We Rank Every New Mini Truck! | Ep. 347

0:00Dave Roberts here. There you are surrounded by fans, sharing wings, sharing drinks, high-fiving random strangers. Everybody remembers the game. Nobody remembers the guy coughing behind you until a few days later. At 2am, you wake up with a fever and your throats on fire. Now what? Urgent care, clothes, ER, slam, telehealth, maybe, but the pharmacy's clothes. You needed a medical emergency kit. These aren't first aid kits. They contain essential prescriptions used for over 30 common conditions. Sinus and ear infection, UTIs, stomach bug, travelers diarrhea, and more. On hand before you need them. Use your doctor-developed guidebook to select the right prescription or call their telemedicine doctor standing by. It's like an urgent care and drug store at home. When you're sick, traveling, or stranded, you'll wish you ordered a medical emergency kit. Order online in minutes and it's shipped to your door and say $45 with my promo code at urgentcarekit.com slash blue. That's promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue.

1:01Shop the Sherwin Williams Labor Day Sale and get 35% off paints and stains, August 28th through September 9th. Whether you're refreshing your interior or exterior, we've got the colors to bring your vision to life. And with delivery, getting everything to your door is easier than ever. Shop online to have it delivered or visit your neighborhood Sherwin Williams store. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only, some exclusions apply, see store for details, delivery available on qualifying orders. Case, I think we're in the midst of a revolution. Yes, this is now the age of the small truck. Yes. We've been talking about these trucks a whole lot recently because there's been ton of news with it. There's some more news actually on the upside. There are some less expensive options. Exactly. Lord pricing of trucks you'll actually be able to buy soon, not stuff that's coming in five years theoretically. Yeah. And we're going to go through the small trucks that have

2:06been either released or announced and ranked them. Exactly. This is a small pickup truck revolution because there's so many options coming very, very soon. And some vehicles like the Maverick and the Santa Cruz Hyundai that you could buy right now. Yeah. Right now. But before we get to the small truck revolution, let's go to the other side of this spectrum and let's talk about big trucks for just a second. Yeah, we could kick things off a little bit with a particularly handsome ram heavy duty. Oh man. Chassis cab truck. Yes. So this is just hot off the presses, dude. Right, this week, 2027 ram heavy duty chassis cab. This includes 3500, 4500, 5500, basically all the way to this medium duty type chassis. And there's a new night package and look at this handsome truck. Yeah. Normally in appearance package on a chassis cab truck that realistically not that many people buy wouldn't really be newsworth covering. But this is such a good looking truck. Figured it was at

3:11least worth pulling up the image of it because I liked that a lot. Yeah. So I'm sorry if you're just listening to us. You cannot see the image. But if you're watching us on TFL talk channel on YouTube or if you're here live with us, dude, on Patreon, you could see it that it's the grill is blacked out. The toe hooks are blacked out. The lights are LEDs in this in this particular image. The wheels are blacked out. The 5500 ram chassis is got a wide stance. Yeah. Right, because it has a wide axle and really great turning radius. Wow. Yeah. And the flatbed on the back of this truck is color matched to the wheels, which also looks pretty pretty awesome. I'm not necessarily a huge fully blacked out truck guy. I mean, especially at this point, this day and age black wheels have been done on so many different vehicles from the factory for such a long time. You could buy a Subaru cross truck from 15 years ago that has black wheels from the factory. Exactly. It's not that spectacular.

4:14And actually, I think a lot of things are kind of swinging the other way where polished wheels are coming back and they're really good. And I'm a fan of that. Yeah. Me too. Fan. But this truck looks fantastic. So maybe maybe it's because it's TFL colors. I'm not sure. It's black and red. Remember, we had a black and red duly commons at the office. Oh, yes. Like five years ago. Yes. For a big competition that we had. That was a great look. Yeah. And it looked similar to this one. Very, very hot because they had night packages on a lot of their 1500 trucks and 20, you know, heavy duty trucks. But now it's coming for chassis cabs. So you can get a good looking work truck. And also it's between like this package is a bit between like $1,700 and $2,100. So it's not super high priced. And also the only thing I would remove from that truck is that bulging hood that does nothing. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It doesn't look horrible,

5:15but functionally all it does is reduce visibility, which is not great. Yeah. But I like this trim package on this truck. It looks really good. It kind of reminds me of back in the day. I feel like RAM was one of the first companies to go really crazy with black and out the grill and a lot of the trim on their trucks. I remember back in the day, some of the fourth gen trucks, you could get all blacked out, which I think looked really good even though again, I like colors on a pickup truck. Most of trucks that you see in a lot are some kind of grayscale white silver or black. But when these rams came out back in the day that were all blacked out in the headlights in the grill, same thing, tow hooks, wheels and all that, they looked pretty sinister. Yeah. And I think RAM always nails their styling. I mean, it's really hard to find a RAM pickup truck that looks not so good in my opinion. Yeah. So it's kind of hard to find. This reminds me of that in a way, which I think

6:15is pretty cool. That's really cool. All right. So should we switch gears and go to the small pickup trucks now? Yeah. And I think before we start ranking trucks, we got to talk about what's happening right now with Ford Maverick pricing because it's effectively all good things. They've reduced the price of the truck and not by a tiny amount. They haven't reduced the price by $200 where realistically you won't even notice. It's a pretty significant price reduction on some models on the engine. Some are more popular models. Yeah. Like on the entry level logo, they've dropped the price by about $3800. Yeah, which is a big chunk of money. It's like 10%, almost a 10% reduction. So right now, if you go to like a Ford site, like Ford.com, they have 2026 configurator. We're talking about 2027 models here, which pricing configurator is not live yet, but this is kind of breaking news right now. And our office manager, Zach, actually wrote a story

7:16about this on tfultrack.com as well. But here's kind of the basics. The XL Turbo and the XL hybrid Maverick for 2027, they're kind of stay where they are, right? Yeah. They're just under $30,000. The Turbo is supposed to be like just around 29 grand and the base hybrid is about 30 grand. And we've talked about this before because we always reminisce about the good old days of 2021 and 2022 when the Maverick first came out. And you could get a base model under $20,000 MSRP. Yeah. So we're always reminisce about that. But those days are gone. So we're kind of focused on what's happening right now. So that doesn't change much. But what does change is their favorite, like one of their most most popular models like the Trammer, the Lobo, and also the Lariat. Those prices change a bit. Yeah. And to your point, I can't give them too much credit because

8:18when the Maverick launched, it was very, very affordable, especially for the utility of it and what it was. Base price starting under $20,000 MSRP was awesome. And then over time, that price didn't really creep up. And it kind of shot up over the years to the point where it was high 20s. Yeah. The cheapest model that you could get. So I think that the Maverick did get too expensive. Even though it's a vehicle that sells really well. So clearly, people still like to truck enough to buy it. But yeah, for that reason, I think people were deserving of some less expensive versions of this vehicle. And I'm especially excited about where they've done some of these price cuts. Because as much as it's nice to see a very base version of the truck on the less expensive side, the really cool models are the Lobo and the Trammer vehicles like that. Yeah. And those are some of the ones that have gotten significant price cuts. Well, dude, for 2026, so right now, a Trammer starts at $42,985. And it will be for 2027 at $39,000.

9:25So that's a big price reduction for the Trammer, which actually sits a little bit higher. Right? It's got a suspension lift. It's got a cool look in my opinion. It's got some orange accents. And it kind of has the best of most worlds, right? Because it's got a decent bed. It will tow up to about 4,000 pounds in some configurations. And it's got a little bit like it has the limited-slip rear differential. And it's pretty capable. Which isn't a pretty, it's a pretty effective high-tech unit. It's not just like a basic old school. It's not a G80. Yes, not a G80. It's not a basic old school clutch-type limited slip. It is a torque vectoring. Yeah, it does use clutches, but it's pretty clever in how it works. So it kind of actively sends power where it needs to go. And it actually works really well. So a Trammer like this is noticeably, I would say significantly better off-road in rugged terrain when it's picking up tires because

10:28this is not a vehicle that has a ton of articulation. And it will pick up tires if you're on some pretty rugged, rugged out terrain. That differential makes a pretty significant difference in getting this vehicle through all of that. So the Trammer is not just an appearance package. It does actually add noticeable capability to the Maverick. So I really like the Trammer, but the Lobo is cool because the Lobo uses that same rear differential to make the Lobo more fun to drive. So the Lobo, even though it's kind of a performance model, and it's lowered in a look-sportier, it doesn't make any extra power. But what it does do is use that power in a way to make the truck more fun because it can overpower the outside rear tire. It can help you slide the back end of the truck a little bit, which makes it fun to drive. So I really like that all-wheel drive system, and you can get now a Lobo much more affordably than you used to be able to do because with destination, currently for 2020-66s, the starting prices is around 37-800, but going forward, it's going to be

11:35about 34,000. So the MSRP before destination is a little over 32 grand for an entry-level Lobo. And to me, that's really a lot of vehicle for the money because it's fun to drive. I think it's good looking. And it is a very useful vehicle, like you said. I mean, the bed, the telling capabilities, it being a four-door... Yeah, and it's pretty roomy inside. And reasonably efficient. In fact, we'll talk about Ranger just a little bit in one minute. But in fact, if you didn't need to tow a lot, like 4,000 pounds is not a heck of a lot. You could move a side-by-side, maybe you could move a couple of jet skis, you could move a small camping, like a teardrop trailer. But if you don't need to tow more than 4,000 pounds, this is basically the current car, because Ford doesn't actually build any four-door cars right now, other than the Machi Mustang, right? And then, of course, they have the two-door Mustangs, the traditional Ford Mustangs.

12:41But this is like the family car, which is a pickup truck. Yeah, which makes a lot of sense, because that's kind of where people are at these days they want a pickup truck. This is obviously a very practical truck. That's why so many people buy it. So it's cool to see the prices dropping on them. I really like the low-bow. Not just anecdotally, because they don't break down truck sales to individual trims. So we don't really have that information. I'm sure somebody of Ford definitely does. But I don't see a lot of low-bows out there on the road. I've really seen very few since that vehicle came out. And likewise, at the dealership, like we earlier today, we looked at the stock at Brighton Ford, who we work with. And of course, you could order a low-bow through them, but it's not a vehicle that we generally see in stock. They don't have any in stock right now. And they didn't have any tremors in stock right now either. And that's especially interesting to me. Because it's Colorado. It is. Obviously, we're in rugged country, so you would think a tremor would be a really popular model here. The low-bow still works great in the snow. You would have

13:46absolutely no problem driving that truck through four seasons, because like we said, it's a really good, all-wheel drive system with that rear diff. But I would think you would see more tremors out here. Exactly. And maybe that's why they're lowering some prices, because they're attractive models, but maybe they just outpriced themselves up to now. So maybe that's why they're re-adjusting these prices, but keeping the base vehicles about where they are. And maybe the majority of folks that are shopping for Mavericks are just a bit more practical, pragmatic, and they're not shopping for enthusiast, if you want to call them, that version of the Maverick, which is a bummer, because especially the low-bow, I'd love to see more of those on the road. I think it's a great looking truck, and it's a lot of fun to drive. Exactly. And plus a couple of episodes ago, you and I discussed when I went to Michigan and drove the tuned version by Ford Performance Garage. That had 300 horsepower. Yeah. So that kind of turns a Maverick low-bow. It doesn't have to be a

14:51low-bow. You could add that tune to other two-liter versions. Yeah. Two other trends. Yeah. But three-an-a-horsepower in the low-bow would make it a lot more fun, because I went on the launch event for the low-bow. And it was fun to drive with that all-wheel drive system. You can get the back end to step out, but you have to really try to make it do that. It doesn't want to, because yeah, it doesn't have tons of power. That's why it's around 250. Yeah. But now at 50 more horsepower, now you're talking, you're adding a significant amount of horsepower with that Ford approved and warranted package. Yeah. That's a healthy bump up. Yes. That's kind of where it's at. Of course, you have to pay for it. Yeah. It doesn't turn it into a sports car, but three-an-a-horse power in a Maverick low-bow would be a lot of fun. Yeah. So I think that's all good stuff. And that's kind of why I started this episode by saying this could be a small truck revolution, because they're getting everywhere. I mean, they have performance versions, offered versions, different, you know,

15:52more affordable choices. So that's really great. Dave Roberts here. There you are, surrounded by fans, sharing wings, sharing drinks, high-fiving random strangers. Everybody remembers the game. Nobody remembers the guy coughing behind you until a few days later. At 2 a.m., you wake up with the fever and your throats on fire. Now what? Urgent care, close. ER, slam, telehealth, maybe, but the pharmacy's close. You needed a medical emergency kit. These aren't first aid kits. They contain essential prescriptions used for over 30 common conditions, sinus and ear infection, UTIs, stomach bug, travelers diarrhea, and more. On hand before you need them. Use your doctor develop guidebook to select the right prescription or call their telemedicine doctor standing by. It's like an urgent care and drugstore at home. When you're sick, traveling, or stranded, you'll wish you ordered a medical emergency kit. Order online in minutes and it's shipped to your door and say $45 with my promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue. That's promo code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue.

16:58Imagine your friend tells you she's taking an innocent family trip to Greenville, South Carolina. We'll call her Emma. The trip sounds great to you. Hiking at Jones Gap, dinner at Topsoil, a room at the best hotel in town. Harmless, right? Here's the thing. Emma and her family never return from Greenville. They disappear. You search for answers, but nothing adds up. Emma had a great life back home. You guys were best friends. What happened? Well, the truth is, once Emma realized she could have access to Michelin recognized restaurants, nature, local shops, and performing arts all in one place. Everywhere else started to seem a little... Emma's vacation is a cautionary tale. If you're coming this way, don't forget to tell your friends and neighbors goodbye. Visit Greenville, South Carolina, but you may never want to leave. Learn more at visitcreenvillesc.com. I want to make a comment because Ranger sales for Ford have been declining

18:01in recent months. I'm wondering if the Maverick is to blame. It could be because the Maverick is getting pretty popular. But if you need to tow over four grand, Ranger is the way to do it. It tows up to about 7,500 pounds. Very usable. We used to own a Ranger, a 2019 model. Dude, we thought some heavy stuff with it. Yeah. So if you have some of those, what, for a lot of people are fringe use cases, because most people don't buy a mid-sized truck for its towing capability. Right. They don't. Some people, probably quite a few people, buy a mid-sized truck because you can get an off-road trim of it that's going to be very capable. It's going to be on the more lightweight and narrow side of things, which is going to make it not only better off-road, but also just more fun off-road. My personally, my absolute favorite trucks to take off road, to take on any trail would be mid-sized trucks. Yeah, because they're smaller than full-size, obviously. And also

19:04garageable. Like, my garage doesn't accept an F-150. I cannot stuff an F-150 in my garage, unfortunately. So there are situations in which a mid-sized truck is going to be a better option for you if you're towing on occasion and you need that extra towing capability compared to a Maverick. Or if you want to take your truck off-road, obviously a Maverick without a low range, not really going to, even the tremors, not going to be a serious off-road vehicle, you could take it on some mild trails and have fun with it. But for most people, the Maverick is going to make more sense unless you're doing a couple of those things that a mid-sized would be better at. The Maverick for 95% of people that are mostly just daily driving their truck is going to be better. So to your point, I wouldn't be surprised if it is pulling sales away from the Ranger. And remember when a viewer, an friend come by a ranch with their Maverick tremor, and he was talking about, he bought a Maverick even a tremor version because he was loading a dirt bike into it.

20:05And the load height on the Maverick is quite a bit lower than even the Ranger like an off-road model. So, yeah, those are useful vehicles for many use cases. And so, yeah. So, oh, and I wanted to make a correction from last week. Cole, can you go once again to Ranger configurator on their fourth page? If you go back to Ranger page, we talked about the Ranger Raptor. I think all of our's favorite pickup truck because it has so many, so many cool things it can do. It can go fast in the desert, it can crawl with triple lockers. We talked about how pricing on the Raptor Ranger was consistent. But they did increase it a bit. So, if you click select, they're called with destination, which I think is about 1895, which seems reasonable these days compared to F-150s, which is 2895.

21:09But look at this, it's about $59,000 now. So, 595, it used to be like 57, so they did Cree Pop and Price just a bit. Is that 59,560 that we're seeing, including destination? Yes, because we clicked on it. But you see the shelter green color adds 395. So, if you get a basic color, like a shadow black, the price comes down a little bit, so it's closer to 59 grand, 59165. So, that's including destination. So, still, it's under 60k, but that's still a lot of truck in my opinion for the money. I agree, especially if you compare it to a Tacoma, either a Trailhunter or a TRT Pro. Yeah, that's way less money. Yeah, which, what, before destination, I believe, start at 63 and 64? Yeah, and with destination, they're like closer to 65 and 66.

22:12So, that's almost 10% more than this. This is a truck with more horsepower, more torque, two more cylinders, another turbo, two more gears in the transmission. And the front locker. And the front locker. Boom! Take that to your hand. I think, yeah, this, this Ranger Raptor, I agree. It's not that $60,000 effectively base price. And also, they're hard to find too. Yeah, it's not that that's a small amount of money for a mid-sized truck. But it's a lot of vehicle for the money. A lot of truck. Yeah. Because as much as I love the Raptor R and I love the TRX, for the money, I don't like them almost twice as much as I like this Ranger Raptor. I agree. Plus, you could park this almost, well, it is a wide vehicle, the Ranger Raptor, but you could park it way easier and take it on way more trails and narrow trails. That Ranger Raptor just feels so nimble. To me, the Ranger Raptor feels more like it has not that it feels like a rally car per se, but it has maybe more of that kind of

23:19characteristic to it than any other off-road truck that I've driven from the factory. This truck is a lot of fun to rally around at speed. They did that when we went on the launch for this truck. They had us rallying around a little course. And it's a fun truck to do some high speed off roading. Super cool. Yeah. All right. So that's done. So those are the new items. But now, dude, we need to rank the Mini Trucks. Yeah. So let's talk about what we have on our list. It's some trucks you could go out and buy right now. And then it's some trucks that are either announced as officially coming or trucks that could theoretically be coming. So of all the potential small trucks, smaller than a mid-size that we could have in the next couple of years, this is going to be our list of rankings. So we have the Ford Maverick, we have the Hyundai Santa Cruz, we have the Tello Electric Truck, the Fathom Electric Truck from Ford. Yes. We have the Slate Electric Truck,

24:24the Ram Ram Page, and also the recent bit of news that we really enjoyed seeing the Helix or Hilux champ from Toyota. Yes. Let's start with a Hilux. I'm going to call it Hilux. Yeah. Hilux champ because this is, I think this is one of our most popular stories. Oh, well, it is our most popular story for this year. And so why? Why is this our most popular story? I think this is part of what why we're talking about this. Yeah. Well, it makes sense that it's popular because obviously Toyota is not only a big company in general, but the Tacoma is by far the best-selling mid-size truck on the market. So since Ford has been doing really well with the Maverick, we've all been wondering when Toyota is going to get into that game. Yes. And they surprise this. Yeah, this is kind of the first indication that they're looking into it. This is not an official

25:28production vehicle here for the US. No. This is a prototype that they kidded out and I mean, kidded out for the Overland Expo. Yes. So tell me some of what's going on with this particular truck because what we're looking at with this Hilux champ is not what you can go buy in other markets. No, because it does exist in some Asian countries and some different regions. The Hilux is really a commercial vehicle. I'm sorry. Hilux champ. Hilux is kind of like a Tacoma-sized vehicle that's available in Australia and many other markets. Hilux champ is a commercial vehicle that you could buy with the flatbed. It's very affordable. It usually has a tiny or small turbo diesel engine in many countries like Thailand and others. And it's just kind of a useful, affordable vehicle that you could use for work. But it's very simple. We're showing an image of a work commercial truck from overseas. But if you look at the rear bulkhead of the cab, you see it's just metal. So basically

26:33you're sitting in a metal box with no carpeting on the on the back of the cab or I think even the ceiling of the cab. So it's a very, very simply built affordable vehicle. But what we saw in Leveland, Colorado, when they brought a concept Hilux champ for us to look at, this is a Frankenstein. I'm going to call it a Frankenstein because it was full drive. It was lifted. It had a different engine and it had a really interesting interior actually. Yeah. So those are some of the big things. Four-wheel drive for one, which is really cool. And especially here in the States, that's pretty appealing for most people. Again, it's not. It's another thing that we don't really get a breakdown from the manufacturers with. But most of the trucks that are being sold here in the States are four-wheel drive. Majority people are opting for four-wheel drive trucks. And in fact, when you and I go shopping in quotes, when we visit our local dealerships, it's almost impossible to find a two-wheel drive

27:37full-size truck. Granted, especially in Colorado, if you go to Florida, you'll be able to find a two-wheel drive truck out there. But even in Florida, a lot of the trucks being sold new are four-wheel drive. So I think it's cool that they went four-wheel drive on this Hilux champ, this little mini truck. The other interesting thing they did because other than heavy-duty trucks here in the States, diesels are not really super popular. So what they did is they put the very familiar four-liter V6 in this Hilux champ. I couldn't believe it when they told us this. Which a four-liter. Their engineers were there, by the way. For a truck of the size, that's a lot of motor. It's a lot of motor. By the way, this wasn't like a Hilux champ that somebody imported for the show, you know, and drove from Mexico or something. Yeah, no, Toyota. This was in Toyota booth, Toyota Chief Engineer of Hilux from Japan was present at this show as well as some of the people from the headquarters, North American headquarters, Toyota, were at this show. So this was not a,

28:41this was an official thing. It's a concept that they're trying to show people to see what their reaction is. But also they said, basically think of it as an off-highway vehicle. So I want to discuss this as well. But it was lifted. They told us the front end, a lot of the suspension components come from a third gen Tacoma. Which is interesting. Which is kind of interesting. And it's kind of like I want to say like a Lego kit. Because it's like parts been parts been like they plopped a four liter in there. I don't know how it fit, but apparently it fits. They plopped the suspension and some of the front four-wheel drive components from an older Tacoma. They plopped a six-speed automatic in there. I'm not sure from which vehicle. Probably a third gen Tacoma. Yeah. It had a rear locking differential, dude. So they picked all these parts. I mean, this is the biggest car company in the world, right? So they picked all these different parts, winches. They

29:45put a tent on top of it. I mean, they did all of it. The entire thing was done up and wrapped and painted. So it's kind of a Frankenstein. But they talked about it being off highway. Yeah. Which is interesting. And I realized that crash testing and certifying for the road, any new vehicle vehicle that you're bringing overseas. And then you know, there's not a guaranteed amount of sales with a truck like this. Because it's one of those things where everybody says they want a vehicle like this here in the States, right? Us included. We're guilty of this as well. They'll say that we want it, but at the end of the day, are we actually going to go out and buy a vehicle like that? That's the real question. Because you look at things like, you know, we car enthusiasts, we love station wagons, right? Car enthusiasts absolutely love performance station wagons. Do they actually buy them? No. Not necessarily. So some people do. They are out there. But is it going to be something that they can make a business case for? So I realize that it would

30:50be a big investment to make this a street legal vehicle that's crash tested and ready to go drive off the deal a lot and take it all in the highway. But at the same time, Toyota is a lot of small auto manufacturer. Well, we just mentioned that this is the largest, currently manufacturer. I mean, others are trying to eat away at Toyota's presence and their influence, especially some Chinese automakers, right? And many others. But they are the biggest manufacturer in the world. So they've got money. And I think if you're going to do it, don't have asset, whole asset, actually make the truck street legal, bring it here in the States and make it something that you can drive and actually use. Because I don't think people want an overly expensive, worse side by side. People want something they can take out on the road and actually use. And I realize that Toyota as a company is

31:53very conservative. They don't go absolutely wild and do crazy supercharge V8s and long travel suspension trucks and have removable tops on their modern vehicles and all this kind of stuff. So I get that they are very conservative in general. But I think if you bring this truck to the States, you got to commit. Yeah. And here's another thing. We talked about the Maverick a lot, right? Ford, I think also it was a risky move, right? Nobody was selling a compact pickup truck in the United States. Ford said, you know what? We'll get to try it. They tried it with a low price, right? They entered the market with a very, very affordable price in the beginning. And it worked. It's a wild success. I think they sold 165,000 of them last year, right? So I mean, like you said, they're conservative, but overseas, the high-lux champ commercial vehicle, if you convert their

32:54currency to US dollars, it's between like 12 and 15,000 dollars in US dollars. If they can keep it like a 20 grand to start and actually make a business case for it and bring it on the highway. So you could actually drive it. I don't like the idea of think of it as an off-highway vehicle because that's not very useful. Yeah. So if they can do all that thing, I think they will see that there could be a really good reception for that. So you got to go all the way and do it. So as far as rankings are concerned, for me, this is high up on the list, but it's not my number one. Okay, so let's put it on the side. Okay, the high-lux champ. Let's talk about all the others, we mentioned, because those are coming. I mean, they're really serious vehicles and some of them already exist, obviously. Jonathan has a comment here in our live chat about, thank you for being here. I would be surprised if it actually comes to the states. We're talking about the high-lux champ.

33:58Yeah. So I think we're excited by it. We really want to see it. But like Jonathan is saying, it may never come, actually. Yeah, and I agree. Again, Toyota is very conservative and bringing a vehicle like this to the US is a bold move. It's a bold step because it's kind of unproven for them. So yeah, I agree. I will be a little surprised if they bring it here, release it, and it's a street driveable thing, but we could still hope. And Robert Avery is also here. He's just says a great show. Thank you, Robert, for being here as well. So where should we go? Should we? Well, I know what my number one is. Okay, all right, go ahead. So for me, the Maverick is still number one. And I think it's going to be hard for other manufacturers to top the Maverick. Because if if you think about it, they're almost like the Kleenex brand or Band-Aid brand of the truck. They're

34:59very established already. So I think it's going to be difficult for another truck to come in and dethrone the Maverick. And also looking at this entire list of vehicles either existing or the promises that they're making of what these trucks will be. For me, Maverick, Lobo with that Ford Performance Tune would be the thing on this list that I would most like to own. Yes, so let's just talk about the Santa Cruz for a second. The Santa Cruz has a 2027 model. So before maybe maybe a year ago, there was like a rumor floating around that Hyundai, Hyundai is discontinuing it. But we've actually we had a long-term test vehicle. Our colleague Nathan purchased the Santa Cruz. And he had it for a couple of years at least. And it's a cool vehicle because it drives so simply. I mean, it feels like a SUV or a crossover. It's very comfortable. But it's not

36:03very trucky. Actually, we told with it as well. But it just doesn't I guess feel very trucky. It just looks very sleek and it doesn't have a very big bed. It feels like a Tucson with a bed. Exactly. Where's mostly what it is? Where's the Maverick looks and feels like a ground up pickup truck? Because it doesn't quite look like anything else. Even though it's based on a Bronco sport or an escape from before, it doesn't look like an escape and it doesn't look like a Bronco sport. It has its own character and its own look. Yeah. And that personality does go a long way. I also think that with truck buyers, Hyundai has an uphill battle. They have to fight in terms of branding where Ford doesn't because obviously Ford sells a lot of trucks. So you know, that that is an element, I think, for a lot of buyers. But even just objectively speaking, branding aside, the Maverick feels more

37:04trucky. And a lot of people that are shopping for truck, they want that. So that does kind of go a long way. But all of that aside, what on this list do you know what your number one is? I think I agree with you on the Maverick from this list. I wanted to talk about the rampage because ram did say that compact ram rampage truck is coming for the United States market. It's probably still a year and a half to something like that away. So it's not going to happen very, very soon. But it is coming. And the rampage almost feels a little bit more center cruisers to me versus Maverick competitor. So of course, I wish ram all the best. All the best success. That's very nice. Yeah. Thanks, Ram. But I think they might struggle just a little bit. Can you show rampage at least a picture call? Yeah. So it's, well, it doesn't look like any other ram vehicle.

38:11That's for sure. But it does look a little bit more car-ish rather than truck-ish. Would you agree? Yeah. And it kind of makes sense because you remember the rampage back in the day. Well, it was a car. It was a car. Yes. With a bed. So anyways, but I think it has a good, so the power of really Ford and Toyota and Ram is that they're established brands with huge dealership networks. If you're a slate, for example, or tello, or even Hyundai for it. I mean, Hyundai has a huge dealership network as well, but it's not quite as entrenched and American as, of course, Ford and Ram. And to some extent, of course, Toyota. But that can also be a benefit because slate is starting from scratch. And, you know, clean slate from a clean slate.

39:11So they don't carry with them any previous reputation, which on one side is not going to help them, but it also doesn't hurt them. And I think that's one of the tough things, again, for Hyundai. Truck people know what a Hyundai is. They just don't think of it as a truck brand. So slate starting from scratch is both good and bad. And it's an American company too. Perception. Yeah. So slate, their development offices are in Michigan. They're going to build this in Indiana. I forget. Sorry, I'm blanking out, but this is an American company, right? Two door only. Two door only. So I think slate, kind of like rampage, right? Slate. I'm still unsure. They have humongous financial backing, right? So they do have some money, maybe not unlimited, of course, money, but they do have significant investment in the slate company. But once again, and they want to go direct, right? Direct sales. And

40:14they want to use lots of partners. They haven't named, I guess we don't know yet exactly, like for example, in Denver area, how many shops or service areas are going to be available for the slate, but they're looking at using a lot of certified mechanic places. Yeah, it seems that they've already selected a network of shops that can help you outfit your truck if you don't want to DIY it. But the DIY aspect of this truck is objectively one of the coolest things about it, because that just doesn't really exist in other vehicles in this day and age for the most part. So that's really cool. And for me, the slate would be number two on my list. Okay. Just because it is so unique of an idea, I think it's a good looking vehicle, I like the modularity of it. My biggest issue with it is not even that it's electric, that doesn't really bother me. What I wish is that even if it costs another $5,000, I wish you could get a second electric motor

41:18for the front axle. To have an old drive capability. That would be huge. So for me, it's less than two. So a couple of reasons. First two doors, I think really like I was saying before, I think a mini truck is now the car of the United States. Yeah. Because a lot of brands. The family car. Well, yeah. Well, that's not completely true because the Civic and the Corolla and the Camry and even the Elantra. Those are very popular vehicles nonetheless. Yeah. And sit-ins are having a bit of a resurgence. But for a lot of people, a small pickup truck either compact or mid-size, or even full-size pickups are family vehicles. That's how they're being used for most people. So yeah, there's an element of that going on. I'm going to rank slate a little bit lower than two for you, number two plays. Because I'm going to put, for me, looking at this list when

42:21we're talking about the upcoming mini trucks, I'm going to put, I'm going to put fathom as number two. Really? Yes. Interesting. You've been the one guy. Apparently. Interesting. Here's why. So fathom. So fathom is hard to talk about still because we know pricing, it has an attractive opening price of $28,350, which is actually almost identical to what the Maverick starts at. But I've been following the backstory of this. So this is a brand new team, small team within a large, huge legacy company. I appreciate that. I appreciate that Ford is doing something a little bit differently rather than doing the same thing over and over again. They hired some very smart people in the electric world. A lot of them came from Tesla.

43:23Which is arguably the best technology for electric vehicles. And it's four doors. Actually, we don't know if it's all well-drive or not, but they're testing it in the snow in this particular image. So I think it will have a twin dual motor versions of it. So it's also Ford. Ford knows trucks. And especially they have all the experience from the Maverick. Right. So they have the Maverick experience. They have all the money. I mean, they did lose a bunch of money from their previous endeavors, but they still have, you know, some investment. And they know trucks. So for those reasons, I think I want to rank fathom near the top. I can't dig that, but I am a little concerned, I think, about how the fathom is going to

44:23look. And, oh, to carish. In an ideal world, look shouldn't be the most important thing about a vehicle. And they're not the most important thing about a vehicle. But if you're asking people to spend their hard earned money on a machine, you got to not only just have a utilitarian usable machine, but something that ideally you also like and looks are part of that. And it seems like they are definitely very unconcerned about anything traditional, about sticking with any pre-existing formula. So the trucks are still pretty heavily camouflaged. The general shape that we are seeing right now doesn't look overly controversial or strange. But I think one of the nice things about the Maverick is that it is a little bit boxier. Yes. And I think fathom's biggest problem would be the Maverick. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Definitely. Yeah, because you're going to have to justify why somebody would buy the fathom instead. Exactly. I guess you would look at it as because a hybrid Maverick, as we owned one in 2025 model year. Yeah. Dude, Mary, our colleague,

45:30she drove to home and back, she had a big commute, long commute. She got 46 MPG in the Maverick hybrid all will drive. Yeah. That's whatever fathom is, it has to have a much more compelling case for Mary or people like that to be able to switch them into an all-electric vehicle. Exactly. So be interesting to see. We'll have to wait and see. For me, the fathom's not even my number three. Yeah. The potential. What's your number three? Highlux champ. If they make it with a caveat of it being street legal and ideally for a wild drive, if that is a plausible scenario, then that would be my number three. I didn't put it in number two because I was thinking about the highlux champ. I didn't put it in number two or number one because it's still unknown. You know what I'm saying? It's really hard. Even though we saw it, I was there. I sat in it. Actually,

46:34I fit quite nicely in the highlux champ. That's pretty impressive. Yeah. I'm kind of a three. Yeah, almost. So I'm kind of a big dude and I fit in the highlux champ like a champ. Pretty good. Yeah. Where the champ name comes from. Exactly. So I didn't put a highlux champ super high or anywhere on my list because it's still kind of an unknown quantity. So are you not even ranking the highlux on your personal list? You got a rank. You got to give it something. Well, dude, then it's going to be two. Really? Yeah. I mean, if highlux champ is real, it's a two-door. So I'm not going to put it as number one. Like, if it was a crew cab, little highlux champ, I would put it at number zero. I mean, it could actually challenge Maverick for supremacy. Yeah. But it being two-door only and unknown quantity. When I think it's fair to rank it lower based on

47:40it being an unknown quantity, I'm ranking it based on my hopes for it. Okay. As a vehicle itself. Yeah. Yes. I understand. I understand. So I mean, the highlux champ is between like two and three. So I'm going to put it at two. If I follow kind of like what you're doing. Gosh. Okay. So rampage. Where are you on rampage? Or where are you on Tello? And where are you on the Santa Cruz? Because we still have rampage Tello. I think they call it the MT-1, which is their first vehicle, which is right there. And then the Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz has been struggling. Like, we know it's a known quantity. And the Santa Cruz sales have been kind of declining a bit over the years. And I think they're going to simplify. It sounds like they're, I think, removing at least one trim level for 2027. But mainly speaking, the Santa Cruz continues on 2027.

48:50Rampage. Yeah. Rampage. I still, you know, what we know about it so far and what we're seeing. I don't think I would be ranking it similarly to the Santa Cruz, which is lower down on my list. So for me, if anything, my number four would probably be the Tello. Now, the Tello is not necessarily a truck that speaks to me emotionally or anything. But okay, let's look at the Tello really quick. It is a different form factor. There's a use case in which it could be really interesting. And I could see a situation in which maybe a few years down the line and ends up being a pretty affordable quirky kind of interesting vehicle. You know, when they've existed for a little bit and on the use market, you could pick one up. Hopefully, you know, a little bit on the cheap side. It's, it's an interesting vehicle. Yes. So in a way, the Tello MT1, and we're looking at the

49:55prototype version that Nathan was testing and driving a little bit ago. It almost has the same character to me as the Favom. You know what I'm saying? Because it's a new, look at this. It's the Tello is about the same length as a mini Cooper 2-door. So if you're coming at it from a city perspective, like a bigger city, like Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, you name your big city, Atlanta, Chicago, whatever. I think to have a very compact sized vehicle with a bed where you could maybe throw a ton of cover on it or maybe open the midgate. The Tello has a midgate. Yeah. Okay. We know this for sure. So if you can have a vehicle like that, that's all electric. Yes, I wouldn't recommend taking the Favom or the Tello cross country on a road trip right now, if they were on sale right now. But for city use case, I think the Tello is pretty,

50:57pretty attractive concept. Yeah. But if you go to TelloTrucks.com, I forget their exact website, they have a configurator call on TelloSight and you could configure it. I think the base price for Tello single motor, TooblDrive is like 42,000, 41,520 dollars for a smaller battery, TooblDrive, real-wheel drive Tello. Yeah, which is not obnoxious, but it's more than I would personally want to spend on a thing like that. So again, if after several years of some of these existing and being on the use market, this could be just a really interesting useful quirky kind of vehicle to have. So I can see the value in it. But I think Tello's major problem will be the Favom. Sure. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Because if the Favom is about the same size and lower priced and better

51:59in some ways, then the Tello would just be, it'll be done mostly. Yeah. I think the, my assumption is that between these electric trucks in this category and this list that we're talking about, the primary competition is going to be between the slate and the fathom for most people. If you want to go for a more traditional truck, something that's got a lot of the features and things that you would expect in a brand new vehicle, then the fathoms are going to be probably more traditional in that sense. Even though Ford is saying they're doing all these new things with it and it's going to be very different and forward thinking, it's not as out there as the slate ultimately. So that's going to be an interesting competition. But what would be my number four? Yeah. My number four is the rampage. Okay. So I have high hopes for rampage and at least RAM actually set it.

53:04General Motors, I'm looking at General Motors right now. They haven't set anything about anything compact pickup for the United States market. Yeah. Which kind of tracks because they they still haven't made a Raptor competitor. So now that these compact trucks are catching on, we're probably good 20 years out from GM doing something like that. If those things fall. Wow, dude. We have a lot of people in our chat room and a lot of questions and comments. Yes. So we got Jeff, we got Robbie and Jacks, we got Nathan, we got Elliot. Wow. Thank you for being with us here. Sorry. Yeah. I got distracted for a second. Yeah. So we can talk some answer some questions in a moment. Yeah. Let's wrap this list is very complicated. So we'll try and keep getting through. We are close to our silk. So rampage at least RAM when the head and set okay,

54:05we have a vehicle overseas. It's on sale in Brazil right now. It works. We know what the customers are talking about. It's a known quantity. Let's figure out how to bring it to the United States, including all the latest tariffs and chicken taxes and all that stuff. So they have a plan up here. It appears to that to number four. And that's my number four because I think it will be it should be successful. I mean, it's still a little bit away. So I'm afraid the reason why it's number four is because before it comes, we will have the slate, the Santa Cruz is still here, and we have we might have the phantom before the rampage. Yeah. So the rampage is kind of behind. It's kind of late to the game. And I'm yeah, and I'm worried that by the time it gets here, it's going to be just not not doing enough, not doing enough to compete with the trucks that are already

55:05on the market and the trucks that are coming out. So the rampage isn't even my number five out. I'm going to put the phantom at my number five because I do think it has potential as a truck. And I'm interested to see what goes on with it. What on this list would be your number five? So, so I guess the only thing. Well, oh, for me, it's between the slate and the Santa Cruz. So that far down on your list. Yeah. Because I'm stuck in those two doors. I'm just stuck. Yeah. And again, you got a family and well, yes. I'm just not looking at myself only, but just looking in general at the popularity of two door trucks in general. Or I know cases of huge supporter, you have a two door pickup. Yes, sir. Yourself. So, but I just I'm just I'm just worried. So slate is my number five. And I think maybe tight for my number five is the Santa

56:10Cruz because it's kind of struggling. I'm going to put it at five and a half. The Santa Cruz. You in these halves. I'm just going to call your two and a half a three and your five and a half a six. We've made it so complicated. That was all you man. I did a whole number. I'm sorry. Because you went from two and a half to four. It's okay. We'll be all right. Where are you on on Santa Cruz and the rampage? I'm going to put rampages six and Santa Cruz as seven. Again, not that the Santa Cruz is a bad vehicle. But the rampage again, it kind of remains to be seen. What they do with it by the time it lands here in the states and how it'll stack up. So because there's a bit of uncertainty, I'm going to try and give it the benefit of the doubt. And I'll be honest to you. I do like RAM as a brand. My old two-door truck is a RAM. So I have a little bit of

57:14personal motivation there if we're talking about my personal list. So let's go top to the bottom and recap. Who wants to start? Do you want to start? Or do you want me to start? One through seven. Yeah, you go first. So the only place in which we agree is the Maverick. Is the Maverick? So I put the Maverick at number one, slate at number two. Highlux champ at number three, Tello at four. Fathom at five, which kind of works a little alliteration. Six is rampage in seven Santa Cruz. And I did Maverick number one. I'm confused now. Because you have to have numbers. Maverick number one, Fathom number two, Highlux number three, rampage number four, slate number five, six Santa Cruz and seven Tello. And I just wanted to explain my Tello at the bottom of my list is

58:22I have a reservation for Tello. I was super excited for it. I'm very serious about it. And I put it at the bottom of my list because Fathom exists now. Neither ones are on sale. But Tello being a small company out of the Bay Area, just trying to make it work with a great concept, fighting up against Ford on a very similar concept of a vehicle and Ford coming in 13,000 dollars lower than Tello. I don't know if Tello can survive in that in that world. Yeah. And I think it is going to be ultimately a niche vehicle. I don't expect to see as many Tello's on the road as Mavericks. Yes. Or Fathom's for that matter. Yeah. Potentially. Very likely. All right. Case, we got to answer where do your motorcycle gloves come from? Yes. So from Jeff. One of the questions we have from Jeff is, yeah, case random question,

59:25which to your point, yeah, it is kind of random. Because we aren't doing motorcycles currently. But I so I always wear yellow motorcycle gloves, which upsets a lot of people for some reason. They think they look like landscaping gloves, whatever. Not my problem. If you've been watching a recent motorcycle video, I got a set of these really nice pale leather yellow gloves from cafe. Is a brand. So those cafe leather gloves are really nice. How do you spell cafe? CAFE. Okay. Because I thought there was like another way like with a can. It's nothing crazy. Okay. Yeah. So cafe leather gloves, those are the ones I've been wearing recently. But historically, I've had a lot of, I think they were built well, which were kind of cheap. And they're fine. But the cafe leather gloves, they're a little bit on the price of your side, but really nice. Okay. Robin Jack says, do you think the fourth Fathom will

1:00:25into the Maverick sales? I'm afraid it's going to be the other way around. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be a tough call. What does Nathan say? Nathan says his ideal Maverick would be a hybrid tremor. And it doesn't exist right now. Yeah. So he's asking why why Ford doesn't offer that combination? Yeah. I don't know. It could be some limitation with running that rear diff maybe. So originally, remember they talked about because the hybrid was only front will drive only. Remember? Yeah. And then they said they kind of upgraded the, because it's got an ECBT planetary gear set transmission. They kind of beefed it up to allow it to be all well drive. But I think they couldn't go all the way to the tremor. Yeah. So, but maybe it's coming. You know, as time moves on, I think Ford, they said it very clearly by 2028 or 2029, they want like 80 or 90 percent of their vehicles to be

1:01:31hybrids by volume, which means they're focused on the hybrid technology. So it might come in the future. We just don't know what about Elliott here. He said, of course, looks are important. It's talking about the fathom what we were mentioning. And again, there's some people out there that'll say, oh, you know, why do looks matter? You just need a truck that does truck things. But I agree with Elliott. I think that the looks are important. He also said that he personally likes the tello and most of what's being talked about with it. You know, small, usable on he put slate second because of customizability. Yeah. I do think it's cool because that makes the slate very unique. Yeah. So, so clear as mud, I think. Yeah. Totally. I will say to to the credit of the slate and the tello of everything on this list, those two are probably the most unique, which can be good and bad because

1:02:32a lot of people want a more traditional vehicle with what they ultimately spend their money on. Just one of the reasons that the Maverick does well because it is slightly more trucky and it's forward or it's very usable. And Jonathan is also saying, do you think slate could have an ice internal combustion engine option version for cylinder probably? I don't know if they designed that into it. Yeah. Because from the very get go, from the very onset, they were focused on electric powertrain. I don't never say never, right? But I don't know if it was designed originally as an internal combustion vehicle. Yeah. And I think I think it being electric is part of what makes it so modular, you know, because you have effective. It's got a big frunk. Yeah. You've got the big frunk and you have effectively a just a skateboard on top of which you can kind of build whatever. It's not to say that you couldn't do different roof and seat and interior configurations with a

1:03:35combustion engine under the hood theoretically you could. But I still again, in my mind, I have to think that with an electric platform and architecture, there has to be a way to make it modular enough to add an electric motor to the front end. Yes. You know, and also slate is a new company. Let's look at Enios for just a minute, a millisecond. Enios came as a new company into the world and they used a BMW straight-six engine. Or at least on the automotive side. I'm sorry, on the automotive side. I'm talking about the grand idea here. And why did they do that? Because the BMW engine is a known quantity. It has a good reputation. Yara, yara, yara. So what about slate? It's a new company coming into the world to develop their own force on their engine would be very pricey, very expensive because they would need to start almost from scratch in some ways. So they would

1:04:38probably have to license an engine from somebody else. You know what would be cool? People would love they would never do. But if they could license a 22 RE. Whoa! Remake that. Yes. Maybe somebody should do a swap. I think our friend David would 22 RE swap a slate any day of the week. That'd be cool. Yes. Anyway, so I think that's it. Yeah, absolutely. So again, yeah, confusing list of rankings. But no, but I think you get our point. Yeah. Where we do agree is that Maverick has the crown and it's going to be hard to seal that crown. Yeah. And also that I do believe even this list might get longer like within a year. Yeah. Right. There may be somebody else coming into this space. And so I think there's still a small revolution happening here. I mean, many trucks are really coming back. Yeah. But people are coming after them, Averick, even like you said, for themselves with the

1:05:40phantom. Exactly. So thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time next week as always. Dave Roberts here. There you are surrounded by fans, sharing wings, sharing drinks, high-fiving random strangers. Everybody remembers the game. Nobody remembers the guy coughing behind you until a few days later at 2 a.m. You wake up with the fever and your throats on fire. Now what? Urgent care, clothes, ER, slam, telehealth, maybe, but the pharmacy's clothes. You needed a medical emergency kit. These aren't first aid kits. They contain essential prescriptions used for over 30 common conditions, sinus and ear infection, UTIs, stomach bug, travelers diarrhea and more. On hand before you need them, use your doctor develop guidebook to select the right prescription or call their telemedicine doctor standing by. It's like an urgent care and drugstore at home. When you're sick, traveling or stranded, you'll wish you ordered a medical emergency kit. Order online in minutes

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