Roadkill (2012–2020): Season 1, Episode 3 - Cheap Truck Challenge! - full transcript

- On this episode of Roadkill

we got together with Rick
Pewe and Fred Williams

of 4-Wheel & Off-Road magazine

and joined up in their
cheap truck challenge.

This is a contest where each guy has to

buy a truck for 2,000 bucks

and hop it up for another 2,000

and then go head to head
in a number of competitions

that test the vehicles
ability, reliability,

and coolness factor.

(engine revs)



(shots fire)

(tires squeal)

(rock music)

Our truck is a '79 Ford Bronco.

We overspent on it at
twenty five hundred bucks

but our argument was, it
was ready to go as is.

It even already had a six inch lift

and some 33 inch mud terrain tires.

It's got a 351 V8, beefy c6 trans,

the best 205 gear driven transfer case,

a Ford nine inch in the back
and a Dana 44 in the front.

Rick opted for a 1980 Toyota pickup.

This things almost retro it's so cool.

I think he really cheated
on the price though,



'cause he's got a brand new

Marlin Crawler low range
transfer case in it.

He put lockers at both ends,

he's got a lift kit on it,

brand new Mickey Thompson 33 inch tires,

so it's going to perform really
well, even though it's bogus.

Fred's truck is cool.

It's an '87 Suburban and I really dig it

'cause it's a stripper model,
with no air conditioning.

It also has a four speed
which is going to help a lot.

He threw an off-road design lift kit on it

and some cool Super Swampers.

In the end we all spent
about the same on our trucks.

Right at 35 hundred bucks each.

We'll find out how they
stack up in the competition.

(lively country music)

We're here at Fred William's house

in Atascadero California.

He's the staffer at 4-Wheel and Off-Road

who's setting this whole thing up.

We're only two and a half
hours late, who's missing?

- Rick Pewe, late as usual.

- Guaranteed.

The sun will be down behind those bushes

by the time Rick gets here.

Where's Fred with the beer?

- Cheap truck challenge is the competition

against the budget.

If you're a 17 year old kid

and you worked all summer long

and you only made a few thousand dollars,

what would you buy?

How would you fix it up?

Each editor got a vehicle,
did some upgrades to it

and then we're going to go
out, take 'em four-wheeling,

but they also have to still be reliable

and something you can drive
to work or school every day.

- Nope.

- Aw.

- Yeah, no, we're still here at the house.

Nah, Pewe's not here yet, as usual.

- I got a good feeling about this one.

(fast-paced country music)

- This is total flashback.

Like everyone I knew in
the 80's had one of these.

- Right now the last thing
is to put the drive shaft on.

I took it off because of the
transfer case is brand new.

I didn't want to take that
chance of burnin' it out.

So I'll put it on.

There's only eight bolts, done.

I'm ready to go wheelin'.

The worst thing about this challenge is,

I don't have a clue.

Fred said be here on
time, which for me I am,

and we're going to go wheeling.

I dunno where, I don't know what,

he says to bring a gallon of milk,

I have no idea what that means either.

So, I'm up for it.

I got my drive shaft, I got my truck.

I'm ready.

- The thing I'd like
to point out right now,

is that the Hot Rod team showed up

having driven our truck
here, completely ready to go.

We stood around for four
hours waiting for Pewe

and he's still working
on it after driving here

with his luxurious Apollo motorhome.

Fail.

(engine churns)

(spray can hisses)

- That's a nuisance.

(engine rattles)

(engine churns)

- [Voiceover] The first
thing we're going to do

is a ride and drive.

Everybody gets to drive
each others vehicles.

We'll check fuel economy.

It's all kind of an on-road test.

- Works fine.

- Aww Toyota.

- Where's the seat belt
in this piece of (bleep)?

(engine squeals)

- Make sure he loses
the fuel economy test,

let's drive it all the way there in first.

(laughing)

- This thing has a real sucky clutch.

♫ Everyday I'm shufflin'♫.

- Let's just go off-roading right now.

- Right there.

- Coming over.

- Oh yeah, this is winning the drag race.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Oh yeah, you want some?

Yeehaw!

- Ugh now he's wasting our gas.

- Yeah he is.

- That was a gallon right there.

- Hello officer.

- This steering wheel is falling off.

You see that?

- [Voiceover] This is our
special test facility,

top-secret ranch in the middle of nowhere.

- We start with a drag race

and then obstacle course,
maybe play in the mud a little,

so we have a few different
things we're going to try.

We also have some guests.

These are the land rover
off-road training instructors.

These guys are used to
really high end vehicles

so they'll be perfect for testing

and judging our piles of garbage.

- This is the drag race.

Now unlike most drag races

where you start on the flat surface,

because our vehicles
are a little bit older

and maybe need a little help
because they're low buck,

we're starting on this hill.

The land rover guys here are
going to show us how it's done.

Ready?

Go!

(engines rev)

- I was a little worried about the brakes

on these vehicles, once
I saw the finish line

and the distance to the ditch

but really that's not much of a ditch.

Bob Hope could clear that in a jump cart.

(rock music)

That looks close enough.

(engines rev)

(camera shutters)

Woohoohoohoo!

- I'm happy.

- Nope.

Best two out of three.

Completely bogus.

- Ah.

(camera shutters)

It's sabotage.

- Point system for first, second,

and third with D and F get zero.

- It was a photo finish.

- The second one I thought I got that.

- Right at the end, yeah.

- David and Finnegan, D and F.

- So the other guys claiming
a victory, I'm not buyin' it.

- Alright, alright, one more time.

One more time.

- Who's the official, who's the official?

(camera shutters)

- Suck it!

- So you're not fired.

What happened?

- The key uh, to the Bronco
winning, neutral drops.

- Oh no way.

That's not a long term solution,
I hate to break it to you.

- Nobody won the race!

- Yeah, our competitiveness
is not going to pay off

at this point, I can tell.

- Hey as long as I win one
event, that's all I care about.

- [Voiceover] The winner of
the drag race, by a mile,

was the Bronco.

- What is the deal?

(engine sputters)

- So the Bronco, she's a
little tired after drag racing

and she really doesn't
want to run right now.

Crank.

(engine turning over)

Let's do the sock on the carburetor.

- You rev up the engine,
hold a rag over the intake

and what it does is it stops the airflow

and the engine vaccuum sucks all the dirt

and fuel through all the little venturis

and everything else and
clears it out, makes it work.

Now it's ready to go.

(engine revs)

- [Freiburger] It's mint.

- [Pewe] Much better.

- [Freiburger] Yeah.

- [Finnegan] That's what
happens when you fail

to pop the hood open on a
newly purchased automobile

before you go try to enter
a cheap truck challenge.

- So what's next is a crawl race.

This showcases the crawl
rate of the vehicles

to see how slow they can go

if you're creepy crawling
across some rocks.

So we'll actually start
all the vehicles together

first gear, low range, and see which one

is the slowest moving down the course.

- On your marks, get set, go!

(door slams)

- Aw yeah.

(laughter)

- I can steer it can't I?

- [Pewe] Hey, you got help.

Nobody's driving it.

- [Finnegan] You have to go
in between the orange flags.

- What?

- [Freiburger] So in
theory Rick won that deal

because he was the last one there

and we lost 'cause we were first

but dude I got to ask the
question what 17 year old kid

wants his truck to be slower?

So by the apparent
inverted judging standard,

I'm calling that a win.

Next.

- [Voiceover] In the crawling competition,

clearly the winner was the Toyota.

- [Pewe} This is the milk cart challenge

where we have a milk jug taped
to the hood of the vehicle

and as you go along it
starts squirtin' out

and that shows you how well
your suspension is working.

- This is as if you were a kid

hanging out in the woods with your buddies

and all of a sudden you
had to get in your vehicle

really quick and race out of there.

So this will be a timed event

to see who can get to the end
of the course the fastest.

The guy with the most milk in the jug

at the end of the race gets extra points.

- [Voiceover] Standby.

Go.

(country music)

- Once I got to the creek bed

and make a left up to the hill

I figured I'm already losing
milk so I just nail it.

I just started going in four high.

Then I really wanted to
launch it over this hill

but with my Toyota I couldn't do it

so kept it in four low, second gear.

I just went the rest of the
course, sliding, sliding

and spurting, spurting,
it was like a volcano

coming out both ends.

I get down to the bottom

and I wanted to do a real tight 360

so I took it out of four wheel drive

but it didn't come out of four wheel drive

so I had this super long curve.

That cost me a little bit of time.

Time wasn't bad but I lost a lot of milk.

- So the flag dropped

and I ran and got in the Suburban

and my seat belt jammed.

I'm sure I ate up a bunch
of time just doing that.

Come on!

The Suburban just soaked up the bumps

down through the river bed.

I really wasn't too worried
about the milk situation

'cause there's tons of milk out there.

I can always buy more milk.

I knew I had wheel base and power

so I figured I'd just throttle
it down and see what happens.

I took it up through the hills

and when I came down through
the bushes and the trees

I think I smacked one of
those cameras on the side.

Luckily I was able to throttle it

through the big doughnut at
the end and come in strong.

I don't know how I did on time

but I think I did pretty
good on not losing

too much milk out of the whole jug so.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to win it.

- I had this idea that I could

go through my passenger door
since I don't have a door

which was going to save me time

versus the other guys
having to run around.

I think that really worked.

Didn't really get any air.

I was trying to modulate the throttle

to keep the thing down, soak up the bumps,

and stay on the terrain and go fast.

I went all the way down the
river bed in two wheel drive

and jumped up out of the
bed in two wheel drive

and when I had to through
that little notch though

I went to four high.

There was the point where
you had to make the doughnut

around the three flags and I
kicked it into two wheel drive

and I thought I was just
going to whip it around

but I think that the
transfer case stayed in four

because it just pushed
the front end really bad.

When that happened I killed it.

I thought ugh I'm completely done now.

Oh!

I got it fired back up and
still made it through the gates

way faster than those other guys.

I'm just going to win this thing on time

because who cares if you spill milk.

- I really don't think I won

but I think I did better than the Bronco.

I can't wait to find out.

- Freiburger did pretty good in the Bronco

but I really expected it
to come off the ground

a lot more than he had it.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to win it.

- Oh I totally owned both
those guys that time.

That was a big victory.

- [Voiceover] In its second
victory so far, the Bronco.

- So this next one is a
V-notch and a hill climb

all in the same thing.

You're going to climb
up, weave back and forth,

get to the top, loop it
around, and come back down.

It's going to be speed but it's
also going to be gracefulness.

So we'll see what we can do.

- Go!

(rock music)

- [Voiceover] Now hit the Toyota.

(laughter)

- On your mark, get set, go.

- Holy sh.

- Mark, get set, go.

- Dude this Suburban gets it,
in case you were wondering.

- [Voiceover] At the hill
climb, Bronco wins again.

- [Williams] Everybody
wanted to go for the mud hole

and they somehow convinced me to go first

and the first time I
dumped it in there whooosh,

water all over the hood,
and it just kept on pullin'

raaa, came right on out.

Eat it bitches!

I'm pretty sure that I won the mud bog

'cause I don't think anybody
else is going to follow me

where I just went.

(laughing)

- I moved my air cleaner up
and around on the snorkel

to the back, then I skirted to the edge,

I was still all in the mud,
I only got half of it muddy.

Only half of it dirty
and I made it through.

So that was good, I had a great line.

- Power bag,

food.

I didn't know if I wanted to do the mud

but as soon as I saw
Rick take the gull around

I knew I couldn't do that

because I would have to
not make fun of him for it.

So I went right through the middle

but not with quite the
speed that Fred did.

- Freiburger goes through
in his big 'ole Bronco

raaar, except he was wearing a dress too

so he doesn't count.

- I didn't want to go,
in fact I punked out

and didn't get in this to go.

No doors, no way to keep me dry.

I'm not going.

- [Freiburger] Chick.

- Totally.

- They were like do it again,
do it again, as they do

and when you get through once,
you think you're unstoppable.

So we went around again,
scaboosh, water everywhere,

and then I realized submersion

is not good for Suburban

and she shut down, we got a
bunch of water everywhere.

So we towed her over here,
pulled all the plugs,

cranked her over, shot some
water out of the cylinders,

luckily she cranked back up,

we're going to put a new air
cleaner in it and go home.

- [Voiceover] In the mud pit,
got to go with the Suburban.

- We are at the Pismo Dunes,

and today we're out playin' in the sand.

(rock music)

We got to play in the mud and the hills,

obstacle course yesterday.

Today we're kind of wrapping
up cheap truck challenge

by coming out here and just
whipping around in the sand,

and maybe see if we can catch
a little air off some dunes.

- The Toyota loves the dunes.

I could even do it in
first gear, high range,

I don't have to go into low range

except for some of those real tough places

I need crawl out of.

But if you keep the R's up,
keep the momentum going,

it just floats.

Can goes through the bulge,
can crash some of the dunes

it's really going to be fun

when we finally get things
jumpin' around here.

- [Williams] I came out
here in the Suburban

and I dropped the thing into low range

and I was like this things
just going to get stuck

but I put it in third and just got on it

and the thing would just start pulling

the tires weren't digging in.

I was barreling through.

I took it off one of those dunes, BAM,

I had this huge mess in the back.

The cooler was upside down
there was drinks and water

and ice all over the place.

So we dug that out.

I was kind of surprised how
well the big truck was doing.

- Today the dunes are
full of hater and punks

that all got roosted on by the Bronco.

Which I'm now renaming the Master Blaster

'cause she's that good in the dunes.

We carved higher on the
dune than anybody else.

That nice bowl right there.

It's a little gutless but to be honest

it holds a line better than anything else

out here in the dunes.

- [Voiceover] You get
to go first Bronco boy.

- Okay um, somebody say something nice

to my wife and kid and dog after this.

- The spine buster.

- I think I can do better than that.

(laughing)

The jump was deceptive.

It was more like hitting a big speed bump

going a little faster than you intended

and it just boom like
that and hucked the Bronco

into the air long enough
that I could say oh (bleep)

to myself three times.

I'm sore.

Landing was a little stiff.

I dunno I didn't see Pewe
and Williams hit it that hard

so once again I think we
should have the trophy.

- [Voiceover] In the sand
dunes the Suburban was cool

but Hot Rod wins again.

In the end, do the math man.

We came, we saw, we conquered.

I got to say though,

if you were really going
to go rock crawling,

Rick's Toyota would be the best truck

and if I had to own one
to drive every single day,

I'd pick the Suburban.

But the ultimate all around vehicle

proven beyond a shadow of a doubt,

the Hot Rod Bronco.

We'll see you again on the next Roadkill.

Where we have outrageous
fun for no apparent reason.

(rock music)

- Hey baby.

- Finnegan left his phone in here.

I'm going to call his mom.

Hi.

Hi mom.

I miss you.

(laughing)

- America.

Is that copyrighted?

Be sure and strap your stuff
down when you're at the dunes.