SPEAKER 03 : 0:00

Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Richard Rush with me right now. Okay, Richard, as always, I shouldn’t say always, but we drive pretty routinely cars. We’re able to test drive certain things, get some feedback. Now, really quick for everybody listening, we drive these for a week. We get a pretty good idea of all of the different things that are there. When the car is new, we have no way of telling you down the road what are things going to be like other than certain makes and models have got some problems. some history with them and so on. But at the end of the day, Richard, we drive them for a week. We report back how they work. We try to do it as unbiased as we can. In other words, looking at it from the car’s point of view, not anybody else’s. You tend to look at things a little bit younger. I look at things a little bit older. But what have you driven lately? What do you want to start with?

SPEAKER 01 : 0:44

Yeah, well, let’s start with one that I think people have come to love, and it’s been a staple for many years, and that’s the 2024 Toyota Tacoma, and it has obviously been redesigned for 2024. This is one of the more hot designs. We actually drove a different model of this vehicle a little bit earlier. I guess it was a little bit later last year, so you guys can go look for that one. This is the Trailhunter version, Dad, which is like the TRD Pro, and for those of your listeners that are familiar with them, these are the two most off-road capable straight from the lot, right? So you want to go buy… a mid-sized truck, right? And that’s what these are. We’ll talk about that here in a second. And you want to pull this thing off the lot and basically take it up the mountains, you can do that. And they kind of come equipped with a lot of different things that give you off-road functionality, those sorts of things. As far as the Trailhunter goes, it’s just a slightly different variation of the TRD Pro. It’s got a little bit different of a look. It’s got a utility kind of bar in the back of it that goes in the back. And it’s got a few different shocks and a few things that way. One, my favorite thing about this, Dad, is what’s partly new for 2024, which is it’s got a new, it’s a turbocharged four-cylinder, but this is the I-4 SMAC. This is the I-4 SMAC version, which is basically the hybrid version, which really kicks up the performance of it, Dad. Again, it gives you a hybrid drivetrain, 326 horsepower, 465 foot-pounds of torque. on this vehicle which doesn’t do much for the fuel economy folks but here at our altitude dad and i can only imagine how this thing runs at sea level i’ll just say it works phenomenally well it just runs it just blasts off from from a stop this thing gets up and goes on the infotainment system the the nice big display on the inside works really well again we we talked a little bit more about those features in the other review i encourage you to tune to that but this vehicle that being the off-road ready version It looks aggressive. You can get into this thing. I would trust it on most of our Colorado trails. Obviously, there’s kind of some rougher stuff out there.

SPEAKER 03 : 2:52

To your point, this has got the full old man EMU suspension, ARB, sport bar, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, we just kind of go down the list of things that it’s got, which, by the way, a lot of folks are taking a typical stock-type vehicle, Toyota, in this case a Tacoma, adding all of those things to it and then going up to the hills. This one comes fully equipped, ready to go, to your point.

SPEAKER 01 : 3:14

This one comes fully equipped, ready to rock and roll. People are going to sit, well, and some of them are going to say, well, what’s the price point on this vehicle, Dad? Well, as this thing sits, again, this is about as off-road ready as you can get.

SPEAKER 1 : 3:25

$64,944.

SPEAKER 01 : 3:25

So basically $65,000 off. Fuel economy, for those that care, average of 23. It’s basically 22 and 24 in terms of fuel economy.

SPEAKER 03 : 3:36

Which, really quick, if you took a standard Tacoma, added all of these accessories, you would increase the price. You’d be higher than what this price is, by the way.

SPEAKER 01 : 3:47

You would, exactly. And keep in mind that Toyota has done, they’ve got a bunch of different models, right? And that’s sort of their model now is you kind of buy the trim level, right? You can put a few different accessories on it, but you’re pretty much buying it the way that you want it. So if you want a little bit better creature comfort, you would get a bit, I think it’s a limited, right, they call it. If you want the TRD Sport, you could get that. You want the TRD Pro or the Offroad, they’ve got all sorts of different options. The only negative to this car, Dad, is the backseat. They will say it’s a backseat. However, it is not a backseat. No other way to say it. I put my 7-year-old and my 6-year-old in this car, and you know how big they are. One of them is a little bit bigger in terms of height-wise. They were very hard-pressed to get in the vehicle. I had to scoot up the driver’s seat even for my younger one to fit. It’s just not a very, very big backseat. Okay. Some people aren’t going to care about that. I’m just being honest. I’m just telling folks if you’re looking for a full-size backseat, not the vehicle for you. However, everything else about this dad, that I-Force Max engine, all of that, this thing works phenomenal. So I encourage folks, head to your local Toyota dealer, test drive these. They’re now starting to be a little bit more prevalent on dealer lots. And when you do that, let them know that John and Richard Rush from Drive Radio and Rush to Reason sent you.

SPEAKER 03 : 5:05

This is John Rush from Rush to Reason and Drive Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Check out more of our podcasts at RushToReason.com or Drive-Radio.com.