The Heavy Equipment Podcast
Whether we're exploring the latest in equipment technology, talking about the trends that propel the industry forward, or uncovering stories about the dedicated individuals who keep the dirt moving, and wheels of America turning, this is where the roar of the engines and the pulse of progress come together. It is sublime. It is surreal. It's the Heavy Equipment Podcast ... with Mike and Jo!
The Heavy Equipment Podcast
HEP-isode 15 | Chevy 2500 ZR2, Tesla Cybertruck, RAM 700, and More!
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
It's a huge week for pickup truck news, so Mike and Jo are breaking it down for you on this first-ever "Truck Week" HEP-isode of the Heavy Equipment Podcast! We start off with the new-for-2024 Chevy Silverado 2500 HD ZR2, roll into the first deliveries of the long-awaited Tesla Cybertruck, and talk about the right tool for the right job with the Mexican-market RAM 700. All this and a little bit Bob Seger on HEP-isode 15.
Whether we're exploring the latest in trucking technology, talking about the trends that propel the industry forward, or uncovering stories about the dedicated individuals who keep the wheels of America turning, this is where the roar of the engines and the pulse of progress come together. It's sublime, it's surreal. It's the Heavy Equipment Podcast with Mike and Joe.
Speaker 3Welcome back to another episode of the Heavy Equipment Podcast. I'm your host, joe Boris, here with Hot Mike Switzer, and today is all about trucks. It's been a big week for Truck News, michael. Well, I'm not even going to give you a chance to get into the Tito's and the Union meeting.
Speaker 4I know, I know I just got out of this meeting and I was so glad I stopped and had a couple of drinks and a way I knew we were going to be recording. And then you know the first thing he hit me with here on our little agenda and the guys in the background are waving their arms telling me to look at these cue cards. They're the Chevy 2500ZR2 Off-Road. When did they release this? They launched it this week.
Speaker 3They launched that. Well, it's actually last week, but we were, you know, too busy recovering from the Thanksgiving turkey drop to realize it.
Speaker 4If we were talking about gravely, which supersedes anything.
Speaker 3Oh, absolutely. I mean, you can't have a conversation, a serious conversation about equipment without you know mentioning gravely, but for 2024, for the first time ever, chevrolet is releasing a ZR2 for the Canadians, that's a ZR2 for the, you know, 2500 Series HD. And this is I got to tell you, man, I think this is a pretty serious truck.
Speaker 4No, this is a serious truck. I mean, looking at this thing, it's got a lot of qualities to it. It's got the 6.6 in it One thing I was looking at too. It's got 35 inch rubber on it. It's got a full suspension package. Does the 6.6, does it come with the Allison Trance?
Speaker 3Yeah, I couldn't tell you. This is actually why you're on the show. Well, I know You're supposed to know these.
Speaker 4You sprung this on me and I haven't had a chance to read up on it, but I will tell you this it's got a torque is good for 18,500 pounds. There's a good article in here. A current driver does this. It says it shrinks where a fifth wheel towing is concerned.
Speaker 4The advantage the diesel provides that's not a verbatim quote, but that's what they're getting at is that we're getting close back to the days where we don't need to have the diesel. And you know, the OEMs are like listen, if you don't want a diesel, we're going to build you a gas engine that's going to let you do it. But they put it in this thing, which makes it awesome because you can tow with it. So in the days of talking about electric and we're going to do this and we're going to do that and plug everything in, they're basically like yeah, we have all that and we have the Hummer truck and we have everything. But you know what? Here's something else that burns gasoline. Their price point isn't even that bad on it. You know 82, 83 grand, depending on you know whatever. But you brought up a good point.
Speaker 4Canadian guys, all right If you're north of the border and you're sitting out there and you're watching these things rolling on the truck and you're at the Chevrolet dealer. You know you're out there collecting syrup. What's different about a truck today that goes north of the border, like this one? Is there less emissions controls? Is there no difference? Is it all the same now?
Speaker 3Yeah, they're mostly the same. Now You're going to have some real minor differences in terms of, like, turn signal, colors and height, things like that. The regulations are slightly different but the manufacturers don't have to really change anything from one market to another. There used to be 49 state cars or 49 state motorcycles that were legal basically in every state except California and that would be kind of similar to Canada, right, canada kind of has something similar to California emissions, but yeah, I don't really think that there's any difference there. This is something that if you're going to buy this thing, whether you're in Canada or Mexico or California or Colorado, it's going to be the same vehicle. I looked it up, by the way, that happens to be the hydromatic. That's a six speed hydromatic transmission, which you know. Honestly, I haven't heard anything but good comments about that hydromatic.
Speaker 4Yeah we have a bunch of them in the fleet. Those are good transmissions. I asked because the new 2500 HDs that we're getting have the 6.6 with the Allison as an option. We get it that way. Well, either trans has been just fine, we've got a bunch of miles on either one.
Speaker 4So the you know, and it's funny, I was at the GMC dealer the other day and it says we literally just ordered some trucks just like this, not as a zero or two but as a 2500 SLE, and they make the same comment to me. They go well, you just want the standard bed right. And in my head I was like, well, standard beds, eight foot, not anymore. Oh, now it's a long bed. Eight foot bed is an eight foot bed. A standard bed is now the six foot six, six foot five, whatever exact you know measurement that they're calling it. The current driver even calls that out on the zero to.
Speaker 4When they talk about the crew cab in the standard bed, they get the ride. Yeah, that baffles me. Like I get it. You put tailgate down, you get eight feet. But I wonder if you can get this in the long bed. I wonder if some contractor that you know that's owning a small construction company wants to have a cool truck zip around to the jobs with can get that in an eight foot bed, put a toolbox in it and still have the six feet behind it.
Speaker 3Well, I think it kind of speaks to the fact and maybe this is the wrong place to say this, but it kind of speaks to the fact that a lot of these trucks are being purchased not as work vehicles but, as commuters, as luxury cars.
Speaker 4Well, yeah, exactly See, in our industry we have this weird gray area of people that are higher up shareholders, owners, owners, kids that are out working and they want a cool truck. They still need to be maybe a little bit out of the normal, like a long bed or something like that.
Speaker 3And I think that's a really interesting question. That doesn't seem to be a version of this yet, but I think similarly there's not a Silverado version of the Denali either. I think they kind of push that more towards the Luxe end. And then this ZR2 thing. I mean the ZR2 thing, if I recall correctly, wasn't the first ZR2 like a Chevy Tracker and it was like the off road, the two door.
Speaker 4Yeah, the two door off road SUV. That was a true SUV at the time when it was released that had the S10 front end on it and shared some of the similarities with the hood and the fenders and stuff like that.
Speaker 3Yeah, it was. It was a true off roader and that was kind of in that time frame in the late 80s with the ZR1 Corvette was out and that ZR1.
Speaker 4That's right.
Speaker 3And the ZR1 they used to call the King of the Hill and that ZR2 was like the King of the Hill off roader package.
Speaker 4My parents in 1995, going back a little bit. They bought a brand new Chevrolet blue, five speed Z71 was actually a pretty rare truck. They had that for a year or two and then traded it back in. They got the exact money out of it that they paid for it, because it was kind of a unique thing.
Speaker 3The Z71 was a really off road capable vehicle. The ZR2 had additional ground clearance and it had the skid plate and the extra protection under the oil plan oil pan to oil planet. Yes, yeah, the oil pan, and it also had, if I recall correctly, where you could lock the differentials from inside the inside the vehicle. It was one of the first vehicles to have on the fly four wheel drive where you didn't have to get out of it to lock those front axles.
Speaker 4Joe, I think this is where we need to talk to everybody and let everybody know we're going to be launching our own Facebook page, and then if they want to send messages and comment on things like this, they're more than welcome to. Because I'm kind of curious for, like the Chevrolet mid 90s guys that are like really into those options where they're like, yeah, from October of 94 to September of you know, 95, you could only order it with this lugnut, lugnut, cover right.
Speaker 4There's guys out there that know, that stuff and. I'm kind of curious. I'm kind of curious, in all honesty, to pull that knowledge and say, okay, what came on that thing back then, like like what was really?
Speaker 3on it. Yeah, that'd be a good, that'd be a good show, but today we're talking about this 2024 deal.
Speaker 4Oh, no, no, no, no. Rockier tracks like these are best tackled with the zero to bison package, which adds a winch capable AEV steel front bumper with integrated fog lights and a pair of massive recovery points, and a steel rear bumper and a similarly beefy recovery points from the rear.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a good looking bumper too. I just found it is.
Speaker 4It's very nice that way. When you know when you're stuck in the sand down in the Baja, you can get yourself out of there.
Speaker 3When you're getting rescued by a guy in a Suzuki Jimny and his buddy in a. Baja modified 73 Super Beetle and they're just shaking their head at you trying to rescue this thing in the loose sand because it weighs 9000 pounds.
Speaker 4I was in. When they roll up on you and those things and you have the paddle wheels in the back and then all the empties fly out when they get out of the seat, you know you're in good hands, you know you're in good hands.
Speaker 3The Miller Highlights hit the floor. They hit the sand. He just said that's it.
Speaker 4And there's enough of them that you hear the tinky tink, exactly, and they just crunch on them all the way over to you. Now to honest to God, true story. It's a Chevrolet related thing, so you can let me go on my rant about this. I worked with a guy and we were out on a job site as other guy that was temporary help from the union hall locally, car battery was dead, old Chevrolet van.
Speaker 4Okay, this guy's got a Chevrolet, square body, the 80s like quad headlights. You know the two, the stacked headlights, square body Chevys. I know what the square body is. Yeah, so he, he rolls up to this guy's Chevy van and another Chevy guys. So they're like hey, man, what's going on here? He's, he's like what's the matter? Because my jumper cables are smoked. And the guy's like oh, I got something, boy didn't. And then he was all mad because apparently his idiot brother took him out of his truck. And then so he rolls up to the guy, smashes the bumper against the other one and takes his big crowbar out and just puts it down between the two positive poles on the battery and yells crank it thing fired right up, I, I. He takes the crowbar, throws it down behind the seat of the square body, goes tough like a rock and he slammed the door shut and took off and just literally blew a roof. Gel whisked the reverse by sliding.
Speaker 3It just keeps on크t Manuelو الي HE questo tur he's going away.
Speaker 4He is enjoying himself by wings.
Speaker 3Bob Seeger, we love you, I love Bob Seeger. Dude, I gotta tell you, on the opposite extreme of Bob's, you got to put Bob Seeger up there among the all-time greats. I'm in Chicago and Apparently there's some kind of crazy love affair in Chicago with the band Wilco oh.
Speaker 3I hear, I hear say anything negative about Wilco, but I sure gonna say anything positive about him either. And I got these tickets with my brother-in-law to go see Jeff Tweedy, who is the one of the founding people of Wilco, and I was like I'll go to a concert that sounds cool. It's at this Frank Lloyd Wright building, so it's kind of an interesting thing. Oh, nice, nice venue, oh yeah, beautiful venue. And I was like Margaret, we got to check this out, we got to listen to some of this Jeff Tweedy stuff, so I know what I'm getting into. And we went on Spotify and got his like top songs and I think like the first, we were like halfway through the third song and Margaret goes Can I turn this off now? And I was like I can't go to this concert. Get a freaking fistfight with a bunch of middle-aged white dudes. Have no idea what good rock music is gonna get out of here.
Speaker 4I listen, son, I'm gonna take you down down to Wrigleyville.
Impact of NAFTA and Tesla Cybertruck
Speaker 3Yeah, boys Town is all about Jeff Tweedy, not for me. Thanks, you still in there.
Speaker 4You got quiet. I was waiting for you. You put the mic down. I didn't know what you were doing over there. I do that to tight Were you. Were you checking the turn signal color difference between North American and Canadian, which is still North American, but we segment them by car?
Speaker 3Well, no, because now we have NAFTA. So all that just goes to super American highway.
Speaker 4It's done nothing but ruin this country, and we're going to get into that right now. Let me tell you something they're hawing this Chevy product on the NAFTA super highway and it all we have. No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3We're not in it again. You have that out. Listen, ross Perot went on TV and said if they pass this NAFTA thing, you're going to hear huge sucking sound coming from the south and that's going to be all the jobs leading this country. And absolutely true. That is exactly what happened, and it don't matter if you voted Republican or Democrat, because Bush and Clinton both loved NAFTA. All of their corporate buddies loved that deal.
Speaker 4Oh yeah.
Speaker 3Absolutely hosed the working man. It destroyed manufacturing in North America for a generation.
Speaker 4And it is only now 30 years and a pandemic for it to come back, and it not even back yet.
Speaker 3No, it's just on.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's my point. It to turn it around took 30 years and a pandemic probably longer than 30. I'm just being generous.
Speaker 3No, it's exactly right. If you had any kind of consciousness of the kind of lifestyle that we, as Americans, had before NAFTA, it would blow your mind. You got to think about this. The Simpsons, which has been around since before NAFTA, is one of the few shows that has still been around.
Speaker 3This is a guy with a high school education and a blue collar job and he could support a family for, own a house with two cars and have his dad in nursing home, and that was considered normal. If you watch married with children, that guy was a manager at a shoe store in a mall. He owned a three bedroom house and a Dodge Dart and it was considered normal Nobody bad in an eye that this guy owned that house and lived in that suburb working as a shoe salesman, because that was how it used to be. If you had any kind of full time job, you could support yourself. Correct, you just had to work. That's it. You just had to get up and work and if you wanted something extra, you wanted something a little nicer. You could buckle down and make that happen for yourself, and it wasn't a Herculean task.
Speaker 4The house that we're in.
Speaker 3Herculean, yeah, like Hercule's.
Speaker 4Here on the table of elements. Does that baby land Herculean?
Speaker 3Oh right, between a Labian and Majoram. Hey, did you know that Dwayne Johnson can turn lesbians? Why? Because Rockbeat scissors, baby. Let's move along to the second news item of the day, the second truck that we're here to discuss. This is the Tesla Cybertruck. Now, this was a vehicle. They originally announced it in 2019. It was supposed to be on the road in 2021. Last week, last Friday, they finally announced these things are ready for production, they're ready for delivery. They're delivering 10 to specially selected people and if you want to get your Cybertruck in Q1 of 2024, they will let you jump to the head of the line for a low, low price of $120,000.
Speaker 4What is the price tag? $120,000. With what?
Electric Trucks and Vehicle Variety Discussion
Speaker 3No, no, no 120 plus the price of the vehicle. So the basic model is about 90 grand. The only model that they're delivering right now is about 90 grand. So for the first release that it was 39. Correct, but that vehicle doesn't exist. The closest, of course it don't, and it was never going to. The closest thing to that is the rear wheel drive model that is 69.9 or 60,900 rather, and that is not going to be available until 2025 at the earliest.
Speaker 4Sorry to keep just throwing out like one one liners there. I feel like an Ed McMahon.
Speaker 3That's what the T-Dos is for.
Speaker 4Yeah, exactly. And here's the thing this truck's cute you can roll around with it. People are going to look at you. It's going to be different. You're going to plug it in. You're going to move around. What's the? Is the range still 500 miles, like they were toting before we, down to 300 or 240.
Speaker 3We're down to two something, and then you can put like a, you know, like a tool bed in the back of it, like a toolbox in the back.
Speaker 4Yeah, you can get 175.
Speaker 3Yeah Well, no, no, no, you can put a toolbox in the back that is packed with batteries so you can have, like a range extending extra battery pack in there.
Speaker 4Here's what I want to know. And I met with them today and this is what's got my brain just constantly thinking. I was in a product launch meeting with the men from Milwaukee tools and we were going over some product and some battery options and some stuff that they're going to do and very intriguing, very cool stuff. They're constantly innovating over there. Can't say enough about that. That team, when will they build a truck?
Speaker 3So that's really interesting, right, because greenworks.
Speaker 4I'm on a roll. These last, these last episodes, I've been coming up with some good stuff.
Speaker 3You've definitely been drinking. It's interesting that you bring that up, because there's a company called greenworks that they do like the 18 and the 24 volt and even now the 40 volt, you know lawn and garden tools and pressure washers and things like that. Well, they released last year a go kart and a mini bike.
Speaker 3I've seen this now this year they released a full size UTV side by side and a dirt bike motorcycle like a motorcycle motorcycle. Nice, very cool. So they've gone from go kart mini bike toys to like a true side by side, like a Kawasaki mule or something like that. It's a utility body. It's kind of like a golf cart with a kick on it, but I mean it's something that you could use.
Speaker 3And this makes total sense because if you've got a bunch of gardeners or gardening crew, you've got a relationship with greenworks, you know the products are good and you're thinking, oh, I just need something to tool around the municipality or the college campus or the zoo where we do all this work. Why wouldn't you go? Man, you know this. This weed whipper works great. This leaf blower works great. Why wouldn't you try the side by side Especially? You know it's 13 grand and that's not a lot of money for one of those anymore. It's not.
Speaker 4Well, the the market around those just keeps climbing. I mean, I see you see him used for that.
Speaker 3You see him used for that, exactly right. So you know this is a little bit different than what we were originally talking about. You know we're talking about the this big hundred and something thousand dollar electric pickup truck. Here's a completely functional, totally usable little electric pickup truck, 60 volt, that you can put to work on your college campus and your parks department and your municipality.
Speaker 4Yeah, this is like those right hand drive Japanese trucks that get imported.
Speaker 1That's right.
Speaker 4The little guys and the guys broke them. Yeah, yeah, and you know Milwaukee. If you do listen to this, we love your products. Build a truck, Build a truck.
Speaker 1And what?
Speaker 4I want to see. I want to see this giant slab battery come out of the back of the bed that I plug into the bed again and then, when I'm all done, you got a 500 mile range 500 miles, a lot of range.
Speaker 3Dude your whole pay. Your payload is going to be 40 pounds with the GVWR.
Speaker 4I just want to cruise around in it, that's all. I want to cruise around in it, just like you're going to do with the Cybertruck.
Speaker 3That's it and that's all they're going to use this thing for. I can't imagine. So let me look you're a fleet buyer. You manage a ton of assets. You've got 50, 60 drivers in your fleet like this that people drive around, even if it was 40 grand.
Speaker 4You can't honestly. We have over 100. We have over 100 people that honestly could be switched to electric tomorrow.
Speaker 3Right, but you can't honestly tell me that you look at that Cybertruck and go, that's something practical. I'd buy that for my fleet, that's my point.
Speaker 4No, it's not and it has a place. It's a place for we talked about luxury before with the ZR2. That's its place. It's a luxury toy for people to drive around and go. I got the Cybertruck. It's outside. They made 10 of them. I have one of them next year. They're going to make 20, 30.
Speaker 3Next year they're going to make 20. They'll make 10,000, maybe. Really, is that what they're projecting? Oh, they're projecting half a million. They're going to. They project they're going to outsell the Ford F-150. There's no way that's going to happen.
Speaker 4So here's the problem with that theory and Elon's very you know. Listen, he put a rocket out there. We can't. If you speak wrongly of him, he will put a rocket right up your ass.
Speaker 3So here's what we're going to do Put a rocket up, but he didn't land it.
Speaker 4I thought they did. I thought they landed the SpaceX and set it down.
Speaker 3Well, that was the booster rocket, not the Starship One. Oh right, yes.
Speaker 2Yeah, Starship just went oh right. Right.
Speaker 3It did the full deck dodgers when it gets destroyed.
Speaker 4This is time to put Marvin the Martian in. There, we got him.
Speaker 2Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth shattering. Kaboom. The Alonium Pue 36 explosive space modulator. That creature has stolen the space modulator.
Speaker 4Yes, my space modulator will take your pickup truck and turn it into a mine.
Speaker 3But this is. That's. That's who this truck is for. That's the Marvin the Martian truck. You know you're going to be sitting there, going. You'll see that thing out in front of a club and go. Man, I wonder who's driving that big butch? Son of a bitch. Some dude's going to roll out five foot four huge biceps, tap out T shirt and he's going to leap up into that thing like a kangaroo.
Speaker 4Yes, we're wearing kit vipers Exactly, and you know what's going to happen. Somebody's going to put a picture of that up on TikTok a little short clip of it and the Saudis that are out there in the Middle East saying listen, guys, you're going to go all electric and you end up living in caves, are going to go see. That's what we're talking about. Look at these people foolishly wasting things. I think the Cybertruck is cool because it does have a bunch of technology on it. That is it.
Speaker 4It's a different approach on things, which you need to have variety. You got to have a variety and you got to be able to look at something and go. That's different. I wouldn't have built it that way, but it's out there. It's on the road. Ok, it certainly is.
Speaker 4This is what makes America work, because we build stuff here that is impractical, unsupervised and next thing you know it is out on the road. We're working on it. It meets all the regulations, it meets all the stuff that it needs to meet. I'm not saying they're putting out a death trap. What I'm saying is is that this is why the variety that we have in this country is so amazing. Look at other countries. What they drive, they're all driving a bunch of Toyotas and anytime it breaks down they're doing wheel bearings on it on the side of the highway, literally on the side of the road. While they're working on it that's true Dust themselves off with the sand and they use it to rub the oil back out of their, out of their hands, to get back in it and keep going on with their day.
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean that's fairly accurate because in different parts of South America you know where I had a lot of experience and spent some some time in my childhood. It was fiat's, but that's exactly how it was. There were dudes, beckons, bearings, literally on the side of the road and you know they'd pull up next to you in a tuk tuk or a Vespa or something and they'd have parts strapped to the back of it.
Speaker 4We talk about this all the time. So we're going to talk about this, because this is a good segue into this, and we're talking about trucks. So we're talking about this in other parts of the world. Trucks are massively overloaded Sideboards 20 guys hanging out of the back of that thing holding a ton of watermelons or whatever the hell. They're trying to get to from one village to the other. And I'm being serious because that's the way it is. It's 100 percent chaos. All the time they take a block of wood oh, I have a problem with the wheel bearing. They drive up on the block of the wood, they get it up off the ground. They change the wheel bearing right there on the side of the road, not with a new wheel bearing. They make one out of five used ones that they've got underneath the back seat. They put all the bearings back together, smack that baby back in its ass and they put it down on the road and they take off. That's right In this country. We go oh no, I need a new truck. That's true.
Speaker 4Think about this let's think about this what happens when new trucks are unobtainable?
Impact of Financing on Vehicle Sales
Speaker 3Well, listen to this, I'll have a different conversation with you. So, along the same lines, there's a group of guys that I talked to. They're called a so to automotive state of the union. They do a lot of shows and meetings and events that primarily focus on dealership training, dealership life, that kind of thing, and I try to talk to them a lot about EVs and electrification, because that's kind of the world that I live in.
Speaker 3Right, one of the things that we were talking about was that there is a huge number of sales not only new but used vehicle sales that are happening right now, despite the fact that interest rates are high, despite the fact that we're real close to, if not at all, time high for a lot of these vehicles, and the reason it's happening is that people don't have cash. So what does that mean? What that means is you bring in your vehicle, it's got some issue, you've got a $3,000 repair. There is no way you can come up with that three grand. However, the dealership is more than happy to roll three grand into a new loan, so it adds 15 or $25 to the monthly payment of a vehicle that you maybe had your eye on in the showroom and you roll out of there.
Speaker 3Not only are you negative equity the minute you drive off the lot, but now you're negative equity plus three grand, because the dealer tells you well, you know, I would give you a six for the trade in, but I'm only going to be able to give you three because, as you know, it needs to be three grand. It's three grand worth of work. But then the problem is they don't ever put that three grand into the car, they pocket it and then they wholesale the car to some poor idiot. And you know, now you've got all these vehicles on the road with all these problems. You've got people on the road driving vehicles that they're upside down and underwater in, and the only person really making out on this is the dealer.
Speaker 4Absolutely right and, to be bluntly honest, I ran in a fleet for a 36 month stretch with that exact philosophy. We're going to get a new truck because I'm not putting the money in that one and I'm selling this old truck. That has an issue.
Speaker 4And my mechanics would go. You have to be out of your mind. It only needs this, this and this. I don't care, because it's worth more than what I paid for it. I'm sending it down the road. I'm buying a new truck. This is before the price really escalated. Before there was a big jump. Now we're at the big jump. I'm back to repairing things again which is still spending.
Speaker 4We're still spending, but we're spending and I believe our hope and we've done numerous calculations on this back and forth and anybody that's looking at any kind of cost calculation on a truck, listen to me. You have to find that balance point of what do you want to get out of the truck at the end of the day and I'm not talking money, I'm talking its total circle of life, not the Lion King. Sometimes you need to spend money on a truck to get it to where you need it to be, because it's going to save you on the next one. And that's part of the balance. And you know we were in a budgeting meeting the other day. They're like, well, let's talk about some of these numbers and we're going over them and I'm bringing up the stuff on my phone and I got, you know, my other guys in my staff, so they're sending me some stuff as questions are coming up. And the point being is now we're transitioning back into what you talked about, which is fix it instead of sell it and buy, because we have the cash to do it.
Speaker 4What our problem is is you're exactly right, most people today don't have the cash. This goes back to what we're talking about with the Simpsons and what seemed to be realistic 30 years ago. People can't afford it. They take their Chevrolet Duramax Allison truck into the dealer and they look at them and go it means $9,000 worth of work because you bolted this thing on it. And they go oh no, I have to go up front. Yes, you do so, and not that anybody's ripping anybody off. This is where we are today. It's a scary spot. You can't finance your way out of a paper bag because the paper bag has got no security to it and, believe me, it's getting wetter by the day because your sweat coming off your forehead is really eroding the same thing you're standing on and that's the problem that we have right now with all these trucks. It doesn't matter if you're talking about the Ford electric one, which we're going to talk about next, talking about something that you've imported from Japan or Saudi, or you're working on the ZR2.
Speaker 4Most people in this country don't have the cash sitting in their pockets to go and say I'll just buy that. That's what I want, I need it, I've got it, I can reconcile it and I have the cash to do it, or I have 50% to put down. That's the old school days. I talked to my dad about that stuff back in the 60s and 70s, he's like when they started making payments on cars. He's like listen, listen, you still needed to have half plus in your pocket yeah, you're only making so much an hour.
Speaker 4So you saved up, you know, you wheeled and you got yourself into a car and you put half or 60% down and you financed it and you had like a $30 a month payment. He goes, trust me. Back then, though, you sat there and you went oh, I got to make that car payments $30. 30 bucks was different. Okay, it's sickening to people like my parents who look at these trucks and go how can you get 85,000 out of that? How can that be 100? We bought a brand new 1995 international 9,300 with a caterpillar engine and a 15 speed Nothing super fancy but also got the job done and we paid 99 eight for it, brand new and rolled it off the show with all the extra shit on it so you could take it down the road haul heavy equipment that's what I'm talking.
Speaker 4we're in a weird truck bag right now with some of this stuff. Politics has nothing to do with it, it's social control over no standing Hang on.
Speaker 3Politics has a lot to do with it, but it's not left. It's not left politics versus right politics.
Speaker 4That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with left or right, red or blue. It has nothing to do with that. That's what I'm getting.
Speaker 3It's the capital class, it's the financing class, it's the people that benefit from the interest you pay. It's the people who collect the juice that goes into all these deals, the people that collect the 3% out of every credit card transaction, the people who made it so that those you know when, when someone does need help, instead of getting cash or a check that they can go spend, they get a snap card or something, and 3% of that, instead of going to the store, goes to them. So the bank gets money when they issue the card. The bank gets a piece of it when it's deposited. The bank gets a piece of it when you spend it. It's right, people who are running the money, who are becoming middlemen in every transaction.
Speaker 3Just think about it. You've got a vehicle that's being manufactured. Everything that's being bought to build that vehicle is being bought on a company credit card or some other PO that gets paid with a company credit card. So one and a half to 3% of that is going to the banks. Then that means the price of goods is one and a half to 3% higher. Then now you're assembling all of it. Now you got to ship it. So that shipping cost when you pay that trucker, when the trucker puts gas in his car, when the trucker pays, when the driver pays for his meals, every time someone touches it, one and a half to 3% goes to some middleman and that guy is doing nothing except collecting money, and they even have cute little names for it Passive income, mailbox money. But it's money that is going from people who work, from people who build, from people who actually get things done, and they don't provide anything except quote, unquote a service and it's a service that didn't exist for 150 million years and didn't have to.
Speaker 3But here we are, and now it's on every transaction we touch.
Speaker 4It's legal loan sharking, eroding the efforts of the working man and taking the middle class and driving them separately, farther away from everybody else, because they have to depend on it. And all these trucks that we're talking about, their price tags are reflective of that Absolutely, and that's the thing it's like you look at these trucks, you have the Chevy ZR2s amazing and it's absolutely worth the price tag they put on it because they have to put the price tag on it because of the way things are working out. I have these discussions with vendors and large OEMs and all kinds of platforms. I'm like, well, how does this hold up? Or what's different about something. So we started out talking about Canada versus the US.
Speaker 4But I'm always like, well, what happens in the Middle East or what happens in South America with the same Whacker Newsom generator? Oh well, we, we, we don't sell this there. Or there's very few. There's very few brands that do where you get, when you unbox this Wacker Newsom or whatever, there's very few that when you get it down in South America, you get it in other areas. Or Elon's, you know, gemmine gets a brand new light plant. Oh, who are we kidding? They use candle. It's very few that are the same. Ok, yeah, and what I'm getting at with that is because people elsewhere can do more with less and it's scary, it's scary.
Speaker 3Well, it's not that they can do more with less because we don't have an option. When we are given, when we, as Americans, hang on, when we, as Americans, are given an option to get something basic that will get us from A to B reliably and get the job done affordably, we flock to it. Two years ago, ford dropped the first true compact pickup the United States has seen in 20 years. They dropped that's right the Ford Maverick. Nineteen, nine, fifty. It was the least expensive new Ford you could buy. Number one right.
Speaker 3Had fifty two miles per gallon. Number two, and it had a workable pickup bed and room for four adults and the dealers immediately put a ten thousand dollar mark up on it and there was still a year wait for that thing. That's right. So when we are given the option to buy something basic, to buy something that meets our needs, we line up to buy it.
Speaker 4Look at, look at the Honda Civics from years past. That's right, they couldn't get them here. They couldn't make them and assemble them in this country fast enough. Look at the old Toyota Corolla's they couldn't get them out of Spring Hill, tennessee, fast enough. I am not wrong.
Speaker 3You're not wrong, it used to be that way, it should be that way and it looks like someone else has learned the lesson of the Ford. Maverick and Stellantis is bringing that Ram 700, which is a car based, fiat based, little pickup vehicle, sort of like the old Chevy love or, you know, nissan hard body back.
Speaker 4Well, they did have a Ram. What was the Dodge version of that we had?
Speaker 3like a rampage rampage yes. Yeah, that was a nice vehicle too.
Speaker 4Those are happily sought after by nuts.
Speaker 3My absolute lunatics. Lee Iacocca dug himself out from underneath the 300 pound pile of cocaine and said what if we built a Shelby LHS turbo K car? But made it look like an El Camino and then screamed out of the room and someone else said is he serious? And Tom Gale and Bob Lutz looked at each other and said let's do it anyway.
Speaker 4That's exactly yeah. And then, from that giant office with a penistar in it up in Detroit, which is still up there today, they all rared up in rare form, jumped out of their chairs and went get everyone on the phone because we're changing the front of the Daytona and we're putting a pickup on the back of it. And they didn't know what to do. No, they were just like all right, yes. And then, and then here's you know what we're going to talk about. This is great. We're talking about this. This is great. Chrysler's Motorsports background, because they were filled with crazed people back then. They Well, to turbo, we're going to. We're going to road racing, get a CEC license, that's what we're going to do. And when they built all these crazy ass cars, they built all these crazy cars to go out and do stuff. They built trucks, they did the Baja running. Remember those?
Speaker 1the rain, oh yeah.
Speaker 4Friends built the engines for Chrysler that were sent to the Crate Motors before. What's his name? That won, yeah, no that was.
Speaker 3That was a big deal. And then we were on the other side of that. We were on the IMSA side of that. When I was down, and back then it was called Consolier in Florida, we were building those 24 hour and 12 hour Sebring cars that were all and this was unheard of in the late 80s a completely composite, monocoque chassis frame vehicle and we were doing the two two liter Chrysler's as well and those things were running all night and I think you get those things stopped. Then they had huge radiators and intercoolers on those race cars. Yes, still be glowing red when they pull into the pit. You just be like, oh, God.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's exactly what it is, and here's the thing. I'm trying to look this guy up. Mopar sponsored this guy back in the early 90s, late 80s, getting back to this Well in the 90s it was Brian Stewart and those guys.
Speaker 3you know, the Walker Evans guys. Walker, yes.
Speaker 4So our friends built the engines for Walker and they sent, they sent him a lot of parts and pieces and that, and then they were doing that, but they were saying that back then those trucks they were heavily modified and they were reworked to death. But Walker was what you know took the old school, the old school approach and he built some overly simplistic trucks for a very long time.
Speaker 3Yeah, the Walker Evans I can't remember what it was called back then, wasn't the Ram was the D 150 race truck? Yeah, that had the same motor that NASCAR was running in Winston Cup. That was the three feet and five motor. Yeah, and they had the same suspension guy build that Baja truck as as was building the NASCAR, the NASCAR chassis, and that was the first truck to do it in under 24 hours. They did a 20 hour, 48 minute run to La Paz and that was an incredible, incredible run. That was in the 70s and even years and years later. They were beaten that run by like minutes, like not hours, like just minutes.
Speaker 4Exactly, and we call it heavy equipment. But this is all related to the heavy equipment industry. All these trucks, right?
Speaker 1Oh yeah.
Speaker 4And the Ram 700 potential US release there's no reason not to do it.
Speaker 3You need a vehicle that's going to get 3040 miles per gallon, that you can put a couple of adults into it and you know it comes back to the right tool for the right job. Often times, whether it's a contractor, whether it's a handyman, whether it's a construction fleet, oftentimes you don't necessarily need payload, you don't necessarily need towing. What you need is a bed, and the Ram 700 is going to give you.
Speaker 4That that's it. You're just going to throw enough in the back of it to take a little bit of something somewhere and you still need to get some people around. But you need the bed to keep it separate. You don't need a trunk, you don't need a hatch, you need to set the stuff out back. This thing has a total place. And I'm going to tell you, I mean, there's industry people that I know. You know they laugh at stuff like this and it's funny because in the three years later you see them driving something like this or some of their people are driving it. Right. It's interesting.
Speaker 4This is a 1.3 liter, 100 horsepower, inline, four cylinder. It's all it needs. It's all it needs. It don't weigh anything. And this is like remember we talked about the canyons when the when the canyon came out, oh yeah. And when the canyon came out, everybody laughed at that thing. They're like, oh, it's overpriced, you can still buy a 1500 for that or you can buy an F 150 for that much money. That was very short lived, yeah. Then the canyon had a price break. It became popular. A lot of fleets picked them up. The same reason we just talked about you just need enough room to throw some basic stuff in the back of that thing. If you have to run it somewhere, that's it.
Speaker 3That's exactly right, and if you're using the right tool for the right job, you're going to have a more profitable fleet. It's just that simple. That's it Now. The last thing that we want to talk about here today that is on the agenda will make this one quick. We've got the Ford F 150 lightning. All I have seen all over social media for the last two, three months is that EVs are dying. The initial EV surge, the craze, is gone. Demand for EVs is slumping, it's all going downhill and the Ford F 150 lightning electric pickup broke its monthly sales record, doubling from September through October, doubling in deliveries and sales. They still can't build enough of them. You see them everywhere. You see them everywhere they're popping up.
Speaker 3The reality of all that was not that people couldn't sell them. It was that dealers had gone crazy and ordered $122,000 XLT Lariat versions of this truck, and what they needed to order was work truck and tradesmen versions of this thing, because those they can't keep on the lot.
Speaker 4Yeah, you just needed some XL's and some XLT's, xl.
Speaker 3XLT's and that's it. And these, these King Ranch versions, these Harley Davidson editions, they're not moving and it don't matter if they're electric or diesel. Those high end $125,000 pickups are not going anywhere. And it's just like in 2008, 2009, when things went sideways and all them drywall contractors that were buying C five Corvettes and running them over to Chuck mallets shop up there by you guys. All those dudes went under and all those cars got repo right out of mallets lot. That's right. How's Robbie doing, by the way? You?
Speaker 1know, I'm working here.
Speaker 3I'm quite some time.
Speaker 4I was just at the baby. He's down on the bar.
Speaker 3He's down in the bar, so he's actually not. I'll tell you what he's doing. He's doing. He's got those jumping water dogs that he takes to the dog shows. He's got these little dogs that he throws the Frisbee or whatever, and they jump out over the pool they go like 20 feet. So in Chicago once a year they have the American Kennel Club and they do the dog jumping championships here. And that's where I run into Mr Roberts. I'll see him again here in a couple months.
Speaker 4Well, I think your son's out growing the ability to run and jump into that pool with the dogs.
Speaker 3But I just throw him, I do the, I give it the full. What's that guy's name? Peter Dinklage just grabbed the back of his belt. Oh, yes, yes.
Speaker 4Yes. Well, maybe he'll drive a kid's going to swim like a dolphin when he's when he grows up, he's going to be communicating with whales. He's going to be a marine biologist and he's going to walk out there and stand on top of the mighty, mighty fish, mammal, whatever, and reach down in there and pull out that title list. We're going to be no proud of them.
Speaker 3Well, we're going to close this off with the original theme song from Flipper. We'll see you, boys, next week.
Speaker 2And we know Flipper lives in a world full of wonder, flying there under under the sea.
Speaker 1Tune in next week for more heavy equipment podcast on Spotify, apple Podcast, google or wherever you find podcasts.
