And if you want a cooler version of a frontier, go for the Hardbody.

Sean P. Holman (36m 0s):

And it sounds like being built off the SV grade, I would imagine there’s probably for what you get, there’ll be a value proposition attached to it too. And of course all Frontiers come with the 310 horsepower, 281 pound foot of torque, 3.8 liter V six, the nine speed automatic. You guys have obviously a box frame. Dana 44 rear, I’m guessing the Hardbody will be available in four Wheel Drive. Is it also gonna be available in Wheel Drive or is it four Wheel Drive only?

7 (36m 25s):

It will only be four Wheel Drive.

Sean P. Holman (36m 27s):

I’m looking at the concept right now because I haven’t seen the, the production Hardbody in person yet. And I’m looking at the pictures going, man, that thing just sits right. It’s so cool. I I can’t wait for the actual images to get out there because I think people are gonna be really stoked on, on what you guys put together. It’s, it’s definitely a throwback, but it’s one of those vehicles where it’s not so precious that you couldn’t drive it. Every day you get in, you drive it, it’s a cool truck, you feel good about yourself and you can go do, you know, take it out to the desert, take it to to work, whatever you wanna do. I’m excited that the, the Hardbody is finally making it back into the Nissan vernacular.

7 (37m 11s):

Yeah, me too. I Mean. That’s, that’s awesome. You said it perfectly. It’s not so precious that you couldn’t just drive it every day and do anything with it. And that’s kind of really what they’re meant for. So that’ll be the, the true testament for them. So I. Hope to see, I hope to see ’em with mud on ’em soon.

Sean P. Holman (37m 26s):

Well, I I know you’re, you’re busy, but I wanted to say thank you for taking some time outta your day to, to walk us through the new Hardbody. We’re, we’re excited to, to see the details on it and I’m sure we will keep in touch because I Mean, you’re, you’re involved in all sorts of cool stuff that I’m sure we can circle back with you at some point. But thank you for taking the time to, to talk Hardbody with us.

7 (37m 49s):

No, absolutely. Thanks for thanks for the opportunity and look forward to the next time because it means I get a new promotion. So

Sean P. Holman (37m 55s):

I I. know you’re So I. Look forward to it. I know your title changes every time you come on the show. So next time you guys call and and say, Hey, can we get here and on? I’ll be like, oh, it’s about that time he is got a, he’s gotta pick up his new Hardbody, I guess.

7 (38m 8s):

Exactly,

Sean P. Holman (38m 9s):

Exactly. All right my friend. Well thank you so much for your time and we will catch up with you soon.

7 (38m 14s):

Okay, thank you. Bye-Bye.

8 (38m 16s):

I got a winner.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 18s):

That is fricking great news. Show me the picture. I don’t have it yet. Yes you do. It’s two days before I know you have it. I

Sean P. Holman (38m 24s):

Only have a

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 24s):

Teaser I know tee. Show me the teaser. So that’s the teaser photo that is the front left corner of the truck

Sean P. Holman (38m 32s):

With a Hardbody in the background. Yes.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 35s):

So I Love the old school Hardbody and I. Can’t really see enough of the new Hardbody

Sean P. Holman (38m 40s):

Patience. My, my young grasshopper. It’s, it’s coming I promise you. Yeah,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (38m 45s):

Well I’m

Sean P. Holman (38m 46s):

Excited. What are these days actually? Thursday. Thursday. So I. We’ll, we’ll put the teaser up on truck Show Podcast dot com so hopefully you’ll see that before this episode comes out. Listen to this episode and then come back for the actual photos. But we’re, we’re super excited because this is one of those special vehicles from our, our youth that I think we can all remember anyway, as soon as the truck Show Podcast becomes successful, I think the new company truck is gonna be a Hardbody.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 9s):

That’s a good call my friend.

9 (39m 12s):

What’s new in trucks? We need to know what’s new in trucks. We need to know what’s new in trucks. We

6 (39m 20s):

Need to know lifted, lowered and everything in between. What’s happening in the world of trucks.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 27s):

Ah, that was good. That was, that was pretty really good. Good. Yeah, no, I’m, I’m happy with that. Can you imagine having a truck Show Podcast logo on the side each side like so of, of this Hardbody but so big the logo’s kind of bleeding off the top, the bottom of the sides. It’s just like it’s

Sean P. Holman (39m 42s):

You never saw that rendering? I did. It looked just like that.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 44s):

Really? Yeah. Of of our logo on a truck. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (39m 48s):

’cause I’ve been trying to do something with that but we’re, we’re not there where the company gets a trucked quite yet. Mm. Maybe in the next couple years. Thanks. Thankfully our, our awesome listeners are

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (39m 58s):

Keeping this out. So how many do we need another a hundred thousand listeners? How many do we need? Yeah,

Sean P. Holman (40m 1s):

That’d be great. Okay then each one of ’em gave us a dollar. We could get a company truck All, right. Hey lighting, did you hear? I

10 (40m 8s):

Don’t watch the news because I’m a kid.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (40m 12s):

I’ve not heard, I don’t believe

Sean P. Holman (40m 14s):

So apparently after, well almost a year, I guess 10 months since Tesla handed over the first semis to PepsiCo. So that was back in December of 22. One

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (40m 26s):

Exploded.

Sean P. Holman (40m 27s):

No. Did they shake it too hard or No, they said there’s several companies that are participating in what’s being called the North American Council for Freight Efficiency run on less programs. So the goal is testing real world performance of electric commercial vehicles and then one of them is the PepsiCo Teslas So. anyway, it says that Southern California is home to 21 of ’em among other commercial EVs. And so PepsiCo tasked these battery electric Teslas with short haul and long haul trips. Majority of the fleet did a hundred miles regularly and three did up to four 50, which is within what Tesla claims they say estimated range is 500 miles on a single charge.

Sean P. Holman (41m 9s):

So nfi, which is again the acronym for the North American Council for Freight Efficiency states that the Tesla semis will be, it sounds

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (41m 18s):

Like something that a teenager would get I know

Sean P. Holman (41m 20s):

Track. It’s all heavy long haul. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (41m 22s):

I can’t get rid

Sean P. Holman (41m 22s):

Of it. So NAC v states that the Tesla semis will be tracked in heavy load, long haul transport operations and they profile the trucks over two routes around Sacramento for 18 days. And the distance on one route was between 250 and 400 miles with a payload of 82,000 pounced while the second route has less than 75 miles per day of driving So I.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (41m 41s):

At least they went for the real weight there.

Sean P. Holman (41m 43s):

Yeah, no this is, this is interesting to me. I think we have a email or a, a call from a listener who is in semi and talks about why this won’t work, but it’s still interesting to see what the real world stuff is. So first day one of the semis did 3 35 miles in a single charge with 17% remaining and the second semi appeared to have delivered 295 miles range and they recharged around 21% and then another one did 377 miles but it was depleted to 2% and that was in temperatures as hot as 94 degrees. So I know there’s a lot of people thinking, well You know I drive way more than 400 miles in a day and I semi this isn’t gonna work. I get all that. I just say this because I think from a truck standpoint, it’s just interesting to know these are the first times I’ve seen real world numbers from somebody.

Sean P. Holman (42m 30s):

And so that’s pretty, pretty interesting for a lay person like me who doesn’t know semi-trucks that well to be like, hey, there’s all this hype, what’s the real world outcome? and I, again, I don’t think Bevs are the right choice for cross country interstate Truckin, but for last mile around town and and short haul deliveries, it

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 49s):

Seems to be like it could be the answer,

Sean P. Holman (42m 52s):

It might be part of it So. anyway, just interesting tidbit on that. So hey lighting, did you hear?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (42m 58s):

What? No, no.

Sean P. Holman (43m 1s):

Those of you who are listening in Europe and yes we do have European listeners, the 2024 Jeep Wrangler will arrive on the European continent for the first half of 2024, but it will only have a single powertrain. And so unfortunately you guys don’t get all the fun stuff we get over here. You do get the, the new 12.3 inch Uconnect five and the power seats and the new grill and all that kinda stuff. But you, your only choice will be the two liter turbo in line four with 272 horsepower and backed by the eight speed automatic. So hey lighting, did you hear? No,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 36s):

That’s a negative over.

Sean P. Holman (43m 38s):

So apparently our friends over at TFL truck got a glimpse of the 2024 Ford F one 50 Raptor R and I was showing off its new graphics package, the new front end and the new shocks.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (43m 52s):

Whatcha talking about wool? I want to know more about these shocks because is it, are they Fox again? They

Sean P. Holman (44m 2s):

Are Fox again. They are interesting and well, we’ll talk about those more in the next segment. I was going across the, the interwebs came across the story on MotorTrend. Hey lighting, did you hear?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 14s):

No, I don’t think so. So

Sean P. Holman (44m 16s):

The 2024 Airstream Interstate 19 X is a kind of a off-grid motor home. Basically a shorter version, shorter Wheel base, but still a, a taller

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 26s):

Roof. So 19 x, is that 19 feet? Is that what

Sean P. Holman (44m 29s):

I guess that’s probably what it is. All. right. So they talk about it being a more affordable platform. And so is that

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (44m 35s):

Because most Airstreams are really expensive?

Sean P. Holman (44m 37s):

Okay, So, let me walk you through it and tell me what you think. So the Airstream Interstate 19 X has black protective coating on the lower side moldings and trailer under the bumpers in the hood. So of course that protects against, you know, brush and all that kinda good stuff. There’s additional front end protection because of a trailhead brush guard with integrated lights got 17 inch black aluminum wheels wrapped in a 2 45 70 17 BFG all terrain TAK O2 tire. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 3s):

This is very over landing sounding ma? It

Sean P. Holman (45m 5s):

Is. That’s what it is, Matt. It’s all Wheel drive Van Matt Black running boards, badges, undercarriage, LED lights, power push button, armless patio awning with LED lighting, exterior shower, exterior gear, wash station. What

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 17s):

Is this built on?

Sean P. Holman (45m 18s):

Sprinter. Okay. 250 watts of rooftop solar and two external solar ports. And on the other inside it’s got a pretty cool floor plan. Aluminum wall ceiling and window trim. Enclosed private bathroom that has a toilet shower and sink, which you usually don’t

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 32s):

See. How, is there enough room for I know in a closed bathroom in a 19 foot sprinter?

Sean P. Holman (45m 36s):

I I’m telling you the, it’s got a galley. It’s on both sides of the van. It’s got all these on-the-go amenities, solid service, countertop, lighting, sink, refrigerator, freezer, microwave, s a thousand pound single burner induction cooktop, I Mean. It’s got a lot of great stuff on it and here’s how it looks.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 52s):

Okay, let me come up here. Oh that looks bitch. And, but I Mean, it looks like everything else. I’ve seen it over Lin Expo. I Mean built on a Sprinter platform.

Sean P. Holman (45m 59s):

Yeah, I Mean. It’s huge. I

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (45m 59s):

Mean. It’s cool. I’d, I’d love to rock one for a weekend.

Sean P. Holman (46m 3s):

Says that the opposing syntex marine grade carbon gray rear convertible couch double as a 74 by 70 inch queen bed or they can be set up as twin beds. It’s pre-wired for satellite TV and 5G internet and it’s got fresh gray and black water holding tank that are 2016 and nine gallons. A 13,000 BTU non inducted air conditioner and a Diesel fire trauma combi furnace, water heater, and then onboard propane and a 2.5 kilowatt propane power generator. And then of course a thousand amp hours of lithium batteries and a 2000 watt inverter. What do you think the base price of that bad boy is? Ooh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 40s):

It’s Airstream. So I’m gonna say base price is

Sean P. Holman (46m 43s):

1 61 99. Nine 40.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (46m 48s):

So You know the, who’s really making out with this whole deal here with the the Sprinter platform Mercedes. Oh my God, dude. Like that. Totally. Yeah. I know that there’s, Ford’s got the transit and Ram has the whatever that crap box is that they have. The Sprinter is what all the high end,

Sean P. Holman (47m 6s):

I think it’s called ProMaster, right?

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 8s):

ProMaster. It’s a crap box dude. Ah, they’re about that. No. Yeah, no, I I Mean, I drove one for

Sean P. Holman (47m 14s):

Five minutes, almost

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 14s):

Two years. No dude. That was the K Rock van for like

Sean P. Holman (47m 18s):

The, the early pro masters weren’t great. It was the current one’s not bad. It was but it sucks ’cause it’s front Wheel Drive. But

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 24s):

It was just awful. It was awful. It was falling apart when

Sean P. Holman (47m 27s):

Were driving. It makes me missed the Nissan NV van based on the Titan platform van. That was a great van. That was a great van. Van. You’re

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 32s):

Right. That was a great van. So we should talk more about the Sprinter. I don’t, I don’t think we’d give it an it’s due on the show. Oh, it’s not really a truck.

Sean P. Holman (47m 41s):

Yeah. I. Mean. We talk about it when it makes sense. Yeah. Just, just for contrast, if you look at the 20 foot trade wind trailer by Airstream, which has You know all the Airstream amenities in the queen bed and, but

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (47m 56s):

Without an engine, all that stuff. A

Sean P. Holman (47m 57s):

Drive train, no engine, no drive, train. Right. But it also has a bunch of solar power capacity and things like that. So you can be off the grid. A lot of different stuff. That one starts at 1 29, 400. So just to give you an idea of what I Mean, they’re not apples to apples, but in case you’re curious, well what does the Airstream trailer cost? Well,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 16s):

1 29 for a

Sean P. Holman (48m 17s):

Trailer for a 25 footer. That’s a lot of, that’s a lot of coin. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 21s):

No, for 1 29 I’m buying a, a used Diesel pusher a class. Yeah.

Sean P. Holman (48m 27s):

You know maybe. I don’t know.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 28s):

That’s what I’m buying. Yeah, that’s what I’m buying

Sean P. Holman (48m 30s):

All. right. So what do you Say we head over to Dateline Detroit, Michigan, where I was just yesterday, learning about the, oh,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 39s):

Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Sean P. Holman (48m 40s):

Do this with your news voice. 24 Ford F one 50. Now start fresh and

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (48m 44s):

Gimme some real news voice. You ready?

Sean P. Holman (48m 47s):

This just in Ford has announced the world’s best selling vehicle. brand new or actually slightly modified mid-cycle Refresh for 2024 with all the features that you want and more coming at your local Ford dealership. Head on over to Detroit, Michigan with me, where I will walk you through the brand new, sort of new mid-cycle Refresh. Nicely updated Ford F one 50. Now Hold on a four model year 2024. You’re turning to a tv. Oh, show I know. I did. I I went full news guy to, because I don’t have it written down. All right here.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 22s):

I’ll stop this.

Sean P. Holman (49m 22s):

Well, it’s, if I had something written down, I just was riffing and then it felt like it was, come on down. I was waiting Right or something. Say, this is Troy McClure live from Detroit. No, no. Troy. Troy McClure never did cars. And I’m Troy McClure. You may remember me from such Med Cycle Refresh Unveilings. That’s the 24 Ford F one 50

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 46s):

All. right. Hit it.

Sean P. Holman (49m 46s):

Come on. All. right. You, you’re always gonna complain about the, the audio quality in, in these things. And, and this isn’t, no,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (49m 52s):

You didn’t screw up another one serious.

Sean P. Holman (49m 54s):

No, it’s not, there’s nothing screwed up about it. It was a giant warehouse where they had the media going to different stations where we learned about kind of the four key pillars of features on the new 24 F-150. And the crew from Ford, the engineers that were giving the talks were so good. I just recorded all of ’em. I’m like, these are like mini podcast interviews. They’re gonna give you way more information than I can give you. So,

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (50m 17s):

But you stood 30 feet away from them. Is that what you’re gonna tell

Sean P. Holman (50m 19s):

Me? No, I, I followed them around and I’m sure it was annoying to everybody, especially those with video cameras because my phone was in their face. So I. I did my best and I. Dear Lord, I hope this sounds okay. It’s gonna be horrible. Oh, but it’s gonna be great because there’s a lot of info by the way. Is it horrible or is it great? It’s, it’s, it’s both. So Ford did a number of changes on the 24 refreshed exterior styling. All F1 fifties now have the big screen, so it’s not an upgrade anymore. They simplified. The big thing about Ford this year is they simplified a lot of the packages. I think they said, I don’t know, there was like a gazillion ways to build an F-150. Now there’s 90 or something like that. Raptor went down to just four models and they basically looked across the lineup and made it less confusing for people and they figured out how consumers were buying their trucks and then lumped all those packages together finally.

Sean P. Holman (51m 7s):

So yeah, smart move way, way easier. There’s a new STX four by four package, so more entry level. The tremor looks awesome. It is really good. There’s a, a cool few new cool features on that that we’ll talk about that 3.3 liter normally aspirated V six is gonzo. That thing is out. So now the base engine is the two seven eco boosts, which is a great motor. If you’re not doing a You know crazy towing or something like that, just light loads, it’s, it actually works really well in the F-150. So there’s a lot of nice things that are, are gonna be better. But rather than just me blather about the press release, let’s play the audio So, let video All, right? Let’s do that.

11 (51m 45s):

Hi, I am Rob Bradshaw, senior color material designer for F-150. Now for 2024, we’ve tried to accomplish a few things. One, we know that our customers appreciate the design and that’s one of the top five reasons to purchase an F-150. But we also want to make sure everything that we do and every change that we do is easily recognizable as F-150, but also built Ford to both interior and exterior on the board. If you haven’t seen the Red Lariat truck, which is a black pack in the showroom, that’s the Chrome version. And one thing that we’ve done is we’ve maintained the signature C clamp shape on the grill. So the signature lighting on the top through the fog lamps creates a nice C clamp. And that’s been part of our F-150 DNA for about 10 years now.

11 (52m 26s):

But it also projects toughness, it raises the L light. When you have this at night, you can easily tell it’s an F-150. The new design language that we have on the grill pulls that grill bars into the headlamp on the premium grills and that stretches the width of the grill and really gives the truck a little bit more presence on the road. It looks wider, a little bit more tough, but yet it’s still sophisticated. The truck in front of me is the FX four, which is an STX variant. This has the entry level coast to coast grill, which goes wraps all the way around the side are.

Sean P. Holman (52m 58s):

So for those of you, when it’s referenced several times coast to coast grill, that means that the grill is unbroken by any body color or the body kind of breaking it up or, or intervening in the shape. So think of a coast to coast grill where the entire grill is blacked out and it’s surrounded by body color around the size. The grill isn’t body color or anything, everything’s just a all blacked out shape.

11 (53m 21s):

On this grill specifically, we added secondary grains to kind of help. Whenever you’re driving off road, you’re getting rocks kicking up behind you by semis, you’re always gonna get dings. It doesn’t matter whose car you have, there’s always rock dings on the grill. But these are gonna hide it because they’re gonna deflect it. They’re gonna hide it because you’re not gonna see it because you already have a little secondary pattern. So your grill’s gonna look good, it’s gonna look clean, it’s gonna look more durable and it’s gonna last a little bit longer. It also frames these new headlamps on our entry level from XL through XLT. We’re standardizing LED throughout. So our XL trucks, LED, headlamps, platinum plus LED, all of our F1 fifties are now gonna have LEDs.

11 (54m 2s):

So that brings out benefits from better visibility, better letting and day, much better visibility at night. Lower maintenance cost longer life, better durability on the side, we’ll talk about the different trim series. We try to, for 24, we’re bringing in a a specified trim seed for every customer. So by doing that STX all the way up through the area is gonna offer a black pack. So we’re gonna offer some color accents on our standard series and we’re gonna offer black packs for those customers that choose to not have the bright accents. It’s also gonna go on the wheels. We’re gonna have a wide range of wheels depending on the trim series to customer chooses going from Matt Black to gloss black to chrome, to multi-piece wheels with decorative finishes, textures or machine faces, whole wide gamut.

11 (54m 49s):

So every truck customer will be able to find a truck that fits their personality with their wheels that they like and their collection.

Sean P. Holman (54m 55s):

What is this gonna do to the, to the Wheel aftermarket? Nothing. No, nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not a thing. You either like OE wheels or you don’t, there’s no in-between, I think by the time most oes do cool stuff of their wheels that Trend has passed and I think customers are just, most customers are like, oh, cool, that’s a, that’s a cool look. But the people are in the aftermarket, they wanna more progressive design and look, they’re gonna be three or four years ahead, but for an OE, they’re gonna be cool

11 (55m 23s):

On the interior. We’re trying to add even more technology. Our customers love our current production, the 12 inch screen, everybody wants a bigger screen, so we’re giving everybody a big screen. They’re gonna get the 12 inch display on the center stack from XL all the way through platinum. Plus, everybody loves the digital clusters with all the different telemetrics and all the different feedback that you can get. Standardizing that across the portfolio also. So now our pro customers can now use some of the capabilities and technology that we have on their fleet trucks and we can also have ’em on our platinum plus everything in between, right? Technology’s a good thing and our customers appreciate it. So let’s, let’s share the wealth and give it to everyone. Color our materials across the entire portfolio. And I’ll walk over to the table.

11 (56m 4s):

We’re bringing in a new series called the Platinum Plus. This is replacing our current limited series. Limited has a very cool feel. If you sit and spend time in it, it does start feeling cold. We wanted to go warm and more luxurious. So the intent with this was the utmost, what’s the most luxurious F-150 we can make. So to do that, looking at natural colors, I’m a foodie, So, I always try to reference food. Mushrooms and truffles and and things like that are just vibrant. They’re sophisticated. So basing it on natural colors, it’s more genuine. I think when you have something that looks synthetic, it looks a little fake, like you’re trying to hard, but natural is kind of genuine. It’s more personal. Going to the truffle color space, we have, we’ll call it white truffle, dark truffle, but it’s really a smoke truffle and dark smoke truffle.

11 (56m 50s):

It creates a nice tonal balance that sets a good canvas to have other colors accent the pop across the interior. And mind you, this is the platinum plus, which is pulling the airstream.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (56m 58s):

When did truffle become a color? And what guy wants to own a truffle colored truck?

Sean P. Holman (57m 4s):

I don’t think they care about it being called truffle, but I think they do like the richness of the colors, the colors and stuff like that. I, Mean, it matters. There’s people buying those platinum plus that high, high, high end F-150 and it’s, it’s the work truck to their Mercedes or

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 19s):

No, no. Well, I’m not saying that they have an issue with the actual color. I’m saying to call a truffle is

Sean P. Holman (57m 25s):

I that’s that’s you Ford. Ford knows their customer better than you do. So

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 29s):

Do they now.

11 (57m 31s):

So if you haven’t gone inside of it, by all means do you, it it looks way more impressive than fairly not lit samples, but we’ve got a nice bright

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 41s):

Holman pulls up a, a photo of this is the platinum plus. Is that what this is?

Sean P. Holman (57m 45s):

Okay, so he’s talking about the interior and the wood graining and things like that. and you can see that over on the, the lasered edge wood grain over on the, the dashboard cover. Yeah.

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (57m 56s):

So flip one photo back to the left please. And let’s go back to the seats. I wanna look at the seats now. The seats have a beautiful diamond seat in them. These

Sean P. Holman (58m 2s):

Seats look like a Lincoln

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 4s):

Bingo. So

Sean P. Holman (58m 5s):

Yeah, the bolsters on it are, are floating ahead of the top, like where your shoulders

Jay “Lightning” Tilles (58m 8s):

Go. So I was thinking Lincoln or Bentley, like where you see the, they look like pillows that are

Sean P. Holman (58m 13s):

Floating. Ford owns Lincoln, right?