Truck of the Year is serious business. Every year
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MotorTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - This is it.
00:02 - Hey, this is 2020 Truck of the Year.
00:06 (beep)
00:07 (laughing)
00:09 - Truck of the Year is where we come out here
00:16 to Kingman, Arizona to drive them on the streets,
00:19 test them at the FCA program grounds,
00:22 and then do a lot of towing tests up in Davidstown.
00:25 You know, trucks are super utilitarian,
00:27 so we try to test every single aspect of that, right?
00:31 - Let's face it, a truck is a totally different beast.
00:34 And yeah, there's all kinds of people out there
00:36 who buy their truck and use it like a car,
00:38 but there's a lot of people out there
00:41 who pick their truck because they're gonna be hauling stuff,
00:45 they're gonna be towing things.
00:47 The truck has to be so many things today.
00:56 - Because there are fewer trucks in Truck of the Year
00:58 than there are cars or SUVs in there over the years,
01:01 essentially they're all finalists.
01:03 - So the Ford Ranger is a midsize truck
01:09 that competes against the Tacoma, the Colorado,
01:12 the GMC Canyon.
01:14 Yeah, the value is pretty good.
01:16 I mean, this is $29,000.
01:17 - The best part about driving the Jeep Gladiator
01:22 is that I'm driving the Jeep Gladiator.
01:25 You know how long we've been waiting
01:27 for a Jeep to come out with a pickup again?
01:30 So this is a very loud little engine.
01:34 - Right now we are in the big daddy of them all.
01:38 This is the Ram 3500 Diesel Limited.
01:42 This truck is more than capable of towing
01:44 the entirety of America's freedom and liberty in one go.
01:47 - This is the next Chevy HD,
01:51 so this is the next generation of the work truck.
01:56 So we'll just sort of look at it like that.
01:57 We won't necessarily criticize it
02:00 for its lack of creature comforts.
02:03 - So we're in the Ram 1500 Rebel EcoDiesel.
02:09 And the EcoDiesel is a major new thing this year
02:12 on the 1500 series lineup.
02:14 - Yeah, this car is kind of a strange one.
02:17 It's a, this is a Chevy Silverado 1500,
02:20 but for the first time ever, it has a four cylinder engine.
02:24 And I mean, wow, for a four cylinder,
02:27 80 miles an hour already.
02:29 - Well, today we're officially
02:36 on the second day of Truck of the Year,
02:37 and we've already done our looping in the real world,
02:40 but now we're down to getting hard, cold facts and numbers.
02:44 And thankfully Fiat Chrysler Arizona Proving Ground
02:48 provides us just the place for that.
02:50 (radio chatter)
02:53 - So you have 9,000 pounds, Christian.
02:55 - Hey, what's 100 pounds between frames?
02:57 - So yeah, we have a ton of towing tests.
02:59 So we're doing our normal instrument testing.
03:02 We're doing zero to 60, quarter mile, 60 to zero.
03:05 Honestly, when you're towing,
03:06 driving a straight line, forward, super easy.
03:09 Forget everything's behind you.
03:11 Once you're at highway speed,
03:12 it's pretty easy to manage too.
03:13 It's when you have to deal with tight right or left turns,
03:17 city streets, and especially backing up,
03:20 that's when it gets difficult.
03:23 (engine revving)
03:25 Yesterday on the off-road course, that was fun too.
03:34 Can't say I've driven up a staircase before,
03:36 but now I can check that one off the bucket list.
03:38 - So tomorrow's our ultimate towing test.
03:42 We're going to Davis Dam
03:43 and using the Davis Dam grade two-tow trailers up and down.
03:47 This is our frustration test where we accelerate
03:49 from I believe 45 miles per hour to about 65.
03:52 We'll see how long it takes.
03:53 Spoiler alert, it's always a long time.
03:55 - Doing a real world frustration test.
04:05 We're going to take it up the Davis Dam grade,
04:06 which is a really steep hill.
04:08 And we're going to take these trucks
04:09 and cruise along at a low speed,
04:11 like you're stuck behind a big rig.
04:12 And then we're going to floor it
04:13 and see how long it takes to get back up to freeway speeds.
04:16 Because a truck that's got a lot of pulling power,
04:18 good gearing is going to get back up there quickly.
04:20 One that struggles, well, that's going to be something
04:23 you might not want to tow a huge amount of weight with
04:24 in the real world.
04:25 - You know, how smooth is it?
04:27 Is it lurching?
04:27 Is the power pulling the truck back?
04:29 You know, how is the transmission shifting as we go up?
04:33 And then how does it hold the speed as we go back down?
04:35 - Is it important for a truck to be good at towing
04:38 to win truck of the year?
04:39 - Yeah.
04:40 (laughing)
04:42 - Oh yeah, boy, once we switched gears,
04:45 it really slowed down, didn't it?
04:47 Dang.
04:49 - We're still doing 35 miles per hour.
04:50 - Yeah, we're trying to get 65 and it's leveling off at 59.
04:54 Not good.
04:56 This truck is all about fun.
04:59 It's all about taking the doors off, taking the top off,
05:01 laying the windshield down.
05:03 And as a truck, it's just not as good
05:05 as some of its competitors.
05:07 - Well, we've towed everything we've got up and down
05:12 the Davis Dam.
05:13 It's getting really hard to challenge them.
05:14 I mean, all of them did so well today.
05:17 Nothing really struggled that much.
05:19 So I think we're gonna have to come up
05:21 with an even harder test for truck of the year.
05:23 - With so many trucks in the market,
05:30 we have to make sure to declare which one is the best one.
05:33 - The thing with trucks is that a lot of people buy them
05:37 as their personal vehicle to drive around
05:38 'cause they like trucks.
05:39 But way, way, way more businesses are buying trucks
05:42 to do all kinds of work.
05:45 And those buyers have different expectations,
05:47 different needs.
05:48 And pickup trucks are just a weird thing.
05:50 It's a uniquely American market.
05:54 And you know what?
05:56 They're nice.
05:57 They really are.
05:57 They've made them really good.
05:59 (upbeat music)
06:01 (upbeat music)
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