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Why some people should not be allowed to have Jeeps
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More changes for Raptor
I really like the Ford Raptor, and now the people at Ford are coming out with one I could own. A CREW CAB is coming!!!! YaY! I asked for the Crew Cab Raptor a while ago, does this mean I have to put my money up ? Autoblog and PickupTrucks.com are reporting on the new camoflauged Raptor spied running around for field testing. You can read more here at Pickuptrucks.com
In other news, I have heard from occasionally reliable sources that there will not be a US Border Patrol version of the Raptor. I guess someone has figured out that while the typical undocumented alien is fast on their feet, they are not so fast as to need a high performance desert racer to chase them down.
Normally I would now spam you will some direct links for Ford Raptor products, but since there aren’t any that I know of I will let you off with a warning.
http://truckeo.com/trucks/2009/08/19/us-border-patrol-considers-using-the-f-150-raptor/
http://truckeo.com/trucks/2009/06/24/would-you-buy-a-ford-f-150-raptor-crew-cab/
http://truckeo.com/trucks/2009/08/26/autoblog-loves-the-ford-raptor/
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Ice Cream truck melts in Tucson
We at Truckeo have a long standing love of ice cream, probably because the weather gets really hot (but its a ‘dry heat’) here and the air conditioning in our warehouse of goodies does not work. We have blogged about cool ice cream trucks before, but today we got some sad news.
The trucks are melting.
Yes, even in a ‘dry heat’ the trucks themselves need some ice cream to cool down. Have a look at the photo below for the shocking evidence.
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Autoblog loves the Ford Raptor
Apparently the street geeks over at Autoblog have been spending too much time worrying about launch control on cars they will never own, and ignoring the truck world. In a measure of real world performance that CAN actually be used, the writers (bloggers?) over there have taken a Ford sponsored joyride through the desert and learned what fun legal speeds can be.
If you have never tried going fast in a vehcile that was capable of it in the dirt, I would suggest that you try it. It is quite an experience to be flying through some rough terrain with your brain screaming “I am going to die!” in one half, while the other half decides that it is the most fun to be had with clothes on.
Just try it. Maybe Hertz will rent Raptors soon to people who live near Baja.
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Ding Dong the Titan Ram is dead
Long live the idea of a Dodge producted Nissan Titan!
So in an unsurprising move the deal where Dodge would make the new Nissan Titan is now dead. Hardly surprising since the bankruptcy. What leaves me wondering is what Nissan has up their sleeve for the new Titan. The current model is getting a little long in tooth. What was awesome in 2004 is now humdrum and boring. Since the Tundra came out, we have been waiting for the new and improved Titan, then the rebadged Dodge, now …. what exactly?
In unrelated and totally fabricated news, the new Dodge Ram for 2011 will come with a Ferrari motor since new parent Fiat also owns Ferrari . I wish.
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Obama don’t know nuthin’ ’bout NASCAR
You would think that a guy known for his intellect and his grasp of history, surrounded by handlers and researchers that are believed to be intelligent, could get a few facts straight when talking about one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) spectator sports in America.
You would be wrong.
Obama said:
“NASCAR is a uniquely American sport. Since its humble beginnings, when moonshiners raced on the sands of Daytona Beach during prohibition, it’s grown into a sport with tens of millions of fans here in America and around the world.”
Oops. That little bit about racing during prohibition. A few years decades off the mark. The 21st Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933. All of the devoted Constitutional scholars failed to notice that NASCAR wasn’t formed until 1948
As for the moonshiners, at least that part was true. Junior Johnson was convicted of moonshining after starting his racing carreer and returned to NASCAR after his prison sentence was up. He went on to win 50 times in just over 300 starts, an impressive record for any era.
US Border Patrol considers using the F-150 Raptor
The poorly documented rumor over at Pickuptrucks.com says that the US Border Patrol is considering using the F-150 Raptor (turn your speakers down!) as a chase vehicle for desert work. To quote them:
Multiple sources tell PickupTrucks.com that the Customs and Border Protection division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is seriously considering purchasing at least 10 of the long-travel-suspension off-road pickups for use helping catch suspicious characters illegally entering the country.
This will be a massive disaster. I have sold equipment to the repair shop at the US Border Patrol, and I have dealt with a number of repair shops here in Tucson that also work on the US Border Patrol vehicles. It is well known around here (Tucson, AZ) that La Migra is hell on vehicles. One shop repalced the wheel studs on 130 Ford Expeditions because the agents were breaking wheels off. Another shop I know has replaced more than 12 frames on Chevy Tahoes because the agents kept breaking them while jumping the trucks off-road.
What will happen when you get a bunch of agents high on adrenaline and chasing some drug runners across the desert? The agent that was breaking frames and ripping differentials out of trucks at 20 mph offroad will now be driving a truck with the suspension to handle 60 mph off-road—– but with the same frame that he was destroying before. These guys are not professional race drivers that have years of experience keeping their equipment going. These are people playing cowboy with a fast truck.
The US Border Patrol has already tried enhanced off road capable trucks and had to write off every single one of them. This will be a total disaster, and someone is going to get hurt.
Dierks Bentley can’t afford a new truck
We have heard that the music industry is going through some tough times. With the downloading of music, the greed of Apple and their iTunes store, and the proliferation of streaming music services (formerly known as “radio”) there has never been a worse time to be a musician. Now we have undisputable proof.
Dierks Bentley can’t afford a new truck and has to drive around an old Chevy. Sure, he calls it “Big White” and pretends that he is driving it on purpose, but we all know the truth. I mean, if he was really doing well wouldn’t he be driving a Ford? Or maybe one of them new ugly Toyota Tundras? To quote him “What was I thinking?”
We would like to offer Dierks Bentley some help here at Truckeo. We are a sympathetic group who cares about the choices people have when it comes to trucks. If he “wants” to drive that old Chevy, it is fine with us. Maybe we could give him a discount on some nerf bars for that thing. Dierks, if you ever run across this blog we will sell you a set of nerf bars for your truck for a mere dollar. One Dollar for your 88-98 Chevy Extended Cab 4×4 Nerf Bars. Installed. Just bring Big White to Tucson and we will hook you up – photo op required of course and my wife will probably attack you, but these are the terms of the deal.
Are you in?
This photo was borrowed from “Love for Dierks” which is a site that needs to be seen to be believed.
Toyota Tundra Still Ugly, but now safer
Autoblog is now reporting that the Tundra is still ugly, especially in the new Platinum trim level – but it is also now safer since the Toyota engineers did nothing but send a suitcase full of used 100 dollar bills to the NHTSA. Like magic the test results got better! Yay!
If you would like to improve the looks of that hideous grille, then just mosey on over to the Tundra Billet Grille section and we can help you fix it.
It Just Got A Little Worse To Drive A Smart Car
well at least in Amsterdam (as reported in De Telegraaf Biinenland) Apparently local drunk hooligans will leave the tavern, and find smart cars to flip over to the side, or pushed into canals as seen in this photo
As a long time advocate against smart cars as seen in a recent Truckeo Blog .I applaud these hooligans in Amsterdam and can only hope that this trend becomes world wide.
just remember though if you are going to go smart car tipping make sure you get it on video and post it here, and make sure you don’t fail at tipping over a toy car like these people did.
they still get an “A” for effort though
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Tagged anti smart car, hooligans, smart car, Smart Car Tipping, Tipped over smart car
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The proper way to tune a Buell
Erik Buell tries to make Harley-Davidson powered motorcycles go fast.
He has apparently seen the light and decided on the ultimate way to treat the motorcycles that bear his name. He is crushing them. We can’t think of a better thing to do with the entire line.
Growing veggies in your truck
Some days, when my little flying pink elephant friends are talking to me , I start to think that maybe I am a little crazy – or perhaps I should stop drinking so heavily at breakfast. Then I will have a day like today when I watched a short film on YouTube about some guys that put a vegetable garden in the bed of an old Dodge truck. Videos like this make me realize that I am not the craziest person I know.
Wicked Delicate is the name of the film company that made the video. They are claiming to be sane, but have now provided video proof that they are not.
TRUCK FARM is a Wicked Delicate film + food project. Combining green roof technology, organic compost + heirloom seeds, we are creating a living story about growing a little food in a big city. Each “episode” is a partial excerpt of a larger film project, slated for completion in fall 2009. Visit www.wickedelicate.com to learn more, and stay tuned!
So the next time the little pink elephants tell me to do something, then I am going to listen. I could be famous on the internet for 15 minutes or so. Maybe these guys should get together with the biomass fuel guy and they could grow the fuel for the truck, in the truck! It could be self contained and run forever on just CO2 and SUNSHINE!
Ford kills Explorer Sport Trac
So just we we started getting our groove on, getting down with the Sport Trac and selling lots of Explorer Sport Trac lift kits, Ford has to go pee on our parade. According to Automotive News and Autoblog Ford has decided to kill the poor truck, instead of doing the obvious smart thing and renaming it as “Ranger”. Dumb.
Obviously this is going to be blamed on the economy. This is still dumb – if you look at the numbers it may seem like the truck doesn’t sell enough – estimates are 10,000 per year – but the tooling is not all unique to the Sport Trac, much of it is shared with the Explorer SUV. While halo vehicles are all the rage (and the press) like the 500 strong fleet of the Tesla, the 10,000 unit Sport Trac gets ignored. It sells 200 times better than the halo niche cars.
Oh well, no one at Ford would listen to me anyway. But I still think the truck should be renamed Ranger. The existing Ranger is a dinosaur in the truck world. It could use a little freshening up.
Related Products to this post:
- Ford Explorer Sport Trac Lift Kits
- Ford Explorer Sport Trac Nerf Bars
- Ford Ranger Leveling Kit
- Ford Ranger Nerf Bars
Truck fail – breaks in half!
These things just make me laugh. A lot.
Vespa versus Smart Car revisited
Yesterday Jesse and Rafael raced – Vespa vs. SmartCar. I think that there needs to be a rematch once we can do a few mods to the Smart Car. Yesterday’s race was not totally fair since Jesse has heavily modified his little scoot and the Smart Car was stock. So in the interests of fair play I think we need to put a turbo GSXR motor in the Smart. This would even up the odds a little bit and take some of Jesse’s advantage away.
Of course we will need a little co-operation from Rafael’s dad since it is really his car, but he should be cool with it since he is an engineer – and everyone knows that engineers like to build stuff. Smartuki makes the basic kit and then we add the turbo. Should be fun – as soon as we convince someone to come up with the money!