Season 2, Episode 5 - TFL Truck’s Andre Smirnov, $100K GMC Dually, Breaking In The Pod Shed

 

 

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Lightning (0s):

Holman. I gotta say you did a nice job.

Holman (5s):

I could have had a very nice car for what it costs to sit in this room.

Lightning (10s):

Rich holdaway of, is it holdaway construction? HCI did a really nice job.

Holman (17s):

Well, I mean, you can’t see any of his work right now. This is all

Lightning (20s):

My work. No, I’m staring at a cork ceiling with multicolored l e d lights that are dimable. So you got a nice glow happening here. I see LEDs around the perimeter foam all the way around. So it’s a pretty nice sound in here.

Holman (35s):

It’s okay. It needs a little bit, little bit more furniture in here,

Lightning (38s):

I think. Yeah, we’ll there, I think there’s still a little bit of an echo, but overall this is, I’m, I’m impressed with the sound of the pod shed. It’s

Holman (46s):

Two HomePod minis. That will be the sound system for the TV that’s

Lightning (50s):

Gonna go. I saw those. I accidentally connected to those with Bluetooth earlier and all of a sudden they were making noise and I scared myself. I like the American flag over there.

Holman (58s):

Is that is our American flag from our friend Clint Cunliffe who Yep. Sent that to us quite a while ago and it’s been sitting, waiting for a home in the old studio. So I wanted to make it a centerpiece of this studio. So we have an American flag on the wall.

Lightning (1m 11s):

We got our ant farm over here on the ledge. On the, on the windowsill. Right?

Holman (1m 15s):

Don’t forget the Dr. Pepper fridge right here, which is fully stocked with Dr. Pepper and water. Oh

Lightning (1m 19s):

Yes. And then of course,

Holman (1m 21s):

Whiteboard over

Lightning (1m 22s):

Here you’ve got whiteboard and, and what is behind you? What is that? What’s that neon sign right there?

Holman (1m 27s):

Yep. So you gifted the podcast studio a traction off neon sign. And so it’s,

Lightning (1m 34s):

Has there ever been a neon sign more Sean Holman than that sign right there? What?

Holman (1m 39s):

That I’m a squirrely driver.

Lightning (1m 40s):

No traction control off. You’re all, you hate nannies. I do hate nannies. How many times have you said it on the show? A thousand. Maybe not that many, but a lot.

Holman (1m 49s):

950.

Lightning (1m 50s):

You’re, you’re known for hating nannies. I thought that was appropriate that it’s a little car with the swervy lines and it says off or traction off.

Holman (1m 56s):

And it is bright as heck. I wish we could dim it a little bit cuz it gives us all a, a crazy glow. I

Lightning (2m 2s):

Like it. It feels like a bar in here. Yeah. Especially when you bust out the bourbon or whiskey or whatever you drink the brown water.

Holman (2m 7s):

Well right now we have the, the lights set on submarine red. It looks like we’re deep diving right now.

Lightning (2m 13s):

I’m digging it. This is a cool, very cool ambience in

Holman (2m 16s):

Here. This is what I do. Time for you to go

Lightning (2m 18s):

Home down. Turn it down. Turn it down.

Holman (2m 19s):

Yeah, just turn on the, the 5,000 k It’s

Lightning (2m 22s):

Closing

Holman (2m 23s):

Is definitely semi sock. Get out, get outta the shed. Be a nice creative space that we don’t have to worry about somebody else telling us what to do and when to

Lightning (2m 31s):

Go. Well we don’t have to worry about someone kicking us out or

Holman (2m 34s):

Key cards or any of that kind of stuff. So I think it is

Lightning (2m 36s):

A low security.

Holman (2m 39s):

I mean it depends. There’s security. It, I know there is just not be visible. I

Lightning (2m 43s):

Dunno. There is all right on this episode of the TER Show podcast. Weird. Gotta be checking in with Andre Smirnoff. If that name rings a bell, it’s because you’ve probably seen him on YouTube as one of the hosts of TFL truck.

Holman (2m 55s):

Yeah, so I’ve known Andre for, for I don’t know, many, many, many years. And we’ve run the same journalist circles and stuff. So I think it’s cool that we’re gonna have him on to kind of talk about his perspective of, I also have, there’s some other journalists who I’d like to have on that. I’ve talked to you stories that you’ve brought up that you’re like, ah, this person, this person. I won’t tell you who they are yet, but I think there’s a couple pretty cool people that you’ll be like, oh wow, okay. Cuz I, I like, I like giving our listeners kind of that, that, you know, journalist perspective. Cause everybody’s different. And I think, you know, you kind of follow the people you like, but it’s interesting to hear what other people like too. So we’re, we’re gonna try and get some more varied journalist guests in here. We’ve gotta have some of the crew, the old MotorTrend crew, some of those guys on from, from time to time.

Holman (3m 38s):

Well,

Lightning (3m 38s):

Let’s, let’s be honest, you are now freed from exclusively promoting MotorTrend. Now you can talk to guys like Andre, who Yeah, I actually have what would’ve been a competitor to Motor Trend?

Holman (3m 50s):

Well, yeah, but just, just so you’re clear. Nobody ever told me I couldn’t do that

Lightning (3m 53s):

Before. I understand. But you were doing that out of courtesy,

Holman (3m 55s):

You know which side the bread’s buttered on. So we stayed away from certain guests and we don’t have to do that now.

Lightning (4m 1s):

The shackles are off

Holman (4m 3s):

The, the traction control button has been pushed.

Lightning (4m 5s):

I like that.

Holman (4m 6s):

Yes. As this yellow glow makes me feel like it’s a lot warmer.

Lightning (4m 9s):

Yeah. Let’s get into Andre. So let’s think Nissan, because you still have the, you still have the Titan out here.

Holman (4m 14s):

Okay. So

Lightning (4m 15s):

Would you ever have to give that back? Is that yours now? It actually has its own parking spot. It, you’ve got three spaces in front of your three car garage. Yeah. And one has now out it says tighten parking here. Yeah. You actually bought a sign. I’m making that up. That’s not true. But seriously, it does have its own spot.

Holman (4m 30s):

So it’s, I was supposed to go back and I said, Hey, we have really enjoyed the xd. In fact, we’ve done a podcast episode from it. We have towed with it, we have hauled with it. It helped build the pod shed. And I said it was supposed to go back last week. And I said, you know, is there any chance I can keep it over the weekend? Because I got some that’s for an extension. I got some more, you know, materials. And they said, just keep till the end of February.

Lightning (4m 54s):

Are you kidding

Holman (4m 54s):

Me? I said, great. So continuing to, to love and use the tight next tee.

Lightning (4m 59s):

Can I borrow it? Nope. I just want it for a day. Why? I need to pull the PIs I need.

Holman (5m 5s):

Yeah, maybe I you could do

Lightning (5m 6s):

That. I would like to bring it to banks just for a day.

Holman (5m 8s):

Hmm. Okay. Leave me your trx I’m

Lightning (5m 10s):

Gonna make it happen. Will, if I have to Mm,

Holman (5m 15s):

It hits a little differently then, doesn’t it?

Lightning (5m 16s):

I will if I have to. I will if I have to. I’m gonna come down here on a Sunday night. I’m gonna pick it up, bring it to work on Monday. I’ll bring it back to you Monday night.

Holman (5m 24s):

Okay. Leave me a car.

Lightning (5m 25s):

All right, wait a minute. You’ve got a 3 92 sitting out there.

Holman (5m 29s):

This is a one for one trade. This isn’t just, oh,

Lightning (5m 31s):

That’s, that’s

Holman (5m 32s):

Sucks. I’m trying to keep miles off that thing right now.

Lightning (5m 35s):

Can I bring you the Mercedes?

Holman (5m 36s):

Actually I gotta, yeah, you can bring the Mercedes. All right. I gotta take the, the 3 92 s going on a road trip soon. So I gotta, gotta get that thing. How

Lightning (5m 43s):

Many miles you got on that sucker?

Holman (5m 44s):

3,200.

Lightning (5m 46s):

I’m smoking you. I’m just about to crack 6,000. Yeah, on the tx You thought it was gonna sit in front of my house forever and I wasn’t gonna drive it. What did I drive tonight?

Holman (5m 54s):

Tx. That’s right. Yep. You have this really lame key fob cover.

Lightning (5m 59s):

Be stunned. How many people love that key cover right

Holman (6m 2s):

There? It’s super cheesy looking.

Lightning (6m 3s):

It’s not that cheesy looking. It’s a little cheesy in this light. It looks really well. It’s not. Nah. Yeah, it looks like it’s rose gold in here. That’s gross. But in the sunlight it’s chrome red and it looks rad. It looks like a Bentley key except it

Holman (6m 16s):

Says tx. It’s not, it’s

Lightning (6m 17s):

Not a Bentley key.

Holman (6m 18s):

Anything at all like that at all? Yeah, no, we’ve got, I’ve gotta go head out and see Bri at American Venture Lab soon. So we’re gonna do the, the outfitting on the 3 92. So you can go, go do, and I’m doing some stuff with, with Nissan, working on a trip. Gotta go do some pre-running for them soon. So that’ll be pretty, pretty exciting. And so yeah.

Lightning (6m 35s):

Are you gonna get some good audio and video maybe pre-running? We’ll

Holman (6m 38s):

See

Lightning (6m 39s):

The answer is yes.

Holman (6m 40s):

We’ll see. So anyway, if you are looking for a really good truck that does it all, check out the Nissan Titan or Titan XD at your local Nissan dealership.

Lightning (6m 47s):

The diamond stitching on the seats. Yeah. Is that only the Platinum reserve? The platinum Reserve, yep. Okay, got it.

Holman (6m 52s):

Yep. But I, I towed that thing to Arizona and had the Patriot x-ray trailer and went on the Overland Journal podcast and all that. And I, I just reminded me how much I love those seats, those zero gravity seats. They’re so comfortable for those long trips. So it was, it was pretty cool. So yeah, I’m enjoying it. Nissan usa.com or head on down your local dealer. Of course the Titan and Titan Xee have the industry’s best warranty five year, 100,000 miles.

Lightning (7m 15s):

So Holman, as you are all too familiar with the manufacturers of vehicles, they don’t really cut corners necessarily, but they have to manufacture for efficiencies, right?

Holman (7m 24s):

Or the lowest common denominator of

Lightning (7m 27s):

Customer right in, in one area where they have to be mindful of the amount of plastics they use is in a cold air intake, for example. You know, so they injection mold, the, the intake, they use a typically a flat filter. It’s, it’s all mass produced stuff and it’s designed to keep the nasty stuff out of your cylinder, keep everything clean, but sometimes they have to sacrifice airflow. Here’s where I’m going. The bank’s rama intakes, it’s all about airflow filtration. So when you buy a bank’s Rama intake, you’re getting the absolute best, not only better than oe, but better than all of the competitors. Banks isn’t always first to market, but that’s because they’re testing all of the competitors.

Lightning (8m 8s):

They don’t just beat oe cuz most companies can do that. They have to beat all the competitors. So when you’re shopping for a cold air intake and actual cold air intake that draws in cool air from the exterior of the vehicle and out filters every other company on the planet, you go to banks to find your Ram Air cold air intake, just go to banks power.com, type in your year, make and model. So Homan, apparently we picked up some help, some, some friendlies that will help us

Holman (8m 37s):

Promote the show,

Lightning (8m 38s):

Promote the show on social

Holman (8m 39s):

Media, some social campaigns for us.

Lightning (8m 41s):

Give us some

Holman (8m 41s):

Social love. Listen, if, if you have a small business and you’re looking for a company that can help you with your social, you wanna check out Full Moon Digital Marketing. It’s a pack of open-minded, innovative, and fearless thinkers that can merge a wide range of industries, countries, and cultures. And with every project they bring a depth of experience, valuable insights, strategic thinking, and a commitment to successful execution. So, so by working with Full Moon like we are, you’ll be able to confidently take your business to the next level through an effective digital strategy and some consultancy, which is a lot of big words for how you need help. So no matter the challenge, scale or platform, full Moon Digital is ready to bring extraordinary value to their clients. We trust them with our social no,

Lightning (9m 18s):

Let, let’s be honest, we have been really good at podcasting and not as good on social.

Holman (9m 22s):

It sucks when your full-time job is not this. No. And so we need a little help. So Full Moon Digital stepped up to the plate, they’re gonna be helping us and we appreciate Derek and the team over there,

2 (9m 32s):

The truck. We’re going to show you what we know. We’re gonna answer what the truck cause truck runs with <unk> the truck show. We have the lifted, we have the lower and everything in between. We’ll talk about trucks that run on diesel and the ones that run on gasoline. Truck show. The truck show The truck show. Whoa.

3 (10m 4s):

It’s the truck show with your hosts Lightning and

Lightning (10m 8s):

Holman. You think our your neighbors can hear us?

Holman (10m 10s):

I hope not. I mean I put a bunch of Rockwall in the walls of this place so hopefully it’s muffled enough between our, our vegetation wall and their window

Lightning (10m 20s):

Being closed. Well, I mean I brought our faders down cuz we were belting out the words. Yeah. And I just, I didn’t know if we could be heard over the music there or outside of these walls.

Holman (10m 28s):

Hopefully this is our safe spot. I, and I don’t know yet. I mean this is our, our first night with all this new equipment and I’m not sure it’s going smoothly.

Lightning (10m 40s):

I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t nervous about calling Andre. Well, because I don’t know if the equipment’s gonna work.

Holman (10m 47s):

Only one way to find out.

Lightning (10m 48s):

No, before we dial, let’s play the intro in case he can’t hear it and I don’t have the mixed minus set up properly. Who is So who, who is

Holman (10m 56s):

Play who this? We’re

Lightning (10m 57s):

Gonna spare Andre Louis call. Yeah. Okay. All got it.

4 (11m 2s):

Yo, the truck show.

2 (11m 6s):

Who,

4 (11m 6s):

Who, who the hell is this a truck show interview you don’t wanna miss? We talked to top in the industry. How’d you blow? What? How’d you come to B Who? Truck Show Represent?

Lightning (11m 20s):

Okay, N Now Dial

Andre (11m 28s):

Hello

Lightning (11m 28s):

Mr. Andre Smirnoff. How you doing? It’s Lightning at Home. A truck show podcast.

Holman (11m 32s):

What’s happening?

Andre (11m 32s):

Hey, how you guys doing?

Lightning (11m 34s):

We are doing outstanding. So we just moved into our brand new studio. Yeah. And we’re dealing with all new equipment and hopefully it sounds okay to you. It’s hard for us to know for

Holman (11m 45s):

Sure. You’re our first guest in our new studio.

Andre (11m 48s):

I feel very special. Thank you very

Holman (11m 50s):

Much. You shouldn’t because it’s gonna make our interview sound sound horrible cuz Lightning doesn’t know how to work the equipment yet. Our voices sound weird. The mics are all trash. There’s an echo.

Lightning (11m 58s):

Hold on, let me see if you can hear this. The very first Dr. Pepper opened in the new pot yet. Hold on.

Holman (12m 3s):

That’s not true. I’ve been drinking. Yeah,

Lightning (12m 5s):

Don’t spoil

Holman (12m 6s):

It. Plenty. Could

Lightning (12m 7s):

You hear that Andre? I

Andre (12m 8s):

I could hear it clearly. Can you hear

Lightning (12m 9s):

Me okay?

Holman (12m 10s):

Yeah, we can hear you much better than we can hear ourselves. Yeah,

Lightning (12m 13s):

No, we’re we’re good. We got you. So you guys may know Andre from T F L Truck, the Fast Lane truck and he’s got quite a few Fast Lane enterprises, but the one that has exploded off the map in the last, I don’t know, half decade or so, is TFL truck. And he has pit every single major, mid-size, full-size pickup truck and even motor home against each other and has been talked about on such podcasts as Joe Rogan. And you’re jealous about that? I’m a little bit, yes. And so now he, now he’s talking to us and so we’ve got a lot to cover and we appreciate you staying up late for us.

Lightning (12m 53s):

So as we record this at night,

Andre (12m 55s):

That’s no problem guys. First of all, thank you for having me on the show and you’ve probably given me too much credit because there’s also kind of a big team at CFL that’s kind of doing all the things you mentioned.

Holman (13m 8s):

We can’t wait to have a big team someday.

Lightning (13m 10s):

It’s just

Holman (13m 11s):

Us, especially now,

Lightning (13m 13s):

Sadly. Yes, I know we need some techs working for us. Andre, before we get into all the truck talk, what is your background? Because it’s not, you’re not from an oe, you’re not like Holman here who is a, a a publisher of magazines and, and truck content you come from Where

Andre (13m 31s):

I come from a software world in a way, it’s kind of random, but I went to school, I went to University of Colorado at Boulder and I studied computer science and I got my master’s degree. I got my, you know, my, my bachelor degree there and, but I was kind of always an automotive enthusiast so I was really into trucks. I was into cars as well. When I met my wife during college, she got me into boats. So I was kind of always into everything kind of that made noise and moved.

Andre (14m 11s):

But my first part of my professional life was with computers and designing databases and data models.

Lightning (14m 20s):

What were you compiling this data for? Was it Big Brother? You spying on us?

Andre (14m 25s):

No, no. Oh damn. So I, I started my career with Sun Microsystems, you know, Silicon Valley small

Holman (14m 33s):

Company and very inconsequential to the tech space.

Lightning (14m 36s):

Nope. Massive,

Holman (14m 37s):

Huge.

Andre (14m 38s):

Yeah. So, so, and I was always in this kind of a software space, so not really hardware related with the servers, but, so I was working at the service department and always, so trying to make sure that the, our hardware was able to be serviced in the quickest manner. And also sometimes predicting when, you know, certain services had to be done on, you know, on big servers that Sun Microsystem used to sell. And then Sun was purchased by Oracle and so I worked at Oracle because you know, the basically company changed

Holman (15m 14s):

Tiny, tiny little company

Lightning (15m 16s):

In Yeah, my brother works

Holman (15m 17s):

For Oracle. Billy Creach. Oh he does

Lightning (15m 19s):

Billy, that’s Billy Great. Doesn’t explore.

Holman (15m 22s):

Really? Yeah, you sound better than me on that one. Well then,

Andre (15m 25s):

Well really, Billy Creach works there.

Lightning (15m 27s):

Do you know Billy?

Andre (15m 28s):

No. Oh, I don’t. Well no, no. But I’ve been listening to your podcast for, for several years actually, so I I enjoy listening to your podcast. Well, thanks. And yeah, I feel

Lightning (15m 42s):

Honored. You know, that’s gonna take years off your life, Andre, right?

Holman (15m 46s):

I mean, I feel like you could have a better use of your time than listening to us.

Andre (15m 49s):

Well, no, I mean, you guys have fun and you guys have good guests and you guys go deep on, on truck stuff, so I I really like that.

Holman (15m 56s):

Awesome. Thank you.

Lightning (15m 57s):

That’s, that’s a huge

Holman (15m 58s):

Compliment. So you guys probably have figured it out that Andre and I know each other from running through all the media drives and stuff. So

Lightning (16m 5s):

When, I wish you had said running naked through fountains or something like that, that would’ve been funny.

Holman (16m 9s):

You’ve got a defect that makes you think like that. Yeah, so typically what happens is you’ll be on a manufactured drive and there’s different waves. So a wave might last two or three days and different journalists come on. Well you don’t always know who’s on your wave and there’s certain journalists that you absolutely try to avoid. And then there’s other ones that are like, oh cool, they’re on, there’s on this one. I think Andre and I choose the same wave I five out of eight

Andre (16m 35s):

Times. I’ve enjoyed being on events with you, Sean, and Lightning. I I don’t know if we’ve ever met in person and I don’t know how that happened or hasn’t happened, but that’s

Holman (16m 46s):

Weird. It’s the universe telling you that. Just keep on the status quo. No need to change that.

Lightning (16m 50s):

No, no. I I we need to get together. I I’m sure we’ve been somewhere nearby and, and no, just for whatever reason I was in radio for the past, you know, as if you listen to the show, you know that for like 20 some odd years and I went to go work for Gail Banks back in 2017 or so when I saw the end of radio nearing. Yeah, I I I feel bad cuz you’re up in Colorado. My brother lives in Evergreen, Colorado and I go up to see Clint at ATS Diesel every so often. So I will make

Holman (17m 19s):

Aveda or Avada Avada.

Lightning (17m 21s):

Everyone up there says Arvada. Yeah. Yep. So I will definitely stop by and I think you and I are gonna be working on some behind the scenes projects. We’re gonna help you out with some data. So banks is supplying some gear to you, I asha specifically, which maybe we can touch on later, but it’s not a, not a big deal. I think it’s gonna, well we’ll we’ll get to that later. But I, I want to focus on how you got started in reviewing trucks and how many years ago was that

Andre (17m 46s):

Kind of a interesting story. A little bit funny story. So I was working at Oracle as we said, and at that time we worked from home a lot too. So it was a really distributed team and my boss lived in Boulder, Colorado. And my boss, I was on the phone call, conference call with my boss at Oracle and he says, you know, my neighbor, his name is Roman and he does some video stuff with cars and trucks and I know you kind of like that type of stuff. Do you wanna meet my neighbor Roman, Roman Michael? And I said, well that’s, that’s kind of interesting. So Roman Micah started TFL Studios, he started the company basically from grassroots from nothing.

Andre (18m 33s):

And he, that was around 2010 when Roman started it. And when my, my old boss at Oracle introduced me to Roman, that was late 2011 and we kind of kicked it off. I started helping Roman run C F L CAR website at that time because he started in a C F L car, YouTube channel and then website. And so I was working kind of nights with Roman and some weekends and then I would take, some times I would take a day off from Oracle and go to like Detroit Auto show with Roman and kind of help cover the news together.

Andre (19m 18s):

So, and then it, but at that point the company was kind of small, this is 20 11, 20 12 type time and there wasn’t a lot of money in, you know, the company wasn’t generating a lot of revenue. So I was working part-time.

Lightning (19m 35s):

Lemme lemme here’s my, hold on, lemme pause you one second here. When you say the company in in air quotes, what was the company? Was it just, it was it tfl truck.com? What, what was just a blog on a website? Was it audio content, was it video content, was it YouTube?

Andre (19m 50s):

It was primarily YouTube. That’s kind of our main outlet so to speak. We, we created websites to back up YouTube, right. And, and then we expanded, we now operate eight YouTube channels. Damn. Wow. And four websites. But it started as car, car, YouTube and Roman saw kind of that space as kind of underserved at that time. This is 20 2009. 2010, like I said. So because he had experience, he was a TV reporter in his pre one of his previous lives in Illinois.

Andre (20m 30s):

And, and he, so he had experience in journalism and he saw kind of that, and then YouTube was kind of starting out, right? It was what, three or four years old. And he said, well why, you know, there’s, it’s full of cats playing pianos, right? Yep. But how about about we start some automotive content there. So that’s kind of how he started.

Lightning (20m 51s):

Interesting. So he was one of the early car reviewers and so it’s probably like him and Doug Dro and, and guys like that. This is a Bugatti and I’m gonna take you, you all the eccentricities.

Holman (21m 2s):

I can’t watch him. Oh he’s unwatchable for me.

Lightning (21m 4s):

I love Doug Dro. I love I know you do, but I, his outfit is ridiculous. Yeah, he’s made so much money. It’s time to get bail on the shorts. It be, I mean after all, come on now it might

Holman (21m 13s):

Be Doug cause I’m too close to it but I just, I can’t watch him. Really? Yeah, can’t do

Lightning (21m 17s):

It. I love Doug. I know you do think it’s funny. I’m gonna give it a Doug score. I want, I want Doug to give us a score. Let’s get a Doug score. It would be zero. Yeah. Probably would be. Yes. When did you jump ship from Oracle slash Sun slash all these tech companies to go do T F L full-time?

Andre (21m 36s):

Probably 2014 ish timeframe. So probably nine to nine and a half years ago. So we were growing a bit, we, we branched off with a lot of help, right? We branched, we started TFO truck. So basically the com really the company’s called TFL Studios, right? So we, we have, we wanted to kind of serve each kind of vertical niche so to say, you know, car, truck, motorcycle, we don’t, we don’t have TFO boat yet, but I’m still pushing for that. And then there kind of time where I really loved doing this and there was, you know, we were making a little bit more money so I asked my wife, I said, you know, what do you think?

Andre (22m 16s):

And I, you know, switched jobs and she’s like, go for it. You know, you love it so just jump in. And so I did. So I called my boss who introduced me to Roman and I said, you know, the guy you introduced me to, well I’m gonna go work for him now, so,

Lightning (22m 32s):

Ouch, wait a minute.

Andre (22m 35s):

So he was understanding of course and every, we’re still friends but, but that’s kind of how it happened.

Lightning (22m 41s):

And what was the first big project that you worked on? What was the one that you thought, okay, this is legit we got a million views. This is putting me on the map as a host.

Andre (22m 53s):

Yeah, so I started kind of like sort of behind the scenes a little bit, right? So because we, we were a small company, there was like three of us right back then Nathan, Alan is also a huge part of ts l and I was sum, I would be behind the camera sometimes, but really where it kind of hit home for me is when we kind of branched t o truck off of TFL car, right? Obviously two different audiences, right? Car based versus truck based. And we started doing the Ike gauntlet. So we call it the world stuff towing test. It’s the I 70, you know, running to over 11,000 feet above sea level.

Andre (23m 37s):

And we had a lot of help from Ken Sunlink, also from Mr chuck.com, who is another local journalist who had decades of experience in, you know, anything from semi trucks to pickup trucks. So Roman and Ken really kind of kicked off I gauntlet and that’s what we called it. And we found out that people liked it. People really appreciated because there are not many outlets or there were not, I mean many outlets did testing, right? But not many showed everything on video. So I think kind of that’s where,

Holman (24m 15s):

Or even did the torture test, I mean everybody sort of had, like if you did a media drive of the proving grounds or rented the proving grounds, I mean we had done that before if, you know, but you guys actually took all trucks conig configured as closely as possible. Same trailer then went and did back to back runs in some of the harshest conditions for a truck. And I think people found that very valuable.

Andre (24m 39s):

I I think it was also because we were showing a lot of detail about it, right? Because you could kind of summarize something in a couple minutes, right? But we, we decided to also show a lot of it as well. And actually we’re, we’re fortunate enough, you know, we’ve grown to the, you know, these eight channels and four websites. We have, you know, a couple of podcasts we’re also started during covid. We’re fortunate to where people actually sometimes come up to us and thank us for, for doing these tests because you cannot go to a dealership and you know, go for a test drive and tow a giant trailer up a mountain, right? So they kinda appreciate

Holman (25m 15s):

It’s true. I mean not not in Kansas, you can’t No,

Lightning (25m 20s):

But you know, so

Andre (25m 20s):

They can appreciate that.

Lightning (25m 21s):

Well I mean I can see that because look, when you’re buying a 2500, 3500 or maybe 45, 55, 6500 series truck, the one thing you’re buying it for is to pull your, you know, your gooseneck, your fifth wheel or you whatever the travel trailer or your, your hauling stuff with it. And you can’t, you, you really don’t know. You’re relying on Ford Ram GM to tell you what it will do. And they’re, and zero to 60 tests. Who, who cares? Because you’re gonna pull 27,000 pounds over the 70 and you’re gonna be matted to the floor. What does the truck really do? And I can’t remember anyone that was doing that test on video before you were,

Andre (26m 1s):

Yeah and I think that’s kind of where a lot of the success came from. And obviously we’re, we’re continuing with that testing and I am a data guy as you kind of just found out. So I wanna even add even more information to that so we can, we can kind of show, because you know, the trucks are getting ever more capable, ever more competitive. And so it’s getting harder and harder to kind of pinpoint where one truck maybe is better than the other. So, so we need to get, you know, a little bit more precise.

Lightning (26m 33s):

Now does it bug you that some of the highest tow rated trucks are the ones that they’re, are the hardest to get? They’re like single cab

Holman (26m 42s):

Dually. And also come to find out several years ago, you know, some manufacturers were giving you that rating with no spare tire or no rear bumper, things like that. Really. Yeah. The rate, the rating was with those, those things removed.

Lightning (26m 54s):

So I, I was talking to Andre about a week ago or so and he was telling me that some of the trucks that he’s testing I think was a Ford you mentioned where you will floor it and you pulling, I think you said 30,000 pounds, you could not get up to the speed limit. You couldn’t even get up to whatever was 55 on, on the, on the 70 there.

Andre (27m 15s):

Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And, and this, so when we test the dual lease, right, these are all the triple diesels. We try to load ’em up as you know, as heavy as possible. This is after all the torture test, right? The world’s toughest test for towing. So, and it’s not just Ford. So Ram GM and fort in the duly trucks phase 3,500 series when towing 30,000 pounds, we are wide open throttle for it could be 10 to 12 minutes, however long it takes to climb the mountain in each truck. Yeah. Literally wide open throttle and usually going about 45 miles per hour.

Andre (27m 56s):

So we’re, we’re never hitting the, you know, the 60 mile an hour speed limit.

Holman (28m 0s):

Meanwhile,

Andre (28m 1s):

Which is on that climb,

Holman (28m 2s):

A big rig is coming up at 80,000 pounds passing you 25 miles an hour faster than

Lightning (28m 9s):

Where you’re, cause you’ve got a 16 liter engine, you know what I

Holman (28m 11s):

Mean? Yeah. But still, I mean the problem is is that you still share the same roads and the manufacturers are putting out these tremendous tow ratings and I guarantee you the majority of people aren’t CDL drivers. They’re towing their big RV or something like that. It’s scary to be on 70 and have big rigs passing you. I’ve been in situations where I was in a blizzard and I was driving at a Jeep Grand Cherokee and I’m driving in a white out, but there’s no place to stop and the big rigs are sticking to the road cuz they’re so heavy. They’re passing me at 55 and I’m doing like 35 cuz I can’t even see the lane

Lightning (28m 44s):

Markers. They’re, they’re like ships cutting through the ice. I’m,

Holman (28m 46s):

I’m, I’m hoping I don’t get hit from behind, you know, but it’s, it’s seventies no joke. That’s a, that’s a really tough, I mean, could just be a regular car. I mean there’s, there’s, you know, light duty cars that’s struggling. But

Lightning (28m 59s):

A couple things come to mind because every once in a while I’m on the phone with a customer who he’ll be like, I I want some more power in the mid-range. I don’t really care about the top end. I never floored. And I’m thinking, oh wait, so if you are never flooring it, why do you need more power? And where you, and and so it, as Andre was telling me that he’s pedaled to the metal right at wide open throttle and I’m thinking of guys who never experienced wide open throttle because wide open throttle is when all the EEG ts spike. Yep.

Holman (29m 27s):

Right. You gotta, you gotta watch you’re, you’re

Lightning (29m 29s):

Gonna doing yeah you’re gonna go in a meltdown.

Holman (29m 31s):

I remember we had a manufacturer test, it might have been Ford with the F four 50, the first generation when it came out, and I want to say the tow rating was somewhere in the mid twenties or something like that. And so they would put a CDL driver with you driving it on the big loads. But even on some of the loads that you could do privately, the difference in we would drag race other journalists for the same trailer and we may have been like the Payson grade in Arizona or something like that. So nothing like 70. But what was interesting is there are certain things like the way the ram and the Cummins would work with the six speed and it would just felt like a freight train but it just ran out of RPMs. Like it would pull all the way to the RPM and then it would just hang.

Holman (30m 12s):

But there wasn’t the drop between getting that next gear was gonna put it out of its power band. Meanwhile a duramax, which at the time had the six speed Allison, the nice thing about a duramax is it allows for over rev so you can grab the next gear if you need to down and it’ll slightly over rev the engine pass red line, which is really nice going downhill when you don’t wanna roach your service brakes. But it felt like the Duramax had power all the way and was, and was pulling. And if you look at, you know, the red line on a Cummins is what, 3000 or 2,800 in a, it’s really low and a DMAX is like 4,000 or something like that. That extra RPM equals faster speeds. Now it may not have as much torque or horsepower depending on the years, but because the engine can rev out longer, you can stay in that gear longer and the other trucks struggling cuz it just doesn’t have enough RPM or enough gear.

Holman (30m 58s):

You’re in like this middle ground. We, no, most consumers never understand what that’s like until they have the opportunity to strap on a giant trailer. And most of ’em are never gonna do that. So watching something like, you know, TFL truck or what they’re doing kind of gives you a taste of that experience. And it’s interesting because on paper you could have the most torque in the most horsepower, but in the real world, if you can’t put that to the ground, that truck is gonna suffer. Which I think, you know, Duramax highly successful GM hasn’t gone to the ultimate limit of oh, we wanna be the torque champ or the horsepower champ. They kind of play close there, but they know that they have a really, really good platform in that, in the real world their truck is pretty darn good.

Andre (31m 36s):

Yeah. And we see a lot of what you said on our testing and we’re also doing efficiency testing, you know, on Flat highways we like to do have some fun and do drag racing. We go to airstrip and you know, we drag race our trucks. But, and I wanna mention this, a lot of people when I talk about, you know, towing a, pulling a trailer and this can be anything, right? Can apply to your camper, your boat, anything like that. People usually focus on the engine itself, right? But like Sean, like you mentioned, it’s, it’s much more than that, right? It’s about going down the hill, it’s about being able to stop, it’s being to control the trailer, stay safe, stay stable, you know, so the trailer doesn’t sway or you know, become unstable if it’s all, it’s about all of those things.

Holman (32m 25s):

Does this feel like a toso to you by the way?

Lightning (32m 27s):

A little bit. Well it’s funny because you bring that up in one of the complaints about like the the derex 17, 19 year range is that the exhaust break did virtually nothing. It it is like it’s just not even in there. And then you then you get in a, a ram and you turn on the exhaust break and it’s almost like a Jake break. It’s like really effective. Is that what you found?

Andre (32m 47s):

Yeah. I love the sound that the Cummins makes. Yeah. You know, nothing

Holman (32m 52s):

Sounds like that. Yeah,

Andre (32m 53s):

Yeah. Really madly sounds and almost like the four, the Powerstroke and the duramax, they’re becoming so refined, right? Because these trucks are becoming quieter and quieter and quieter even though they’re still powerful. It’s really refined. But you don’t get that feedback that sometimes you’re used to, right? Where you can hear the exhaust break on the, on the comments in a really manly fashion. You know, the I gauntlet and by the way, we used to test in a lot of winter months as well, so, because that’s when the new trucks come out. So it’s like, it will be like January to April. And so it’s been, it’s been quite a, quite a gamble, right?

Andre (33m 35s):

Looking at weather reports and you know, doing, doing all this stuff, making sure there’s no ice, you know, on the highways or snow.

Lightning (33m 42s):

I mean how, how scared have you been going up or down the ike?

Andre (33m 48s):

We, we had one moment that Andre

Holman (33m 50s):

Doesn’t feel fear lightning.

Lightning (33m 52s):

Yes he does. I promise he does.

Andre (33m 54s):

No, oh no. There was one brown moment. There was one moment where we’re in the brown

Holman (33m 60s):

Moment. You catch that brown moment. It’s a hell of a moment.

Lightning (34m 6s):

Oh, by the way, that’s our new, one of our new shirts

Holman (34m 8s):

By the way. A brown moment. A brown moment. Hold on writing it down on t-shirt.

Lightning (34m 12s):

A brown moment. Yes.

Holman (34m 13s):

You know what you should do? It could be a, a ridgeline towing fifth wheel brown

Lightning (34m 19s):

Moment. A brown moment. Yes.

Andre (34m 23s):

So we were in the tunnel. So Mr. Truck, Ken Sanding was with me and we were, we were pulling a trailer, I think we were in the F150 and we loaded pretty heavy and there was a camera vehicle in front of us. You know, we often bring multiple trucks and we’re inside the tunnel, which is at the very top of the mountain right. Crossing the continental divide. And all of a sudden we see our camera truck jump into the left lane. It’s a two-lane tunnel and the truck, our camera vehicle jumped into the left lane and we’re not going very fast. I mean it’s, we’re going about 40, 45 because there was a broken down motor hole stopped dead in the middle of the, of

Lightning (35m 7s):

The tunnel. Oh, oh god. Bad

Holman (35m 8s):

Spot.

Andre (35m 9s):

And, and there was a person working on it, whoever was driving it, I can’t remember who it, I think it was kind of an older gentleman Kent was driving at that time and he had really maybe half a second time he looked to the left lane, it was open, he swerved to go around this motor home and it was close, very, very close. So, so that was probably one of the scariest moments just because, you know, the breakdown over there. But, but the rest of it, I mean we, we try to keep it, you know, nice and safe. We watch the weather reports. We, we run during, you know, between snowstorms and we try to be, you know, of course obeying all the laws and try to be, you know, very, very safe

Lightning (35m 58s):

Of the full size trucks right now. I guess take the dually, let’s pit them against each other. Do you have a clear winner right now If you, if you had to choose a 22, 3500 series? Hold on, hold on. What’s

Holman (36m 10s):

That winner for what? Ultimate towing or comfort over

Lightning (36m 14s):

Right now? Cuz we’re talking about towing. Let’s do towing and then we’ll talk overall trial. Just sheerly for towing the biggest possible load. If you’ve got a, let’s say you’ve got a 40 foot one of those big ass

Holman (36m 26s):

400,000 pound trailer. No,

Lightning (36m 28s):

Like that biggest weekend warrior trailer, they got them sued because they said it weighed such and such and it weighed way more. Oh yeah. And it was breaking transmissions. Yeah. Let’s say you have the biggest fifth wheel you can buy. You’re, you’re trailering it. Which one do you choose, Andre?

Andre (36m 41s):

Well that’s a, that’s a tough one. But the testing we did in 2020 when kind of the new trucks came out right? The, the latest super duty in the 2020 and then the latest GM was also introduced that year. And of course the ram and the these trucks have been kind of mostly the same over the last couple years. I would choose the Powerstroke for a couple reasons.

Holman (37m 7s):

Now wait real quick, Andre, does that surprise you lighting?

Lightning (37m 12s):

No, actually it doesn’t. Okay, all

Holman (37m 14s):

Right. Actually no, I’ll let, I wanna let him explain why but I was just curious because you deal with all of ’em. Yeah. But especially the Duramax crowd. I was just curious if you had a bias towards something different.

Lightning (37m 24s):

So it’s weird because I towed this last summer with all three of our trucks with the Duramax. I have a 2020 GMC Den Sierra Denali. We have a 2020 Ram 3,500 high output and we have a Ford F two 50 standard six seven, all four wheel drive. And of all the trucks, the 2,500, the 3,500 and the F two 50, I enjoyed towing with the F two 50 the most. But I can’t tell you why I think it had something to do with the straight axle, the power delivery. I don’t know what says Andre.

Andre (38m 1s):

Well what I say, if you ask me in 2019, my answer may have been different. But really the latest, the six seven powerstroke and a 10 speed combination that that fourth came out with in 2020 not only was powerful enough to really be really successful on the I gauntlet, but it was also efficient. And I think that just, so when we did our, we have about a 66 mile loop when we’re, we run in the planes basically on the flat highway. And that Ford, the F three 50 we were testing was measurably significantly more efficient.

Andre (38m 45s):

You know, barring all the other variables, you know, wind and temperature. We ran all three trucks at the same day. It was quite an undertaking and by swapping trailers. So we had one trailer and three trucks and one by one. So we run an hour one each one truck for an hour and then swap trailers did the next and the next and the Ford was most more efficient than the other two. So, and that kind of sealed the deal for me. I was recently on the plane and somebody came up to me and recognized me and they said we kind of had this conversation on the plane as well.

Andre (39m 25s):

And that gentleman was asking, he said, well, which one is more durable or which one is easier to fix? And I couldn’t answer that because, because that’s not what we test. We have some long-term testers, but most of the trucks we test, we only see for about a week or two. Well

Lightning (39m 44s):

The, the, the correct answer by the way is the ram because it’s still using a tractor engine from the seventies. Hey, you know what I mean? What’s wrong with you? The the six B t still is the G

Holman (39m 54s):

Is silent.

Lightning (39m 56s):

The, I’m sorry Cummings. Yes. As our, some of our we go yes owners say does it bug you by the way, when you run into a guy and he says, yeah, I got a ram with a Cummings. And you say the G is silent sir,

Andre (40m 7s):

No. What bothers me, they say I have a Dodge with a Cummings. Oh

Lightning (40m 10s):

That drives me crazy.

Holman (40m 12s):

It’s only been a ram since 2009. Guy, come on, let’s give it the

Lightning (40m 15s):

Program. Yeah, yeah. They just, they didn’t get the memo. But I think that, how did you not get the memo? They just didn’t. And it’s crazy cause they’re guys at all, it’s like, it’s been 15 years, I, they didn’t get, they don’t know. And it doesn’t say Dodge anywhere on the truck. No, nowhere. Not a single place to say Dodge. Just still a dodge to them. I, I think that has the, that’s the probably the easiest engine to work on. And I think also Andre, that’s the reason so many hot shots choose to drive the ram because they can pull over into any diesel repair shop and get a ram get that, that Cummins worked on. Whereas you pull in with a Duramax or, or the Ford’s even worse from my, what I hear from hotshot, they’re like, they’re guys are like, throw up their arms.

Lightning (40m 57s):

They’re like, you need to go to a dealer. Like we, we can’t fix that here. So

Andre (41m 1s):

Yeah, I see that a lot actually. Especially like in Utah, Colorado, some of the states around us, I see a lot of hotshot drivers using Cummins. I see that quite often. And it’s a good truck. I mean, like I said, it’s really manly sounding, right? It’s, it’s really capable vehicle recently in our testing, I think the powerstroke as far as capability came on top. But I’m really excited for this here because we have a new super duty coming, right? 2023, we have 2024 next kind of generation of GM trucks coming as well. So I think this story is T B D right? To be continued because there’s even more powerful engines coming.

Lightning (41m 43s):

Yeah, yeah. The Derex I think is going up another 25 ish horsepower I believe is, I think that was the one they announced, right? It wasn’t 23. Cuz 23 is the same 20 fours going up, 25 x horsepower, something like that. It’s basically the same, same engine. They changed the pistons and they changed. Yeah, there’s a, some cool little tweaks on it. Yeah. So it’s a bummer. We had a video up at Gale Banks, did a, a video where we went through the 24 Duramax engine and went through it in detail, actually tore the engine down and showed all the parts. We put it up on a, on a Friday afternoon and then Monday morning got a call from GM and they said, Hey, that video that you put up, boom, can, can you, can you take that down?

Lightning (42m 25s):

Would you mind? Pretty please. Ooh. And of course we buy many thousands of engines from them and said Sure, please don’t make us. And they said, yeah, you’re gonna have to take that down. And then you heard the w little bit. Yeah.

Andre (42m 39s):

Hey, hey Lightning. I, I watched that video.

Lightning (42m 42s):

Oh wow.

Andre (42m 43s):

I, I watched, I, I watched it. I, I don’t know if it was kind of longish, so I don’t know if I finished every, every minute of it, but it was, I I love watching Gale Banks. He is really clear in his explanations and he’s just, he’s just really excellent at what he does. And, but you guys, that video like went through Can I talk about it? Yeah,

Lightning (43m 5s):

You can. We can, we can talk about it went out there, dude, it did a quarter million views in three days and it clearly got back to the GM brass. And you know, the, the weird part is that we made sure that everything had been announced. We made sure that there was a source for all of that material. We weren’t, and we, we were pretty diligent. We made sure that we did not disclose anything that hadn’t been published somewhere else. But they weren’t, I I, I think they weren’t really thrilled with where those, how the word got out. I, it might have been leaks to the media about the, the, the pistons and the high pressure fuel lines and, and the pump advancements and the new turbo and things like that. And so it had been out there, but I, I don’t think they were exactly happy about how the word got out.

Lightning (43m 49s):

And so for us, we were just putting salt in the wound I think. And, and, and yeah, there was a little bit of a long video, well not super long, it was under half an hour. But we don’t do many videos that are, that are short. We don’t, the YouTube algorithm does not like us because it, it wants 13 minute videos and we just can’t make them.

Andre (44m 8s):

Well you never know what the YouTube algorithm thinks. I mean the things, different things. But what I liked about that video is because, you know, when we go, like, you know, when Sean and I visit an event a, a new truck launch, right? And you know, some engineers or representatives from that company stand up there and they say, we increase the power by X and Y and then you say, well how? And they’ll have a short explanation, you know, we did this, we have a new cooling fan and a bigger radiator and we were able to turn off their fuel pressure. But you never get the full story ever. And, and I think, and and I think that’s where kind of, I really appreciated that video because it kind of, it gave the full story, you know, this is kind of how it’s changed and it was quite interesting.

Lightning (44m 59s):

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Let’s get to Holman’s earlier, kind of deviation on my question, which was I asked you about towing. Do you have an overall, is it still the Ford for an overall, because a lot of guys are separated in modern trucks and say like, well I like X for towing, but I really like y because of the interior, the ACC ma

Andre (45m 23s):

I kind, I’m kind of a basic truck guy. So I owned, well I, I owned the DMAX actually for almost 10 years. This was an older one, first gen, then I had an F150 recently that I recently sold. It was an Excel. So I didn’t, I don’t, you know, I don’t really need the massaging seat in my truck, although it’s nice. But the massaging seat, I mean it’s just kind of a little bit too much. But when people ask me, you know, do you have a favorite truck of all, you know, of all, I usually I don’t because my, my next question is, well how do you wanna use your truck?

Holman (46m 4s):

Exactly.

Andre (46m 4s):

Do you, you know, you know, do, are you overlander? Are you an off floater? Do you want something smaller? Do you want something big? Do you tow, do you go long distance? Do you not? You know, so I, I don’t really have a, you know, like a favorite, favorite truck for example, you know, maybe a Chevy Colorado can be really great, you know, as a smaller mid-size truck. But then of course, you know, the F 2 53 50 maybe great for towing. You see what I’m saying?

Lightning (46m 33s):

Yeah, I gotcha. Where do you stand on, I’ve got so many questions. Where do you stand on the midsize truck market right now? Because Holman has been alerting us for the last couple weeks. I feel like maybe not last 90 days. The midsize truck market is about to be on fire. Like there’s about to be so many choices.

Holman (46m 53s):

And I think when I saw the, the AV version of the mid-size Colorado Canyon coming up, which looked like it was, it might have been 33, it sure looked like 30 fives to me. That thing looked bad ass.

Andre (47m 7s):

I I saw that prototype shot too. Yeah, I saw that he a TFL truck. We’re we’re saying basically 23 year is gonna be the year of the mid-size truck and potentially also the the heavy duty truck. Right? We already discussed the heavy duties. Alright. They’re coming and we hopefully will be testing them soon. The mid-size turnover. So I was actually talking to Jake from Newsweek recently. He was also doing a story on the mid-size truck world, kind of the segment in the industry and the mid-size segment actually shrunk by a i I believe, but by 5% last year as far as how many mid-size trucks were sold

Holman (47m 47s):

Because of

Lightning (47m 49s):

Supplier. Yeah. That has to be

Holman (47m 50s):

Supply. And I also think people waiting because they know, I mean, Colorado Canyon’s a big chunk of that market. I think they’re waiting for the new trucks to come out.

Lightning (47m 56s):

So we have a guy at work that ordered a maverick over a year ago, over a freaking year ago. Yeah. You we keep hearing about the Bronco, Bronco Bronco guys can’t get ’em and now they’re paying them to, to not pick them up and you don’t really hear about the Maverick guys cause they’re not squawking as much, but there’s, there’s tens of thousands of mavericks I think on order that haven’t been fulfilled.

Andre (48m 16s):

I would agree. I think it has a lot to do with shortages. Right. And also maybe some people waiting because yeah, the Colorado and Canyon are long in the tooth. Right. They sh probably should have been re you know,

Holman (48m 29s):

How dare

Andre (48m 29s):

You the new generation.

Holman (48m 32s):

Why is it along the tooth? Because the interior looks like it was out of a Chevy Cruze from like the year 2001.

Andre (48m 38s):

Yes.

Holman (48m 39s):

Yeah, it’s time guys. Yes.

Andre (48m 41s):

So what I told Jake, I said don’t worry, I think the mid-size truck segment is gonna rebound in 23. Of course I cannot predict everything. You know, supply shortages may, may, may still be there, but you know, the next Colorado, you know, is coming very soon, right? We’ll be driving them very, very soon in, in February this month. And then the Tacoma is supposed to be redesigned, which is the segment leader and the new ranger.

Lightning (49m 8s):

Well hold it. Didn’t we just see the Tacoma? Like didn’t we see the rendering based on that Australian or Brazilian Brazilian

Holman (49m 14s):

Patent rendering? And then people have taken that and rendered it even further and it, it looks exactly like what you would expect or hope it to. It looks, it is the evolution. It’s halfway between a tundra and a new and a current generation Tacoma. That’s, it’s just, it looks exactly like what you would expect.

Lightning (49m 29s):

Are you, are you a Tacoma or a, or a Tundra guy, Andre?

Andre (49m 34s):

Not so much. I, I can’t quite fit in the Tacoma. I, I I know it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a good truck obviously, but I’m almost six three and the seat is just low, too low for me. I don’t know. My legs are stretching out front of me when I sit in the Tacoma and I never kind of felt comfortable in it. So I’m not a huge Tacoma fan for that reason. Just because, you know, my, my body’s not fitting into it. We had a tundra in 22, we had a new Tundra cuz we’re able to buy two or three trucks a year, brand new trucks for long-term testing. And I think the new Tundra 22 that when it, when it, when it came out, it’s, they made a better tundra.

Andre (50m 19s):

But it wasn’t like a class leader in any kind of measurable way. It was just good at everything. And I, I don’t know if the Tacoma will follow suit. I mean Toyota is kind of cons really conservative company,

Holman (50m 33s):

If I could be honest. I’m just hoping it gets a, a box frame and rear disc breaks. Let’s start there.

Lightning (50m 39s):

You know what’s weird? When I stood under, so when the, the tundra first came out like a ah, like a month and a half after the very first ones started popping up in southern California. We got a hold of one, we put it up on a lift and we were just inspecting it for exhaust and some other stuff we were thinking about making and probably never will. But I stood under the truck.

Holman (50m 58s):

I like how you said probably never will. So you don’t get those emails that’s Oh, I heard you say

Lightning (51m 1s):

Nah. Yeah, I just, I I would love to serve the Toyota market. Yeah. I just, we don’t have the bandwidth for it anyway, so the truck truck’s above me and I’m looking at it and I’m thinking there’s so much vacant space under this truck and it’s so expensive. I thought there’s just a lot of air. There’s not, I’m not sure why. If you put up a, I don’t know, a gm midsize truck E even a, the

Holman (51m 30s):

Tacoma’s essentially the same truck from 2005. The body and white’s the same.

Lightning (51m 32s):

No, I’m talking about the tundra.

Holman (51m 33s):

Oh, on the tundra.

Lightning (51m 34s):

On, on the tundra. And I,

Holman (51m 35s):

On the new, on the new hybrid Tundra

Lightning (51m 37s):

On this was the, this was the 3.4 liter twin Turbo, not

Holman (51m 42s):

3.5.

Lightning (51m 43s):

It’s three five. So technically it’s called a three.

Holman (51m 46s):

Don’t, don’t be that guy from Car and Drive from the 1990

Lightning (51m 49s):

Drive. I was

Holman (51m 50s):

Saying Fords really to 4.9.

Lightning (51m 52s):

Stop for a second. I was saying three five until people started to bust me, and then they wore me down.

Holman (51m 56s):

You say it’s what the manufacturer says. Otherwise you sound like you’re trying to That’s

Lightning (51m 59s):

The weird part, dude, is that it says three,

Holman (52m 1s):

Four. It sounds, I’m trying a big

Lightning (52m 2s):

Stop for a second. I No, look on Toyota’s website right now. In some places it says three, five and other places says three four on the same truck. They can’t even decide. That’s, I’m tripping out on this thing. About two months ago, I was looking at three four and, and someone was arguing with Billy at work. He’s like, it says three, four. And I said, no, it’s a three five. He goes Three, four. Right.

Holman (52m 21s):

Fight, fight. It

Lightning (52m 22s):

Was a brawl.

Andre (52m 22s):

Yeah. I’m with you. Lightning dude. I’m totally with you. Because I think it was a competition between Toyota marketing and Ford marketing in a, in a way, right? Because Ford has a three and a half liter, right. Twin Turbo. And Toyota came out with a 3.4 liter that may have been stretched to three five. And it’s all about who has the biggest Right. Yeah. The most displacement and et cetera, et cetera.

Holman (52m 48s):

Yeah. I just, I just hate on the, the Toyota Power plant, by the way, is is really a pleasure to drive. It’s super torquey. It’s, it sounds good. It’s nice. I just hate, especially on the pro models, how much damn freaking sound they punch into the cabin of fake engine noises. Oh my. Oh the God, it’s

Lightning (53m 5s):

So horrible. I didn’t notice that. Oh,

Holman (53m 7s):

The, it sounds, you drive into, wow, this thing sounds almost like a v8. And then you realize, damn, you Toyota. And it’s horrible.

Lightning (53m 15s):

You just clipped our new board over here. You see that? You’re the first one to clip the horn. Yeah. Damn. Look at that. I like it. You full on redlined it. That

Holman (53m 21s):

Was cool. Go me.

Lightning (53m 23s):

So I just, we, we went down the, the street with, with the guy that owned the truck to Jack in the box. So I didn’t really get a good example of, of the audio, and he didn’t romp on it either, but I was just, I don’t know why it struck me as like, for that price, you know, nothing under the truck. It was just like, I felt like we’re

Holman (53m 42s):

Tundra, tundra, marksmith, tundra’s, like, you know, mid fifties for

Lightning (53m 45s):

That’s what I was talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So tundra’s the one that we had on the lift, and I just thought it reminded me, well now I think back because I’m, we’re seeing all those, the rams that are split in the middle, right. The guy had overloaded it with his camper shell and the frame breaks.

Holman (53m 59s):

No, no, no. His sliding camper.

Lightning (54m 1s):

Not a camper.

Holman (54m 1s):

Shell like a fricking

Lightning (54m 2s):

Slice.

Holman (54m 4s):

Thousands wet freaking Yeah,

Lightning (54m 6s):

I, I get it. But it’s just, I’m looking at her, they’re going, there’s not much to this truck. Like, it’s just kind of tin canny. But I still like it. I love the lines. It’s my favorite tundra they’ve ever released as far as the body is concerned. And the, and the engine is great, and it’s gonna be, I’m sure at some point someone will tune it and gets more, more horsepower out of it. You, you never really deal Andre with aftermarket tuned vehicles. Correct. You’re pretty much just straight and narrow on stock stuff, right?

Andre (54m 34s):

Well, for most of our testing, yes. But we, we love kind of smaller businesses who tune stuff, who are, you know, kind of us made. So we do a lot of reviews. For example, we have friends in Houston, PAC Power, who do some tune trucks and also they built kind of, you know, the trucks you may not get from the manufacturer, the oe, but you can get from them five star tuning. We’ve done a lot of stuff from the, with the guys in East Coast, they focus on Fords. So we do, you know, we, we like to do like everything, right?

Andre (55m 15s):

A bit of everything, but I don’t get to test maybe the tune trucks quite as much. Gotcha.

Lightning (55m 21s):

What’s your stand right now on the super truck market and where’s it going? Will it last? Is it just a fad

Holman (55m 28s):

Now? When you say super truck, what are

Lightning (55m 30s):

You referring to? I’m referring to Raptors, tx. Okay. And I guess

Holman (55m 34s):

Ranger Raptor coming out, ranger

Lightning (55m 35s):

Raptor, I guess GM doesn’t have an answer for it yet.

Holman (55m 38s):

Nah, I mean basically the zero two is the closest thing, but I wouldn’t consider that Super Truck. It’s more of a TD Pro competitor and a tremor competitor. But not quite T TX Raptor are kind of their own deal.

Andre (55m 49s):

Well, in the last couple days there was some rumor coming out that GM is working on something code named Meteor, like a Silverado, you know, equivalent of a Raptor F-150 or a TX and

Lightning (56m 5s):

What was the name of it? Meteor. Meteor.

Holman (56m 7s):

Either meat or Meteor. Yeah, our truck’s meteor than yours. Or is our truck a big flaming fireball going through the sky? Cool. I I, but you hear those rumors from GM all the time, like over the years, how many times there’s a skunkworks group of, I mean, look at Black Lake. Those guys that are all previous GM engineers got so sick of GM saying no to a Raptor competitor. They went out and started their own company to build them.

Andre (56m 30s):

I actually, I actually drag race XT one, the Black Lake truck. Oh, you did? Against the ZR two. That was, that was a lot of fun. Yeah. And I think gm, I mean, GM is late to the party, or actually maybe they missed the party. I mean, so the Raptor came out in what, 2010, right? The original generation and the CRX is 2021. It’s already a couple years, you know, old GM’s super truck. I think, I think they really wanted the hum ev to be their super truck. Hmm.

Holman (57m 3s):

Right. Yeah,

Andre (57m 3s):

I think so. Because if you look at all, because I think if you look at all the specs of the Hummer, you know, the, the tires, the suspension, you know, the, the power, the kind of the capability that they were putting into that truck was super, they even called it that in their marketing super truck. And then what, what happened like a week ago, GM said that they’re investing what, almost a billion dollars into V8

Holman (57m 29s):

Engines. Yeah, small blocks, right? I think that’s them telling their customers that we understand that, you know, EV’s not gonna be right for everybody, especially the truck market. And we’re not going to make a commitment. And this is actually backtracking from what, you know, Mary Barra said back when she’s, oh, we’re gonna be, you know, internal combustion free by 2035 or whatever, like every other ceo. And then they’re all going, oh, wait a minute, that’s a stupid idea, because that’s not gonna work. And I think Toyota has, BA has said, no hybrid’s the way to go. Porsche isn’t invented synthetic gasoline. Like all these people are going, no, no internal combustion engine’s not dead yet.

Andre (58m 4s):

Yeah. And you can still get a Hemi in the Ram. So the, the Hemi doesn’t seem to be going

Holman (58m 10s):

Anywhere either or my Jeep,

Andre (58m 11s):

So, exactly. Oh my goodness. So I think the super truck era, I was almost afraid, like if you asked me six months ago, I was gonna say, you know, 2023 or 2024, maybe collect the end of the big supercharged engines that we currently have. But now the Raptor R is coming to customers. One of my friends in Denver just picked up a raptor r from a dealer today. So it’s actually here. And I, you know, GM is investing in V8 engines, et cetera, et cetera. So I think we’ll see several more years hopefully of kind of traditional super truck competition, which is, which is amazing for all of us. Right.

Holman (58m 49s):

So I was just gonna say, that’s a great segue because I wanted to get your take on ev because you guys have done some ev truck testing. Obviously there’s Rivian out there. There’s the lightning, there’s the Hummer. You guys actually did a story, it’s funny we didn’t talk and I didn’t see what you guys did, but until after my story was done, but we kinda had a similar take on range where I did the wheels and tires. I can’t remember what your version of it was, but I did an aggressive extreme alter terrain on the same fitment, same sizes, and then went and did a, a test on that and talked about that. And I know you guys did, some have been playing around as well. What’s your take on EVs in the truck space?

Andre (59m 27s):

Yeah, yeah. So 22, 20 22 was kind of the big year, right? Because Rivian came to market. The Hummer was in small numbers, right? In 2022. And then of course the Fort Lightning. Yeah, I, I remember, I, I listened to your story about your tire test, which was very interesting. And I think both of us came away with the same conclusion that it, it did in our testing, our F150 Lightning, which had the bigger battery extended range, we put all terrains, not super aggressive on it, but it lost about almost 10% efficiency on the highway.

Holman (1h 0m 1s):

Yeah. And that’s what about what I said was like nine and a half, I think, or something like that.

Andre (1h 0m 5s):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and so, so here’s one of my takes on electric. So I think it’s opened up my eyes, first of all too, everything else that’s going on behind the scenes on the truck, right? Because I think, at least I think I was spoiled with just diesel power and gasoline power because it’s so easy to replenish that fuel, right? When you go to the gas station,

Holman (1h 0m 30s):

10 minutes, you’re on the way again. Gas. Yeah.

Andre (1h 0m 33s):

Yeah. It was, it was, it was kind of like lifting your truck and putting it on 37th didn’t seem bad, right? You’re like, okay, I can, you know, I can do that. But I think when I was testing the lightning and the rivian to some extent, and we actually drove the lightning all the way to the top of Alaska as a team, we, we drove, that was a crazy trip last year. We learned, you know, how much aerodynamic matter, aerodynamics matter, right?

Holman (1h 1m 1s):

That rolling resistance.

Andre (1h 1m 3s):

So it, it just kind of brought everything to light. What I loved about electric trucks and still do, is just performance, right? They’re comfortable, they’re quick. You know, the, the, the acceleration they provide is insane. The quickest truck we’ve tested it at in Denver here in Colorado is is the Rivian now, right? It beat out the Hummer, beat out, you know, the crx, anything. So of course there is negatives, right? Towing range is bad when you load them up. Charging infrastructure is not up to speed in mo in most areas, I would say.

Andre (1h 1m 45s):

But I think I learned actually a little bit more about all the interworkings of a vehicle, because the electric truck kind of brought it to light.

Holman (1h 1m 55s):

I think that’s fair.

Andre (1h 1m 57s):

So we currently own a Hummer, so we sold the lightning. We had picked up a Hummer. We’re fortunate enough to have a Hammerer ev it’s, it’s a little glitchy on the software, on the software side.

Lightning (1h 2m 8s):

That’s funny cuz I was gonna say, give us the Doug Damira take, give us this, the eccentricities.

Holman (1h 2m 13s):

Oh God.

Andre (1h 2m 15s):

It’s, it’s a little glitchy on the software side and it’s keeps fixing itself, right? It’s, it’s acting, you know, like a computer. When you restarted it, it gets better, but it’s, it’s still super comfy. Really, really powerful. One, one negative on the Hummer. It’s a little, it’s a little noisy. You know, the, the roof panels and kind of the, the way they did the roof, it’s a bit noisy.

Lightning (1h 2m 42s):

I thought the same thing when Holman had a, a rivian loaner and that’s the first thing. He picked me up at my house and I thought, wow, this is considerably louder than I expected. Well,

Holman (1h 2m 53s):

But part of it is, it’s an ev so there’s no background noise to cancel. Anyway, I, I get, you know, so you hear

Lightning (1h 2m 58s):

Everything I get what you within 30 seconds, you’re like, well that’s the tire noise. And I’m like, I, I get it. But I figured it would just be, they would’ve figured out a way to damp it. Yeah, but you gotta just, they haven’t

Holman (1h 3m 8s):

But yet to remember too, you know, this is one of the areas where EVs and trucks don’t necessarily make sense.

Lightning (1h 3m 15s):

Okay.

Holman (1h 3m 15s):

It’s, you need low rolling resistance tires for, but with trucks, we like all terrains, we like maximum traction and those two are in direct conflict with each

Lightning (1h 3m 26s):

Other. I mean, I,

Holman (1h 3m 27s):

I’m honestly, so they’re gonna make noise because you wanna have a truck that has some sort of off-road capability.

Lightning (1h 3m 32s):

I think if you went and got a, a brand new GM truck up against a rivian, I’ll bet the interior DB level is somewhat similar.

Holman (1h 3m 42s):

No, I don’t think

Lightning (1h 3m 42s):

So. You don’t think so?

Holman (1h 3m 43s):

No. I think you’re just picking out noises

Lightning (1h 3m 46s):

You think because it was so quiet inside, I’m hearing. Okay. That

Holman (1h 3m 50s):

Could be so, so just going to off DB and interior noise. So back when I had my 20 Wrangler v6, I did sound deadening and I took a bunch of meter numbers with decibel meter. And then I did the sound deadening with our friends of sound skin in my 3 92. And I compared what my Jeep was in 2020 versus what my 23 is. And what was interesting is the 3 92 s just louder everywhere anyway. But most of that’s exhaust. And so what’s interesting is you can quiet down the road a bit, you can quiet down the wind a bit, but there’s certain levels where at certain speeds and not maximum speed, it wasn’t linear, but because of the RPM range of the hemi or certain, you know, gear you were in and what you were cruising at, there’s certain places, I don’t know that I would call it a drone, but there’s a place where the floor of the exhaust is higher than where the wind and road noise is.

Holman (1h 4m 42s):

And so it’s always in the background. And here I was thinking, man, I don’t remember my old jeep being this, this loud on the inside, you

Lightning (1h 4m 50s):

Know where the floor is for my TX on. Yeah,

Holman (1h 4m 53s):

Exactly.

Lightning (1h 4m 54s):

But it’s on.

Holman (1h 4m 55s):

But, but just just goes to show you that, you know, a DB meter, just like a dino is not everything. There’s certain sounds that permeate No. And we’ll take over.

Lightning (1h 5m 2s):

That’s absolutely true. Yeah. Like I, I just, this morning I right around 2,900, 3000 rpm in, in the tx it, you, you wouldn’t want to drive that. You’re at that speed in eighth gear. You’re doing 110 miles an hour, whatever it is. You’re, you’re going too fast. But let’s say you could drive that rpm you wouldn’t want to cuz it’s just loud. Yeah. It’s just, you’d go nuts. So is Andre still on the phone? Did we lose him?

Andre (1h 5m 28s):

No, no. I’m, I’m still here. I I was gonna say the quietest truck we’ve ever tested, we have tested last year or within the last year was the tundra. It was quite amazing. Not in that sport mode, right? Like Sean, you were saying? Yeah, in the, in the sport mode, it like augment sound, but in its normal mode. It was like 61 decibels or something crazy. It was like, it was like a whisper. And I think,

Holman (1h 5m 51s):

And 60 ones really low by the way. Like most trucks are really quiet at around 64 to 65 DB at like 70, 75. When you get down to the low sixties at highway cruising speed, you’re like Rolls-Royce, Bentley territory

Lightning (1h 6m 6s):

O other things that you guys test, you know, you’ve got right now best for 40 k Santa Cruz Ranger Ram 1500. You, you don’t just do, well I guess you don’t just do traditional trucks. You’re doing not just diesel, you’re doing gas, you’re doing, do you, do you dabble in SUVs at all?

Andre (1h 6m 24s):

Well, not personally. Like I, I focus on pickups. Okay. And when I say pickup, as I say, a vehicle with a bed, right. So that’s kind of my area and I’m really happy to be in this area. But we have also have a team of 12 people at csl. Gotcha. So of course, you know Roman and Tommy and Nathan and, and you know, Alex and Case a lot of us are, you know, doing all kinds of vehicles. And so I, I get to sit in a few vehicles, you know, and drive them a little bit. We get some loaders right from the manufacturer. I also test, you know, the big SUVs. I call ’em trucks too, you know, the Tahoes and the Expeditions and the Grand Wagoneers.

Andre (1h 7m 7s):

That’s kind of my area as well.

Lightning (1h 7m 8s):

Does it surprise you that the Tahoe is the number one SUV in America?

Andre (1h 7m 14s):

No, because it has been for like, as long as I can remember. I think GM has just been super successful in that space.

Holman (1h 7m 22s):

Yeah. They’ve just owned that category

Andre (1h 7m 24s):

Because they also have, they have like three brands. You know, they have GMC Yukon, the Tahoe Chevy, and the Cadillacs also. And they have just owned that space for so many years. Yeah. And they, they built the greatest suv.

Lightning (1h 7m 38s):

I mean the five three is a great engine and I think it’s the five three,

Holman (1h 7m 41s):

I mean the whole LS small block is awesome. Yeah. I will say I hate the push button trans on the new ones. I hate it. I like the knob on the Rams and the Grand Wagoneers way

Lightning (1h 7m 52s):

Better. I don’t think I’ve seen Benon one.

Holman (1h 7m 54s):

Yeah, it’s a push button. I hate it. Interesting. I hate push button. Yeah.

Andre (1h 7m 58s):

It, it takes a while. It takes a while to get used to for sure. That that little button up right?

Holman (1h 8m 3s):

I feel like a knob like on the Jeeps and the Rams, like I can feel the de tens and I know what I’m doing without looking. I gotta look at the dash to make sure I’m not pushing the wrong one. Yeah,

Lightning (1h 8m 12s):

I, at first I hated the ram. We have the eco diesel ram at work with the, with the knob.

Holman (1h 8m 16s):

I love the knob. At

Lightning (1h 8m 17s):

First I hated it. And then I got used to it. I drove it to, what did I take it to? Northern California and 16 hour round trip. And by the end of the trip I was used to it. Iactually was flipping it back and forth. And the only thing that I really do not like about those transmissions is that they can, at least this one is that if the door was open,

Holman (1h 8m 37s):

It would slam on the

Lightning (1h 8m 38s):

Brakes. It would slam on the brakes. Lock me out.

Holman (1h 8m 40s):

The taser takes you out of that? Yeah, it can, because a lot of us like to back up our trailers with the door open. And so the, the fix beyond that, like the Jeeps, you just unplug the door cuz you can take ’em off and then just goes away. Yeah.

Lightning (1h 8m 52s):

Well you can’t do that with a Ram truck.

Holman (1h 8m 54s):

Yeah.

Lightning (1h 8m 54s):

Stupid. All right. Million dollar question to close out our interview with Mr. Andre Smirnoff

Holman (1h 8m 58s):

Is the ridge line of truck? Yes.

Lightning (1h 9m 1s):

Oh. Did you see me write that

Holman (1h 9m 2s):

Down right here? No, I have it right here. No way. Look at mine. Look at mine. Look at my note right there. Both wrote it down. Ah,

Lightning (1h 9m 6s):

High five right here.

Holman (1h 9m 7s):

High five. All right. Andre is the ridge line of truck.

Andre (1h 9m 11s):

I say yes.

Holman (1h 9m 12s):

Oh no, no,

Lightning (1h 9m 15s):

You do not.

Holman (1h 9m 16s):

We can’t be friends anymore now, now you’re gonna be more controversial than Johnny Lieberman.

Andre (1h 9m 21s):

Well, so, okay, so I called them pickup trucks, right? So I was, I was talking to somebody last summer and they said, what do you do Andre? And they said, I test trucks. And they’re like, oh, so you’re a semi-truck driver. I’m like, no,

Holman (1h 9m 37s):

No.

Andre (1h 9m 39s):

Although I do have a cdl. I I got my CDL two years ago. That was a whole process. Anyways, for some reason the word truck just means different things for different people. When I say truck, I mean pickup truck for the most, for the most part. That’s kind of what I mean. And the ridge line has a bed, it’s a pickup. And I, I know you guys talk about, you know, which way is your engine oriented and front wheel drive versus rear wheel drive architecture’s? Is

Lightning (1h 10m 10s):

It body on

Holman (1h 10m 11s):

The frame? Listen to our, our list. What makes it front

Lightning (1h 10m 14s):

And our rant. And so I’m stunned that he, he’s defying the truck show podcast

Holman (1h 10m 19s):

Rule. Can you at least meet us half away and just call it sport utility truck? Or

Lightning (1h 10m 23s):

A truck lit,

Holman (1h 10m 24s):

Not a truck. Not you don’t like the

Lightning (1h 10m 25s):

Truck. Which one do we call a truck Lit? What was the truck lit?

Andre (1h 10m 28s):

The, the, the maverick.

Lightning (1h 10m 29s):

The Mavericks of the Truck. Truck He

Holman (1h 10m 31s):

Remembers. We don’t even remember. I don’t remember what I, listen, I’ve gotten five hours of sleep the last three days. Believe

Lightning (1h 10m 36s):

We, we’ve lived, I feel alive and vibrant. And you’re dead

Holman (1h 10m 39s):

Over there. I’m dead. Yeah. Yeah. I had to make our walking song. The new lights in our studio. Do 16 million colors. I have on submarine red right now.

Lightning (1h 10m 46s):

Andre, are you ever in the LA area? Orange County.

Andre (1h 10m 49s):

Once in a while. Yeah.

Holman (1h 10m 50s):

Yeah. Next time you’re down, come join us for a podcast. Join the video.

Lightning (1h 10m 53s):

Pizza and beer in the, in the, in the, in the podcast. Whoa,

Holman (1h 10m 56s):

Whoa, whoa. I just did new carpet. We’re not eating in here yet. Yes,

Lightning (1h 10m 58s):

We are.

Holman (1h 10m 59s):

Kidding me. I’m, this is industrial now, right here. Yeah, it is. I got, I got carpet squares cause I know how you are because Carpet squares and glue if

Lightning (1h 11m 6s):

You’re, if you’re down here cuz they do rides. I mean, literally we’d, we’d love to have you, love to host you in the

Holman (1h 11m 10s):

Studio and anytime

Andre (1h 11m 12s):

I appreciate it. And also I would reverse that and say, as you may know, we have T F O Talking Trucks podcast that we started with almost three years ago during Covid. And I would like to invite you guys on our podcast as well. I don’t know, you know, both of you or one of you or

Holman (1h 11m 29s):

Has to be both of us or me?

Lightning (1h 11m 32s):

Yeah, you don’t want just me. Okay. I’ll give us a bad look. Okay. It has to be, yeah.

Andre (1h 11m 36s):

Both of you. Yep. So Nathan, Alan and I are running our Talking Trucks podcast at tfl, so we would love to have you guys over and maybe once we test drive some more trucks this year, right? In the next few weeks. I think it’ll be a lot of fun.

Holman (1h 11m 52s):

Yeah, let us know we’re we would love to do that.

Lightning (1h 11m 55s):

All right. Well look, you guys, if you go to TFL truck, the Fast Lane, that’s tfl tfl truck.com, they’ve got links to all their socials, all their stories, all their videos. So that’s the, I think the best place to find all of their content. Obviously you can find them on all the podcast platforms, YouTube, et cetera. But if you go to tfl truck.com, that’s kind of the, the home base. Is that correct?

Andre (1h 12m 18s):

Absolutely, yes. Perfect. And also because we have eight channels, there is also all tfl.com, so I really appreciate it guys. I’m really happy that I’m the first guest in the new studio.

Lightning (1h 12m 31s):

Absolutely.

Holman (1h 12m 32s):

I’m, I, we appreciate you and we hope the sound quality is better than we think it is.

Lightning (1h 12m 37s):

I think it’s all right. Okay. I think it’s so, yeah. Good. Well thank you for ionizing the, the new studio here.

Andre (1h 12m 41s):

There you go. Thank you guys.

Holman (1h 12m 43s):

All right, Andre. Talk to you too, buddy. Thank you. Thanks.

Andre (1h 12m 45s):

Okay, bye.

Lightning (1h 12m 46s):

Talk to you. Bye. I feel like I could have talked to Andre for another half an hour.

Holman (1h 12m 50s):

All right, well I think we should continue the, the theme going on there. And let’s talk about some truck news.

6 (1h 12m 57s):

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

3 (1h 13m 7s):

Lifted and everything between what’s happening in the world? Trucks.

Holman (1h 13m 14s):

That was

Lightning (1h 13m 15s):

Pretty good. Oh, that was good Brother Studio. It was no reverb. Yeah, it was tight and bright. All right. Hell, it was great. Yeah.

Holman (1h 13m 20s):

Our friends over at TFL Track. Have you heard of them?

7 (1h 13m 23s):

I don’t watch the news cause I’m a

Lightning (1h 13m 26s):

Kid. No. Okay,

Holman (1h 13m 27s):

That’s funny. They are reporting that the 2024 GM Sierra HD can now be purchased and optioned up to over $100,000. And that will be for the 3,500 HD Denali Ultimate Good looking truck. Lot of cash.

Lightning (1h 13m 48s):

Yeah. Yeah.

3 (1h 13m 50s):

You get nothing.

Lightning (1h 13m 52s):

No, that’s not true. You get a lot. You gotta lie here. Good

3 (1h 13m 55s):

Day sir.

Holman (1h 13m 56s):

Certainly get a lot. Hey lighting, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 13m 58s):

No, wait. Nope.

Holman (1h 13m 60s):

Well let’s stay on the topic of the GMC Sierra hds. The 2020 fours have been seen out with the Z two and a T four X package on the heavy duties. And I think they look pretty cool. It’s why haven’t they done a, you know, Ford’s been doing with the tremor, you’ve got Power Wagons and Rebels

Lightning (1h 14m 19s):

And the Tremor is such a nice package. Oh

Holman (1h 14m 22s):

Dude. Seven three Tremors is where it’s

Lightning (1h 14m 23s):

At. I think that they’ve gotta be selling more tremors than they expected. I, I think.

Holman (1h 14m 27s):

What’d you think? I think for sure. I think for sure. So yeah, I have no idea why GM was so late to the party. I mean, they’ve gotta be looking at the landscape going, man Ford’s selling all these super duties. We gotta do something with our hd. Hey lighting. Did you hear

8 (1h 14m 40s):

What?

Lightning (1h 14m 41s):

No. Nope.

Holman (1h 14m 43s):

Spice shots on the internet show the 2024 Toyota Tacoma and no surprise much like the, the tundra that it shares the platform with. There’s been some revealing of the dashboard on the new truck and it is going to have a digital gauge cluster

Lightning (1h 14m 59s):

On it. Interesting. So do you know how wide it

Holman (1h 15m 3s):

Is? There’s no way to tell. They’re basically have one of those sheets that with the zippered openings on all over the dash. So the spy photographer basically you just see slits and things and Gotcha. Can’t really tell much other than it looks like a typical Toyota Dash layout and digital

Lightning (1h 15m 18s):

Me for not seeing, I did not know that they had interior decorations to cover.

Holman (1h 15m 23s):

Yeah.

Lightning (1h 15m 23s):

Oh yeah. The dashboards

Holman (1h 15m 25s):

And such. Yeah, absolutely. They have that.

Lightning (1h 15m 27s):

Has that always been

Holman (1h 15m 27s):

The case? Yeah. Especially on vehicles that have not been released yet. Huh?

Lightning (1h 15m 31s):

I just thought exteriors never thought about the interiors. Yep.

Holman (1h 15m 35s):

Hmm. I got, you know, a lot of those guys have to park ’em overnight somewhere at a hotel or whatever, so they zip up the covers on it and make sure that prying eyes can’t take a, a, you know, a glance at what the future looks like.

Lightning (1h 15m 47s):

Hmm.

Holman (1h 15m 48s):

Hey lighting, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 15m 51s):

Nope. Some

Holman (1h 15m 52s):

Motor Trend just posted some spy shots from the factory of the 2024 Ford Ranger Raptor.

Lightning (1h 15m 58s):

Oh, tell me more please.

Holman (1h 15m 59s):

I think it’s cool. I mean from somebody who built a ranger back in the day and was wishing Ford would, you know, have a vehicle like this. Obviously we don’t know, you know, ground clearance or wheel travel or some of those numbers, but it sounds like it’ll probably have the three liter EcoBoost V6 that is shared with the Bronco Raptor. Right. Obviously they are platform mates, but it won’t have the, the 30 sevens of the Bronco looks like it’ll be 30 threes on the Ranger, which I wish they went to 30 fives. Like again, I put in the 30 sevens. The Bronco has big old, you know, wheel arches and wheel wells. Ranger doesn’t, but man,

Lightning (1h 16m 33s):

35 would really,

Holman (1h 16m 34s):

Especially since the big Raptor has 30 sevens as an option,

Lightning (1h 16m 37s):

It would make the difference. Yeah.

Holman (1h 16m 38s):

Especially if GM’s chasing you know, them down. But yeah, so it looks like these are photos. This cactus great Ranger Raptor prototype was on the assembly line at Ford’s, Michigan assembly plant. It was leaked on ranger six g.com on their forum. And it looks like the, the overseas ranger raptor quite a bit. It’s amazing that they kept, for the most part the styling over. But yeah, so if it comes out with the EcoBoost three liter, it’ll be a 10 speed automatic transmission. It’s a 284 horsepower and 360 2 in Europe and 3 92, 4 30 in Australia. So it’ll be interesting to see which speck. The the US truck. Yes,

Lightning (1h 17m 16s):

Dude, please. 3 92,

Holman (1h 17m 18s):

Obviously you can expect full time, four-wheel drive, two speed transfer case modes, all that kind of stuff. On this particular truck you get a live axle with a Watts link in the rear. So that’s coils and Fox 2.5 inch live valve internal bypass shocks. And it looks like 17 inch wheels with BFG K two Ultra Terrain tires. It also shows on these photos that the arranger Raptor interior definitely resembles the overseas one. It’s got the code orange accents on it and it’s the Raptor sports seats, 12.4 inch digital cluster and a 12 inch vertically oriented touchscreen. So gonna be gonna be pretty awesome. That’s

Lightning (1h 17m 55s):

Alar, that’s a lot of screen for a little

Holman (1h 17m 56s):

Truck. That’s a lot of screen. So expected somewhere in the mid sixties I would imagine. I mean, those trucks are getting expensive. Dang four’s got some videos of it hucking through the air and it definitely looks cool with the suspension dropped out and everything. But I’m, I’m excited for that one. Like I said, I’ve always wanted Ford to do a factory ranger Raptor here in the US it just, the styling’s good, but it looks under tired to me. It just needs that 35. I think that truck would be so much better on 30 fives.

Lightning (1h 18m 26s):

It’s kind of the way I feel about the, the trx you know, on 30 fives it look great. 30 sevens just made, it did cut down. I feel like I’m about a almost a second slower zero to 60 now.

Holman (1h 18m 38s):

You might be,

Lightning (1h 18m 39s):

But

Holman (1h 18m 40s):

I haven’t done my zero to 60 and the 3 92 with all the a v stuff on it because it was about four and a half before. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s at

Lightning (1h 18m 46s):

Now. It’s still quick and I’m happy with it. I love the look

Holman (1h 18m 49s):

At has 700 horsepower.

Lightning (1h 18m 51s):

Yeah, no, I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. But I, I can feel it, it’s not like it’s not noticeable, but I still, I’m gonna leave it. I’m gonna be happy. The HRES just look so damn good on there.

Holman (1h 19m 0s):

Yeah, they look great. Hey lighting, did you hear?

10 (1h 19m 3s):

Hello?

Lightning (1h 19m 4s):

Nope.

Holman (1h 19m 4s):

The 2024 GMC Hummer EVs U V is now being produced at Factory Zero. So the shorter SUV version of the Hummer truck is in production. So hopefully you’ll be able to pick one up soon if, if that is your, your jam. I actually think the SUV is super burly and sexy. Not that the truck isn’t, but I just feel like the, the design and the styling is a little tidier on the SUV than on the truck. So, Hey lighting, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 19m 45s):

I didn’t have pieces for

Holman (1h 19m 46s):

That.

Lightning (1h 19m 46s):

That was really, and I ended it.

Holman (1h 19m 48s):

Have you ever heard of a bolus?

Lightning (1h 19m 51s):

Bolus

Holman (1h 19m 52s):

Trailers like RVs,

Lightning (1h 19m 53s):

B O L

Holman (1h 19m 54s):

I S B O W L U S?

Lightning (1h 19m 58s):

No. So it’s like negative.

Holman (1h 19m 59s):

They look super retro, like steep and punk. They’re kind of Airstream ish. Okay. Look like an upside down canoe with the front end chopped off.

Lightning (1h 20m 6s):

All

Holman (1h 20m 6s):

Right. And they’re, they’re cool. So they build these super luxurious travel trailers. They’re even more pricey and bespoke

Lightning (1h 20m 13s):

Than, how long has this company been around?

Holman (1h 20m 16s):

I mean, they’re not new. Okay. I don’t know when they started. I’m not super into the RV market. I’m

Lightning (1h 20m 20s):

Going to look it up right now. But

Holman (1h 20m 22s):

Typically their trailers go for $300,000.

Lightning (1h 20m 25s):

Wow.

Holman (1h 20m 26s):

Like super, super

Lightning (1h 20m 28s):

Luxurious. Spell it again from B O W l i s L u s l u S bolus.

Holman (1h 20m 33s):

So now they’re gonna come out with a heritage edition and the Heritage edition is their new entry level product. It’s got this called Mill finish exterior, which is a satin silver finish, so it’s not polished. So less man hours with, you know, like the, the, the other bullish ones are all mere polished and are just freaking amazing. It’s made of riveted aluminum with the MoCo construction. So it’s air, you know, the whole point is like, it’s built like an aircraft, so they’re super strong. And the bolus will say that this travel trailer will only weigh 2,900 pounds in base form. So that means it’s the, what they’re claiming is the world’s lightest full-size travel trailer currently in production. And that means that it can be towed by many of the

Lightning (1h 21m 15s):

Mid-size trucks,

Holman (1h 21m 16s):

Mid-size trucks, SUVs, EVs, it’s aerodynamics. So they’re looking at

Lightning (1h 21m 21s):

That’s smart. That’s smart. Because that’s the future of trucks are going, you know, electric and you gotta get the weight down. I wonder if they’ll go carbon

Holman (1h 21m 33s):

Fibers. Their whole deal is aluminum, mere polished aluminum. That’s that’s their jam.

Lightning (1h 21m 37s):

Yeah. No, not, not, not them. I’m saying in in general.

Holman (1h 21m 39s):

Oh yeah, you’ll see more carbon. This future

Lightning (1h 21m 40s):

Is gonna be lightweighting

Holman (1h 21m 41s):

Things. You’ll, you’ll, you’ll definitely see more carbon fiber. Every heritage edition trailer will come with a two kilowatt battery pack. You can offer a power package for another two kilowatts. There’s gonna be a 2000 watt inverter. Solar power of course Bluetooth power monitoring off-grid air conditioning for up to four hours, which seems like not enough to me. But then there’s a various different states of upgrades. You know, six kilowatt battery air conditioning for eight hours, all that kind of stuff. And it grows from there. But this edition starts at a somewhat palatable $159,000. Oh my god. Somewhat palatable

Lightning (1h 22m 18s):

To

Holman (1h 22m 18s):

Who? Rich people. Yeah. Who need a second home.

Lightning (1h 22m 22s):

I remember when, this is in 2005 ish before the big, before the crash, and I bought a weekend Warrior Supers sea. So it was on a gm, a Chevy 6,500 series at a duramax. It was 34 feet, really measured about 37. And I paid about a buck 59 for that thing brand new. And that

Holman (1h 22m 51s):

Ain’t no bolus

Lightning (1h 22m 52s):

Bay? No, ain’t no bolus. But that thing had an engine and it slept eight,

Holman (1h 22m 56s):

Which seems like seven more than I need

Lightning (1h 22m 59s):

Because

Holman (1h 22m 60s):

When I, when I go out, I just like to be left alone.

Lightning (1h 23m 2s):

Oh no, it was great. We had a lot of good times in that thing before I sold it, before I went bankrupt the first time.

Holman (1h 23m 8s):

Hey lighting, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 23m 11s):

No. No.

Holman (1h 23m 12s):

Okay. That’s easy enough. The 2024 RAM 1200 has been spotted testing in cold weather with the Fiat Toro

Lightning (1h 23m 20s):

Stop.

Holman (1h 23m 20s):

What, what? The smaller ram pickup is a global platform And a

Lightning (1h 23m 24s):

1200. Yep. Not a 15. We

Holman (1h 23m 26s):

Talked about it before. Okay. It’s probably not coming to the us but it’s just interesting to see it out testing. Who knows? I mean with, with the Maverick and the Santa Cruz and you know, the, some of the teasing from Chevy about a one, you know, a a uni body pickup. I’m sure that they could bring it here. Hey, lightning. Did you hear what you talking about was? Hmm? The Ford F-150 Raptor R has been Dino and looks like about a 17% loss from the drivetrain.

Lightning (1h 23m 60s):

Okay.

Holman (1h 24m 1s):

So the late model restoration channel on YouTube took delivery of a brand new 2023 F-150 Raptor R and they, Dino tested it right away. They did a series of runs. So it started out in completely stock formed as a reminder, the 5.2 liter V8 pumps out 700 horsepower and 650 pound feet of torque. And the result showed a peak output of 580 at 6,300 RPM and 533 pound feet of torque at 4,400 RPM at the wheels. And so that’s about 17%. So I think that’s probably pretty accurate. It’s not huge for a truck on big offroad tires or things like that. I would actually would’ve expected it to be a little closer to 20%.

Holman (1h 24m 43s):

I think a really efficient cars are what, probably nine, 10, something like that.

Lightning (1h 24m 46s):

I’d love to see that test happen again with some smaller wheels and tires to see what, how it

Holman (1h 24m 52s):

Performed to just to see what the wheels and tires did to the overall. Yeah, yeah. So the second run, they put in a performance air filter and actually got nine horsepower and 1.5 pound feet of torric out of it. But

Lightning (1h 25m 3s):

That’s bs I saw that video and they had the hood up,

Holman (1h 25m 7s):

So Oh, so it could have been drawing from Of course. Interesting. That was what’s

Lightning (1h 25m 10s):

The

Holman (1h 25m 10s):

Freaking hood dude? Because the heat’s going in

Lightning (1h 25m 12s):

Getting, come on. Seriously.

Holman (1h 25m 13s):

All right. That’s fair. You’re

Lightning (1h 25m 16s):

Not, you can’t drive with the hood up. So stop testing with the, with your Yeah, that’s fair. You know, every, every Dino run where I see the hood up bogus and that’s like 99% of em. They go, whoa, we don’t have the fans on the front end to, to load it with air then don’t do it. Stop it. If you can afford a $30,000 Dino freaking buy big fans. Not the little carpet fans. I know I sound like Gail Banks. Have you seen any his videos lately, but seriously, like as soon as having breakfast with Gail. But the problem is as soon as he enlightened me and I saw that, I’m like, that’s obvious. Well now

Holman (1h 25m 48s):

You’re,

Lightning (1h 25m 48s):

Why are you testing in a way that you cannot possibly drive with? There’s so much heat under that freaking

Holman (1h 25m 53s):

Hood and now you’re picking up on it whenever you see

Lightning (1h 25m 55s):

It. Yeah. I I can’t ignore it now. It’s like head

Holman (1h 25m 57s):

Lighting head You move on please. Yeah, right. Lighting. Have you heard?

Lightning (1h 26m 2s):

No,

Holman (1h 26m 2s):

You have heard, heard this because Andre just told us about it. So the, the Meteor project over at Star Motors. Oh

Lightning (1h 26m 9s):

Yeah.

Holman (1h 26m 10s):

Could that be? Yes I have. Yeah. Raptor R and TX fighter could it, could it, could it? What do you think?

Lightning (1h 26m 16s):

I’d be very interested to learn more about it if that were the case. I’ve been waiting for GM to launch some return fire and just nothing. Keep

Holman (1h 26m 23s):

Waiting.

Lightning (1h 26m 24s):

It’s just crickets like that. I found a cricket sound effect

Holman (1h 26m 31s):

On here. You and your new toys are gonna be annoying me and the rest of our audience for quite a bit. Yes. Hey, check this out.

Lightning (1h 26m 38s):

No, I didn’t hear it. No.

11 (1h 26m 39s):

God please. No, no.

Holman (1h 26m 41s):

Okay. The F-150 Lightning, there’s a, a shop apparently that put Raptor suspension on one

Lightning (1h 26m 48s):

Already. Interesting

Holman (1h 26m 49s):

CoLab between Leaf Johnson specialty vehicles and tsw off-road and basically uses F-150 raptor parts and completely custom hardware. So the battery powered pickup can now huck like the, like it’s lighter sibling.

Lightning (1h 27m 5s):

Interesting that you say that because in the carpool lane yesterday past me is a, was a Ford F-150 lightning with 30 fives. Now I don’t know that for sure, but they were definitely not 30 threes and I doubt that guy, it didn’t look lifted so it couldn’t have put 30 sevens on it. Will it fit 30 fives cuz it didn’t. Yeah,

Holman (1h 27m 23s):

I, we, we did, did did the guy did a lift with 30 fives.

Lightning (1h 27m 26s):

Yeah. Okay, well this was what had 30 fives on it and I thought well interesting. Hmm hmm already seeing those.

Holman (1h 27m 32s):

So if you want to check it out, go to go to the drive.com. They’ve got a article from Caleb Jacobs on it and he kind goes through what it took to put Raptor like suspension on it. Obviously there’s a lot of custom work because the lightning is independent rear suspension, so it wasn’t a direct swap over there. But it’s amazing how similar the front of the, the lightning is to the standard F-150. I someone would say identical from my experience of putting a off the shelf F-150 kit on the front. So pretty, pretty cool. Nice to see people out, you know, having fun of those trucks and seeing what they’re capable of. Hey lighting, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 28m 5s):

No. Nope.

Holman (1h 28m 7s):

So our friends over at Nissan are doing something super crazy. Nissan is taking their new aria, which is their electric suv and they revealed,

Lightning (1h 28m 20s):

Did they name it after the hotel in Vegas or did the Vegas hotel name it after the truck? It

Holman (1h 28m 24s):

Neither. So they’ve announced that they’re gonna make a 17,000 mile track from the North Pole to the South Pole that starts later this year and it’s awesome. It’s basically the Aria crossover fitting 39 inch BFGoodrich tires.

Lightning (1h 28m 41s):

What? Not possible. Hold on a second. I think

Holman (1h 28m 44s):

Looks rad. Looks like a moon buggy.

Lightning (1h 28m 46s):

Wow. That is awesome.

Holman (1h 28m 48s):

So the biggest upgrades are the tires.

Lightning (1h 28m 50s):

How did they pull

Holman (1h 28m 51s):

’em off? Okay, well let me get to the story. Okay, lightning. Hurry

Lightning (1h 28m 54s):

Up. Get to it.

Holman (1h 28m 55s):

They widen and remember this is an all ev they widen the fenders to accommodate the, the tires and they installed a, a roof mounted utility unit that has a deployable drone so it can follow inside Nissan integrated and espresso machine to make the mornings in the wilderness much more manageable maybe, I guess they, I guess they know their, their audience there, but yeah, so it’s pretty cool to see what they’re gonna do. And I think that’s their point of, that’s the new suv,

Lightning (1h 29m 20s):

That’s the concept that needs to go to market.

Holman (1h 29m 22s):

So if the automaker did not make any changes to the battery or electric motors and it’s gonna be featuring the dual motor setup with Nissan’s e force all-wheel drive control system and it makes 389 horsepower and 443 pound feet of torque. And they collaborated with the reason it has such big tires. Arctic trucks, if you, you’ll know in Europe is the place to go when it comes to expedition vehicles. They’re the ones who have all those trucks like, you know, tundras and things like that on big old, you know, 44 inch tires that go over like the CVAs and stuff. But they also have a Nissan Navarra that is an Arctic trucks at 32 package, which is akin to our A v package over here.

Holman (1h 30m 2s):

So it’s not Nissan’s first, you know, trip around the world with their friends over at Arctic trucks. So,

Lightning (1h 30m 8s):

So who’s behind the wheel on that trip?

Holman (1h 30m 11s):

So this article says that it’ll tackle some of the world’s most extreme environments going through deep snow, ice fields, sand dunes, and it’ll tow a portable renewable energy unit. And the prototype features the packable lightweight wind turbine and solar panels to help recharge the EV’s 90 kilowatt hour battery pack. And

Lightning (1h 30m 28s):

Who’s driving

Holman (1h 30m 29s):

That big? So it looks like a husband and wife Chris and Julie Ramsey who’ve spent four years preparing for this trip, which is scheduled to begin in March will be the, the pilots. So you can search online for Nissan Aria, Arctic trip or North Pole pull the pole drive I guess is what they’re calling it. Go find it there and and check it out. I think it’ll be pretty cool. We’ll watch their progress from the comfort of our new studio.

Lightning (1h 30m 54s):

I think we should interview them from the road.

Holman (1h 30m 57s):

Okay. They’re gonna be in Europe and who knows if they have cell phones and the wilderness of course,

Lightning (1h 31m 3s):

Wherever they’re cell phones we just wait till they pass through a city.

Holman (1h 31m 5s):

Okay. Timing perfectly. They’ve shooted cities, no cities for

Lightning (1h 31m 9s):

That. Oh really? Yeah.

Holman (1h 31m 11s):

And last but not least, lighting, did you hear?

Lightning (1h 31m 13s):

No,

Holman (1h 31m 14s):

I’m only bringing this up because I thought it was cool. There’s the new Volkswagen ID buzz, which is the sort of, I guess a descendant of the, the bus.

Lightning (1h 31m 26s):

Okay.

Holman (1h 31m 27s):

It’s,

Lightning (1h 31m 28s):

I didn’t even realize that. All the, all the, so it’s ID four.

Holman (1h 31m 32s):

Id ID is their electric line, which at some point there’ll be all electric and there’ll be no more id from what I hear. But anyway, this is their van. It was modeled after the bus. It’s got some cute future retro dining cues, but it doesn’t look like a bus. It’s got a fast rake to the windshield and stuff like that. Like they could have done it better I think. So there

Lightning (1h 31m 49s):

Was all about arrow on this thing. Yeah,

Holman (1h 31m 51s):

It’s always all about arrow. Especially on these vehicles. But what’s cool is that’s

Lightning (1h 31m 54s):

A shirt all about Arrow.

Holman (1h 31m 55s):

Write it down all about Arrow.

Lightning (1h 31m 56s):

I don’t all about really a shirt. No, it’s not. Don’t write it down. I don’t like, like it Yeah, I liked it for a a 10 seconds. Not nah.

Holman (1h 32m 2s):

Anyway, APIN camper from Germany debuted a full camper setup on the inside. Kinda like the old West Folley and things like that with the pop roof and everything on it with you. This

Lightning (1h 32m 14s):

All cool with the lame curtains that go around it. Lemme see here.

Holman (1h 32m 16s):

Oh, we’re gonna put those lame curtains in our studio here.

Lightning (1h 32m 19s):

That is not attractive.

Holman (1h 32m 21s):

Nah, it’s cool. No,

Lightning (1h 32m 22s):

It’s, it’s fun and functional and I’d It’s funky. It is funky. Yeah. It’s cool.

Holman (1h 32m 26s):

You’re,

Lightning (1h 32m 27s):

Why are they all doing fake grills on the back? They just have to give it like a nod to a grill, you know, it’s like, oh Vince in. You don’t need vents.

Holman (1h 32m 34s):

Yeah, you do. Why don’t you need Vince?

Lightning (1h 32m 36s):

I, I realize they’re trying to cool the batteries. But you

Holman (1h 32m 38s):

Still have heat exchangers. Yeah, you’re not breathing intake but the they still have to shed heat.

Lightning (1h 32m 44s):

Well then have a real grill. Don’t just have a, a makeshift like you’reY. Yes. You’re

Holman (1h 32m 50s):

Fall. You’re right there. You’re falling apart. Right in right in front of my eyes. I am. All right, well let’s, let’s get out of the news before we can show some more deficiencies in your automotive knowledge. Let’s do some inbox.

2 (1h 33m 2s):

You email? Yeah, I email Do it. We email. That’s right. Everybody email type it up. You email proofread. I email send it. We email. Click it everybody.

Lightning (1h 33m 18s):

All right. This one’s from hp.

Holman (1h 33m 21s):

Yeah, that just came off the printer. So we changed the toner.

Lightning (1h 33m 23s):

This one is from Laser Jet P 2015 series and it says 1200 D PPI available print quality up to 27. No, that’s

Holman (1h 33m 32s):

Does the printers in the corner and it just printed that out. Oh, that’s weird. I’m trying to turn the lights up on the studio so you can read. Cuz I know your vision’s not good. And we have the submarine lights on right now.

Lightning (1h 33m 41s):

I should be able to read. We’ll give

Holman (1h 33m 42s):

It a shot. Okay, we’ll I’ll give you,

Lightning (1h 33m 44s):

What was the trashcan? You don’t have a trashcan right there. Do did I make it? Here we go. Oh, there you go. All right, turn the lights up. There you go. Lights are going up. Here we go. I can

Holman (1h 33m 52s):

Read now. You should be able to read. There you go. I can read, read that one. All

Lightning (1h 33m 54s):

Right. This one is from Why does the, why do Lights Keep going up and you’re not even touching your, your app

Holman (1h 34m 2s):

Over there because there’s, I had to upgrade our wifi router but I didn’t install it yet. So there’s some latency with the wifi. A lot of latency. So they’re basically just checking in as the signal gets out there. Just

Lightning (1h 34m 11s):

Feel like it’s voice activated. Hold lemme try something.

Holman (1h 34m 15s):

No, they’re

Lightning (1h 34m 15s):

Not, it’s not on Clapper

Holman (1h 34m 16s):

Email. There. Remember

Lightning (1h 34m 18s):

That Clapp on Clapper?

Holman (1h 34m 19s):

The clapper email.

Lightning (1h 34m 21s):

O so I can clap yours? Yeah, you can. Hi.

Holman (1h 34m 27s):

Oh, it works. Oh, he’s just messing with me.

Lightning (1h 34m 32s):

Lar says hi, Hallman n Jabob Le Hey Sean. Any idea where I can find O V R on the newsstand in who? Canada? I guess I haven’t stood in front of the magazine rack in the grocery store in quite some time.

Holman (1h 34m 46s):

Yes. Either as a lot of other people. So I don’t know when we’re gonna be on the new stand in Canada, but you can get a Canadian subscription. It’ll cost a little bit more because of shipping. For those of you in the US we just found, found out we’re gonna be in all 440 Barns and Noble stores and we’re also gonna be available in Books a million. And we’re in negotiations right now to get into Cabela’s and Bass Pro shops. All right. Got this one end of four wheeler, it says from Ronnie Koontz. Hey guys, so glad you’re continuing on with the podcast. I’ve been a listener since early on and especially love the Deep dives. I have also subscribed to his Speed school. I could see Lightning chewing his tongue in two while recording what I think was the Corey Willis episode. The guest literally sprinkled. I seen all over that interview.

Holman (1h 35m 26s):

Yeah,

Lightning (1h 35m 27s):

I, I chatted with him before and after and he couldn’t shake it.

Holman (1h 35m 32s):

He, he couldn’t seen it heartbroken over the end of the print version of a four-wheeler. I’ve been a loyal subscriber for longer than most of your listeners have been alive. It has always held a place of honor in my reading room bathroom next to the American Rifleman and Sport Aviation. I’m gonna subscribe to the new magazine that Sean has invested in. That would be O V R Outdoor Vehicle Recreation. And lastly, a listener called on the hotline not too long ago, wanting y’all to have an off-road suspension guy on, I think he was building a Square Body. Drew Burrows. I know Drew of Goat Built and make an excellent guest. He develops and sells parts and kits for the do-it-yourselfer that cannot be beat. Always answers questions. Personally, I’ve built two of his IEX kits, the buggy in a Box from Ian’s show. Please keep up the great shows and remember everything matters.

Lightning (1h 36m 14s):

Thanks

12 (1h 36m 15s):

For watching. And remember everything Matters.

Holman (1h 36m 19s):

Oh, this is a perfect one for you to read

Lightning (1h 36m 21s):

By, by the way. Did you say Goat built? Yes. Goat Built, yes. Okay. Hey, this is the subject line from Trevor. So I have an auto shipment of my whole husk cilium fiber, and it must have shown up when I was out of town and someone stole it off my porch. That sucks. I wound up running out for a few days. What a bummer, man. Just a reminder to take your daily fiber and keep those healthy logs coming.

Holman (1h 36m 45s):

So Trevor Nemro is now doing PSAs. Was he drunk when he

Lightning (1h 36m 49s):

Wrote that? I don’t know. I don’t wanna know about your stool at all.

Holman (1h 36m 54s):

Mike Boyle says, well thank

Lightning (1h 36m 56s):

You Trevor for writing idea

Holman (1h 36m 58s):

For a Better Pot. Shed name Studio 3 92.

Lightning (1h 37m 1s):

Oh damn.

Holman (1h 37m 3s):

I like that. But then if I ever change it to something, I don’t wanna have to change studio name, so that’s cool.

Lightning (1h 37m 7s):

Sorry Mike. No, I like Studio 3 92. That’s cool. I don’t even own one. I like that. Nah. Four Wheeler Magazine. Subject line from Gregory VanderPol. Hey Holman. Enlightening. Sorry you got it backwards. I was wondering if the Fort Wheel magazine had been canceled permanently. Yep. And if you have any suggestions about another off-road print magazine. Yeah, thank you. And five stars.

Holman (1h 37m 31s):

You’ll wanna head over to O V r mag.com, which is the the new magazine Outdoor Vehicle Recreation. And I am a minority owner in that, so I’m going to be a show for it. Pleasure review please. Whatever you do, subscribe to O v r mag.com. You can get it in digital, you get it in print, and you’ll find our podcast on the website. This is a interesting one. One, did you hear about your revival license plates? Lightning?

Lightning (1h 37m 60s):

I’ve been seeing a lot of them, but if there’s news about the revival digital plates, I have not seen it.

Holman (1h 38m 5s):

You have not seen the fact that the white hats were able to hack into them.

Lightning (1h 38m 11s):

Really?

Holman (1h 38m 13s):

All right, so this one comes from our Buddy Ray, part of a larger article on most of the auto manufacturers being hacked by white hats. Quote unquote, A small number of regions allowed digital license plates. The hackers were able to get into the digital plate, cellar reviver to manage all vehicles, report vehicles stolen, find all owner records and locate all vehicles.

Lightning (1h 38m 31s):

Oh my God.

Holman (1h 38m 32s):

Reviver noted that the record showed this vulnerability had not been tapped and they put a patch in within about 24 hours from what I read. But some of the issues were they were able to theoretically eliminate all of the registration from every commercial vehicle and a fleet report the fleet stolen, change information on it, put bogus plates on it, all sorts of stuff. I’m gonna stick with my metal plate. Lightning. What do you have to say for yourself?

13 (1h 39m 2s):

I still like the revival plate.

Holman (1h 39m 5s):

You can’t change your voice and like you can’t. And then it’s like, not you.

13 (1h 39m 11s):

I still think it is the future of license plate technology.

Holman (1h 39m 16s):

What’s wrong with you? Oh, this will be

Lightning (1h 39m 20s):

You. You try it, you, you defend it. Go.

13 (1h 39m 22s):

They’re coming for you. They’re starting with the license plates first it will be license plates, then it will be monkeys, then it will be robots, then it will be robot monkeys and then you’ll be dead. But I will be in charge of all the licenses and registrations for vehicles and we’ll command traffic patterns at will. This is not true. You’re not smart enough to be there. Later. You’ll just be hacked. I will do the hacking.

Holman (1h 39m 51s):

All right. Are we done playing with the buttons on the new board? Now the hell’s wrong with you. You need to read this one right here. Sleep.

Lightning (1h 39m 59s):

Oh dear God, this is so long.

Holman (1h 40m 1s):

Here we go. But it’s about something you care

Lightning (1h 40m 3s):

About. I love it. I’m gonna, I’m into it. I’m into it. I’m gonna stand for this one standing up. Wow. Lightning socket set. That’s coming to me from Chad, like out of Fowler, Michigan. Boss Hoss in Lightning bug. So I realized I missed an episode and went back to December 26th. Lightning bug. Dude, you can stop with the lightning bug stuff. Lightning asked for recommendations on socket sets and I’d like to recommend these from Milwaukee. Oh, he’s got a long link and it looks like Home Depot, Milwaukee three eights and quarter inch drive, SAE metric, ratchets, sock socket, blah blah blah. Okay. So there isn’t any extra fluff in these sets that you don’t need.

Lightning (1h 40m 43s):

But what is really cool is the case that they come in because it can be attached to a Packout floor plate and you can mount it just about anywhere. In addition, the system works great because you can buy other boxes, storage and tool sets that can link up to this same set so that it all locks into place and stays put. The best part is that this set does not rattle when running on dirt roads in the trucks because each piece is securely in place. The set that I link to is for a quarter inch N three eighth drive sets, but Milwaukee is releasing half inch drive in the same size case very soon. So I don’t work on vehicles daily, but I am an engineer in the automotive technology field and I promise they will take an absolute beating and then turn around and ask for some more.

Lightning (1h 41m 28s):

In addition, these sockets are also squared at the drive. If so, if you set ’em down under a vehicle or whatever, they do not roll away. That’s that’s smart. I like, I like that idea. We gotta get Chad on the horn. He’s in in the automotive tech field. All I know what that means. Well, we need to find

Holman (1h 41m 45s):

Out, Chad, email us back, let us know what that means. So

Lightning (1h 41m 48s):

Hopefully this helps. I’ve owned a snap on Mad Co proto and Cornwall and this set is by far my favorite. Good luck in your search. So he’s on all the good ones. I I will take your point there. We need a tool talk section on the podcast. Maybe old boss man, Sean could work on that for us. I would argue that anyone else who uses a truck uses tools in some way. I

Holman (1h 42m 11s):

Have reached out to both the Walt in Milwaukee in cannot get to the right people at either company. Interesting. So I’ve, it’s, I would love to have a tool company on, I don’t care who, yellow, red, blue,

Lightning (1h 42m 20s):

Whatever. I didn’t find a woman at GearWrench.

Holman (1h 42m 22s):

I, let’s have her on. Okay.

Lightning (1h 42m 24s):

I, I wish Chuck famous the best. Really looking forward to seeing what comes of it, Chad. And we really appreciate you writing in and suggesting that Milwaukee said, I am going to click the link and check it

Holman (1h 42m 35s):

Out. Alright. One last one here from Jason Gainer says, Jay and Sean get the damn shirt side up soon. This is absolutely the only podcast I look forward to every week. And while I’m surprised that my favorite podcast is from California, you guys are absolutely awesome. Sean J two. If you end up in North Carolina, we need your Dr. Pepper sauce for the brisket. All right, enough with the fluffing. So my last email was about my 19 L five p. I had to hook the pedal monster back up. No biggie, but I checked the battery connections and other things. The big ass filter was off the tube and other things were outta place. Is this the case of crappy dealer service? Seems like it would make sense to remove the intake to change the P zero 300 or whatever the injector harness code is. It’s all married back up. But the only reason I’m driving the truck is cuz our mini is blowing oil everywhere.

Holman (1h 43m 16s):

Thanks Jay.

Lightning (1h 43m 18s):

Why? Because he’s driving a mini so I get to blame cuz I had a mini

Holman (1h 43m 21s):

I maybe, I guess so. Huh? He says the last episode with Arod power stroke was great. Please find that version of dmax expertise. By the way, I had so many people reach out who love that, that episode Cummins guys and Dmax guys asking if we could find the equivalent in their space. So, okay. We heard you guys, I mean, I’m talking 20 people, that’s a pretty good haul for one guest or one topic. So we’ll, we’ll definitely keep our eyes open and if you guys know of anybody that’s on a YouTube channel or similar to what, what he did on the Powerstroke for the Cummins or Jerax folks, let us know. We’ll, we’ll be happy to reach out and book

Lightning (1h 43m 54s):

’em. One of the guys that I’ve been meaning to get on, and I just, I don’t know why I would talk to him every couple of months, is Andrew Stouffer, who owns SNS Diesel. They specialize in Bosch high pressure fuel pumps and injectors. And he is the guy that is, he’s also an expert in programming motech systems, et cetera. So Andrew is, he used to work

Holman (1h 44m 15s):

At Bosch. Okay. So he knows.

Lightning (1h 44m 16s):

Give us some great insight.

Holman (1h 44m 17s):

Yeah. Anyway, says the show’s great. Thank you for both the time and effort. Just note, it does not fall in deaf ears. The show’s entertaining, informative, and educational, kind of the same thing. But Gail, appearances provide credibility. Three things that typically do not be, have no credibility. I know, right? Three things that typically do not belong in the same sentence. Oh, and Sean, tonight’s bourbon was an EC 18, a hard define one here. Pretty stoked to find locally retail. That’s the Elijah Craig 18 year. So he says, yeah, buddy Finnegan’s version. Yeah, buddy. And he says, thank you both. Jason Gainer. And going back to his question about dealership, you know, I, I wonder, I’ll tell you, I go to a, obviously a Stant dealership because of my Jeep and they respect and sell aftermarket parts.

Holman (1h 45m 1s):

And, and I’ve never had an issue. GM dealers seem to be a lot more averse, too aftermarket parts, especially on the diesel trucks. So I don’t know if it was a sloppy tech or somebody kind of shoving it back at you because you didn’t use all GM parts or something. But that sucks.

Lightning (1h 45m 16s):

It does suck. And I, I can see them. So, so here’s, if, if you look at your stock parts, many times they’re designed with the build in mind, meaning they’ve got special tabs and alignment rings and all these things. So the people who are assembling them can put them together like Legos. And so you got a guy who gets used to coupling the intake tube with the small hose coupler, and then he knows where the clamp goes and he connects it to the turbo and it just lines up because he’s done a hundred of them. And then all of a sudden he gets one that he’s never dealt with before. And he is like, he puts the clamp in the wrong spot. Yeah. And it doesn’t clamp right?

Lightning (1h 45m 57s):

Yep. And so the tube and the, and the coupler pop apart and all of a sudden you got a Boose leak and now it’s running rich and all this blah, blah, blah. So

Holman (1h 46m 4s):

I, I, here’s what I would say, I don’t think it’s a dealership specific issue. What I think it is, is sloppiness of the particular tech. Cuz I think it can happen anywhere. I’m one of those guys that takes my car to the dealership because I don’t have time. Not that I don’t enjoy or know how to do oil change, but there’s nothing wrong with the dealer. There’s nothing wrong with the independent guy. There’s nothing wrong with having somebody work on your cars. But if you’re gonna hand your car off to somebody, it’s up to you to double check their work and make sure the vehicle’s right.

Lightning (1h 46m 29s):

I’ve had the same thing happen at Independence that I had glowing reviews from and I thought, this is the guy, not so much. So I just think you have to find the mechanic that you trust, you know, ask your friends. Who do you go to? Joe Bob. Tim Tina. Who’s the best one? And Bill. Bill. Bill.

Holman (1h 46m 48s):

Yeah. Bill’s always. He’s always, Bill’s always great. Yeah. Yeah. And Dick?

Lightning (1h 46m 52s):

Bill and Dick?

Holman (1h 46m 53s):

Yeah.

Lightning (1h 46m 55s):

Bill and Dick

Holman (1h 46m 57s):

Or just Dick?

Lightning (1h 46m 58s):

6 5 7 2 0 5 61 0 5 6 5 7 2 0 5. 61 0 5. It’s five star hotline. Leave us a message. The

2 (1h 47m 5s):

Truck show. The truck show. The truck show.

Holman (1h 47m 10s):

Whoa. And you can say, look, new studio and I flubbed, but we’re gonna roll right through it and you can hit us up on our socials at LBC Lighting at Shopee Holman or at Truck Show podcast. Of course. Please leave us a message we haven’t heard from you guys in a while. 6 5 7 2 0 5 61 5. That is the five star hotline. And please follow us on Instagram and follow us on Facebook again at Truck Show Podcast. We’d love to see you guys. Let me interact with you guys. Did

Lightning (1h 47m 36s):

You give our our email addresses

Holman (1h 47m 38s):

Trucks gmail.com, holman truck show podcast.com, and lightning@truckshowpodcast.com. Ed, I had a listener actually use my new email this week.

Lightning (1h 47m 48s):

I did too. But I think it’s confusing. It is what? It’s, I think that

Holman (1h 47m 53s):

We can’t get rid of truck show podcast gmail.com because then people will, they’ll just be a black hole.

Lightning (1h 47m 59s):

No, I think we have to consider it. I do. I think we have to consider,

Holman (1h 48m 2s):

I don’t need anymore emails right now. No, I have my personal one. I have my user Adventure one. I have the Truck Show podcast one. I have the other truck show podcast.

Lightning (1h 48m 10s):

I get it. But they need to be able to find us.

Holman (1h 48m 11s):

They can find us. Tructure show podcast gmail.com. All right, listen. Truck show podcast@gmail.com is the main one. If you wanna reach us individually, it’s Holman or lighting@truckshowpodcast.com. That’s it. Simple unlike the way I explained it. All right.

Lightning (1h 48m 28s):

You know what’s simple? What? You know what’s really

Holman (1h 48m 30s):

Simple? Buying a Nissan truck.

Lightning (1h 48m 31s):

Yeah. God dammit.

Holman (1h 48m 32s):

See, that’s twice today. Yes. See,

Lightning (1h 48m 36s):

I thought I’m just, you know, I’m setting you up.

Holman (1h 48m 37s):

Yeah. T-Ball. I

Lightning (1h 48m 38s):

Think we’ve spent too much time together. I think that’s the problem is seriously, I’m like, I’m hungry, and you go, we’re Zel. I’m like, yes. How’d

Holman (1h 48m 44s):

You know? Yeah. It’s it’s weird finishing our other sentences. Bad wives wonder. Anyway. Yeah. All right, listen, if you’ve got a need for a pickup truck,

13 (1h 48m 53s):

Stop, stop, stop. What is wrong with you? Alright, I gonna do the read anyway. Nissan trucks are awesome. Robot,

Holman (1h 49m 1s):

Would you stop nissan usa.com. Go get yourself a Titan. A Titan xd. I’ve been driving a Titan XD for literally a month and Nissan’s like drive for another month. You seem to be really using it and enjoying it. And you know what I am. It’s been my round town cards. It’s been great. And it gets better fuel economy than that other thing I have in my driveway. So I’ve, I’ve incredibly appreciative of Nissan for, for helping build the studio with that titan. And thank you for letting me have it. Zero gravity seats, fender audio system, platinum reserve, the thing’s a beast four-wheel drive. It’s, I actually had a lady walk up next to me and she was looking, you don’t realize an next tee’s way bigger than a regular Titan. Like it’s, it’s big. And she’s like, what is that?

Holman (1h 49m 42s):

And I’m like, it’s a Nissan Titan. She goes, it’s the biggest titan I’ve ever seen. And I’m like, you’re right. It is. No,

Lightning (1h 49m 46s):

She did. And she did. She said that. Yes,

Holman (1h 49m 50s):

Yes. She was impressed by its girth

Lightning (1h 49m 52s):

And

Holman (1h 49m 53s):

Overall size and its capability. And so am I

Lightning (1h 49m 56s):

I think you’re just,

Holman (1h 49m 59s):

No, literally that literally

Lightning (1h 50m 1s):

Happened. No, it did,

Holman (1h 50m 1s):

It did. Enjoying it. That ain’t true. You would enjoy it also. That’s

Lightning (1h 50m 5s):

Not true. No.

Holman (1h 50m 6s):

So I have it for a few more weeks. I’m gonna strike, continue enjoying it. And

Lightning (1h 50m 11s):

Fuel prices are still really hefty, right? They’re still hurt in your pocketbook. Do you ever see pocketbook? I always say wallet. I feel like my, you never say pocketbook. My father, my grandfather said pocketbook and like, God, that’s like an old timey thing, isn’t it? Yeah. Pocketbook. Okay. If fuel prices are still kicking your ass, one way to alleviate some of that ass kicking is by helping your truck breathe easier.

Holman (1h 50m 34s):

You know, what’s kicking my ass? Me? No. What? Building a fricking studio. Next

Lightning (1h 50m 38s):

Weeks. Listen, I’m gonna let you

Holman (1h 50m 40s):

Get to bed homing. So let

Lightning (1h 50m 41s):

Me finish the banks thing and you get to bed. All right. Okay. So listen, breathe easy. Just, just remember that. Get your engine to breathe easy. That is the only way that you can improve fuel economy. Start with a banks Ram Air intake. Go to banks power.com, type in your year, make and model to find yours.

Holman (1h 50m 60s):

And of course, we gotta thank our friends over at Full Moon Digital Marketing because those guys have been helping us out with our social media marketing. If you’ve got a small company, a big company, or you need some help, go ahead and give Derek at Full Moon a call. No matter the challenge, scale or

Lightning (1h 51m 13s):

Platform? No. Why? Why not Charles? Or why not Lauren? Because I don’t

Holman (1h 51m 16s):

Wanna be Derek. I know Derek. That’s all I can tell you. I see Derek’s been helping us. I’m gonna, I’m gonna pimp out Derek.

Lightning (1h 51m 21s):

I think Charles the one that’s propping up Derek.

Holman (1h 51m 22s):

Well that’s fine. Go find Charles if you think. Do you, is there a Charles there?

Lightning (1h 51m 26s):

Yeah, there’s also a Jason. All

Holman (1h 51m 28s):

Right. Yeah. Well listen, how

Lightning (1h 51m 30s):

Do you not know the full team yet?

Holman (1h 51m 31s):

I, because I’m only dealing with Derek, I’m just saying Go. Listen. Go to Full Moon Digital. If you need help with social, you need help with some ad campaigns, you need help to get your company out there, they’ll take care of you. But make sure you tell ’em the Truck Show podcast sent you.

Lightning (1h 51m 43s):

Then they just won’t pick up the phone.

Holman (1h 51m 45s):

Tell ’em Sean Holman sent you.

Lightning (1h 51m 47s):

Maybe that’s smarter. The Truck Show podcast is a production of Truck Famous llc. This podcast was created by Sean Homan and Jay Tillis with production Elements by DJ Omar Kahn. 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.

14 (1h 52m 17s):

Check 1, 1, 2, check 1, 1, 2. Check, check, check, check. Is this on? Tell me. Tell me when We are. We’re rolling. And we will go ahead and start. Microphone check. One, two. One, two, two. Micronesia. Micronesia. Fend. Fend. One, two. 1, 2, 1, 2. How are the levels? Are we getting good levels? Just just tell me when we’re ready.

14 (1h 53m 1s):

Okay. Tell me that’s a good apple.

15 (1h 53m 5s):

Ah,

14 (1h 53m 10s):

Nothing like an apple. And coffee. Just tell me when we’re rolling. We are. Okay. Why didn’t anyone say anything? Hmm. Just tell me when we’re rolling. We were rolling this whole time. Oh crap.