If you are a regular fan of this site, you may be wondering where I have been. Besides waging war on a nasty cold, Ive been in Texas yall. Why Texas? I attended probably the greatest truck competition in the country.
For two days, this was the scene in the morning from the mess hall.For 2 days, nearly 70 journalists had the unique opportunity to drive more than 91 vehicles. A great majority of these were trucks as well as commercial vans and SUVs. While, I drove a great many different vehicles in the van and SUV category, Ill keep this focused on my experiences with trucks.
My task was to evaluate and rank each vehicle on exterior, interior, performance and value in its class. A tall order for sure!Before I get each manufacture, let me give you a little history on the Truck Rodeo. About 30 years ago, a group of journalists got together to form the event. These journalists from the Texas Auto Writers Association built this event from a small gathering into an event which bestows a big award the Truck of Texas. Although, there are individual winners by category, the Truck of Texas award is the most important since it is awarded by Texas journalists (myself and a few others excluded). It also is the top award for the state known as the full-size truck capital of the award. Winning a Texas truck award in Texas is a big stamp of approval.
As you can imagine, it took a lot of coordination to make this event come together.At the bottom of this article is a full list of the winners by category.
Lastly, the driving event was at a historic Texas ranch, Knibbe Ranch, and included a somewhat rigorous off-road section as well as on-road driving including interstate speeds. Each loop took about 10 minutes and, in most cases, there was a product representative with you. In fact, each manufacture brought in a good variety of people including chief engineers, marketing and communications staff. For the big ones Toyota, Ram, Ford, Chevy, Nissan, there were literally teams of 20 or better.
Toyota
While at the event, I had the chance to once again put the Tacoma through the paces.Lets start off with Toyota since this is what this site is focused on and there products are what I know best. For the truck rodeo, Toyota brought a big selection of their new Tacoma pickups and a few TRD Pro Tundra trucks. While both trucks were available to journalists to drive, the focus was clearly on the new Tacoma with Chief Engineer Mike Sweers riding shotgun on many of the drives. He was doing his best to showcase the vehicle and get journalists to drive it. As you can imagine, with the amount of vehicles and manufacture teams, it turned into a competition of getting journalists in the driving seat.
For my drive, I did indeed drive with Sweers on the off-road course. The funny part is I was actually walking over to drive the Chevy Colorado diesel, a truck I hadnt been in before, and got caught by the Toyota staff!
How did the Toyota do? Awesome of course. It is really built for the off-road course and did a fantastic job of handling all the loose rock, water crossing and big drops.
Several Tundra TRD Pros were available to drive at the event and I got to ride shotgun for one trip around. Fun to see how other people respond to the truck.The better part of the drive was chatting again with Sweers. One of the best parts of doing this job for as long as I have is I have developed a relationship with him. I give him flack over the lack of USB outlets in the rear of the Tacoma and he gives me flack about how he thought the new seats in the Tundra were a great idea until critics (like myself) took him to task over it. I also get to ask him the tough questions like if he is tired of talking about fuel economy (hes not).
Overall, the Toyota Tacoma won the mid-size truck category besting the Chevy Colorado diesel and a Nissan Frontier. Also, the truck finished 2nd in the Truck of Texas voting by tying the F-150. I would argue the tie for second is the BIG deal from these awards. Why? You have to understand the group of journalists (Texas full-size truck fans) and the state of Texas itself. For example, many journalists struggle with a mid-size truck as being a Texas truck as well as the lack of interior wow features. Simply put, people want a fancy interior and the Tacomas greatest strength is in its capability.
Nissan
The 2016 Nissan Titan XD made quite the splash at the event.Again, lets jump out of alphabetical order and talk about the Nissan Titan XD next. If you havent heard, this truck took home the coveted Truck of Texas award. This was a BIG win for them and a first for Nissan as a company. It was a joyous celebration dinner after the victory and many OEMs left disappointed to lose to this truck.
While I cant talk about driving impressions of the truck since I am under embargo on that until mid-November, I can say it is quite a truck. The engineers have done a good job of incorporating smart features from their competitors and putting their own stamp on them.
Nissan still has some work to do on it and I believe they will take our feedback back to the team.
Here I am driving this truck with Nissans Dan Passe who is their senior manager, product communications.One last note, if you doubt how important the Truck of Texas award is consider Nissans efforts. For starters, the trucks they sent were straight from their proving grounds and they were literally tightening screws the day before they shipped it. Also, they flew in one of their top executives, Fred Diaz, to personally talk with journalists during the event. Diaz is from Texas (crazy story his family had a house on the same ground which what would become the Toyota San Antonio plant) and really did his best to be charming and available. They also had a full court press with nearly everyone from their marketing and communications offices to get journalists in the truck. Also, they provided a walk around with one of the engineers. Finally, the journalists at the event are the only ones who have ever driven the truck. All other events and major publications have to wait to drive it. In sum, getting the honor being the first to drive the truck, seeing Nissans commitment to getting the truck at the event, flying in http://www.mobilemechanicportlandor.net/redmond-oregon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5cmvhvteNw
