Am I getting starry-eyed with this new Southwest whoop eater? It doesn’t make sense, just 3 months ago, I made a video saying that Speed wouldn’t be able to produce this SxS in 2020, and at the Sand Show, I thought people were crazy for putting down deposits on this new car.

Watch the Speed presentation here: http://speedutv.com​

But over the last few months, Robby Gordon and the team at Speed have been posting updates, and this isn’t just a cobbled together 4 seat XX. This UTV has a lot of refinements, structural enhancements, massive horsepower, 77″ wide track width, and while the Speed team shared a lot of details, they will be doing another Facebook live session next week, to talk more about the motor and transmission.

Here are our thoughts on what we now know, and I have to be honest, I’m getting pretty excited. No matter what, buying a first-year vehicle is a huge risk, but it might be worth it, as I think this SxS is packing a lot of punch for $32,000.

Transcription:

What’s happening everybody Nicholson chupacabra off-road and today we’re talking about the new speed u TV that’s right Robby Gordon’s new side-by-side that we’ll be dropping this year so earlier this morning Robby Gordon did a live Q&A where he went over most of the details of the vehicle he didn’t really get that much into the transmission or the motor but he will be doing another part too which we will follow up as well next Wednesday but he didn’t reveal a lot of information it definitely looks like they’ve made a lot of progress if you guys are watching the channel I’m gonna be eating a little bit of crow here because I made some predictions at the beginning of the year and I thought that this vehicle was not going to see the light of day well a couple months later all these little snippets these posts have been dropping on Instagram have really got me very interested and now I’m very seriously looking at picking one of these things up this year on paper for the money it looks like there’s a tremendous amount of value we’re all about value if there’s one thing we try to do on this channel is try to give you guys as much information to make the best decision to spend your money as wisely as you can with all these new accessories popping up daily new vehicles and today we’ve got a really really exciting speed UTV to talk about so let’s get right into it so just to set the stage I currently own a 20-19 turbo s 4 seater Dynamics edition that vehicle is about $31,000 right off the showroom floor the next most comparable vehicle of course is the can-am x-3x RS RR edition which 2020 model is 195 horsepower it’s 135 inch wheelbase it’s very close in price at about $30,000 off the showroom floor this speed UTV is priced at $32,000 so very similar and once we can undo some of the feature benefits offered with this vehicle in my opinion it looks like it’s an amazing value compared to the other two competitors as a Southwest I am super excited to see these guys starting off right out of the gate with the 4c vehicle and getting right into a 120 inch wheelbase so one of the first things robby touched on was the wheelbase in compared to the competition so currently my turbo West 4 seat razors got 117 inch wheelbase the new Polaris Pro XP XP Pro floor cedar is longer at 125 inches and then the x3 max can-am is 135 inches so you guys have watch I know I’m not a big fan of the X ray because of how long it is I think the rear seats are excessively long too long for a lot of other riding conditions other than just the sand dunes I like going all over the place Robby Gordon brought up a lot of valid points that he kind of agreed with what my personal opinions are this new speed UTV is 120 inch wheelbase which he said is the exact same wheelbase as his trophy truck so trophy truck is far far different than what we’re talking about here was side by sides but it is a good point of reference he’s got a bigger prerunner which is still shorter than they stock can-am xrs which also has 37 inch tires so as it leads to wheelbase he did bring up yeah we’re building a big Southwest desert car but at a certain point you get this diminishing return of having a wheelbase that’s so big that he feels it’s not gonna perform as well in multiple environments and there’s more to life out there even for us in the southwest and just pounding long loops of pounding Santa Ana Glamis so I’m glad he brought that up I’m glad that he brought us some reference points of some high-end vehicles like his trophy truck like his pre runner to give people more respect of what he thought the optimal wheelbase should be so getting into the chassis he mentioned that it was not TIG welded it was MIG welded which he believes to have said that holds up better for safety tests it’s also a little bit cheaper to produce no big shock our current racecar is also MIG welded and TIG welding is a more expensive laborious process and didn’t really expect that at this price point the tubing size is oh nine five wall to 120 wall based on certain parts he does point out that the 120 wall is more towards the front of the vehicle but most of rest of it is 0.95 so that’s a good sign going with thicker wall tubing than a Polaris or a can-am stock and then as well as adding some 120 wall in more important sections like the front of the vehicle one big advantage 15 gallon fuel tank so on my polaris for nine and a half gallons on an extra year 10 and a half gallons and especially when you start to tune these cars or running the turbos in the sand dunes they do eat a lot of fuel I’ve got a ride recently outside of Glamis or as a sandy rod I have my 33 inch tires we did 65 miles and we were almost on me so I’m out of the gate they should be able to go around 100 miles on a stock fuel tank a turbo x-ray as well as a turbo razor but you know like I said you start adding weight extra people you really need to start thinking about carrying extra fuel so good to see 15 gallons now speaking of structure fuel cell this is not a fully approved race car for all racing associations most of you guys aren’t ever gonna race but in case you do he did mention that speed side by side does have their own race specific fuel cell designed specifically for this vehicle that’ll make it race compliant as well as some other structural improvements you would need to make to race this thing in the best in desura score race so a couple overall characteristics horsepower is 230 horsepower but it will also get up to 300 horsepower speaking of motor he said he’s worked with some engineers from NASCAR roll from the snowmobile world as he claims a lot of smart people that have helped him engineer it’s not a three cylinder it is a two cylinder 225 and basically with the electronics set up you can bump this thing to 300 horsepower by running e85 fuel so it seems like it’s only included for an additional dollar it seems like a no-brainer honestly it sounds perfect if I’m gonna go to the dunes I can buy some e85 and the electronics are going to be able to read it adjust and then give us more horsepower so he’s gonna go over that in more detail next week so far it sounds almost too good to be true the new speed is gonna come stock with 32 inch tires and didn’t say exactly which brand it is he said it’s gonna be a 32 by 10 on a 15-inch wheel with the really unique tread pattern and that gets the vehicle sitting at 15 inches of stock ride height now as I lead the suspension he mentioned that it’s gonna have 25 inches of usable travel now usable travel is it’s got a term that Polaris kind of coined it’s not an actual suspension travel but it was really poking fun at the x3 with x3 he’s got a lot of suspension travel but it can’t use all that travel with the stock tires because you’re going to bottom out the frame I thought is interesting that Robbie used that term so I’m imagining the real-world suspension travels around 21 to 22 inches similar to a Polaris turbo s the suspension design is really well thought out Robbie thinks like a racer and that leads to the a arms the right arm and the left a arm can be interchanged same thing with the rear trailing arm and same thing with the rear with the shocks all four shocks are 12 inch stroke and well I find that a little bit interesting I thought you’d go with some longer shock stroke in the rear I like that you can replace one shock with all four of course the valving would be different in the spring rates as well I do feel like the longer shock stroke of a cannon is an advantage I think that’s why they work so well way above my pay grade just my two cents not a deal breaker but I thought it was interesting geometry wise this is gonna have less than half a degree of bump steer in the front end this vehicles gonna have a 12 inch stroke shock in the front my Polaris only has eight around the same will travel the quality of wheel travel is probably going to be a lot better in the front so a couple of the things that Robbie mentioned interchangeable parts the inner Seavey’s are the same around all four wheels they are the same hubs around all four wheels and left to right front a arms left to right rear trailing arms are all interchangeable so Robbie did talk a little bit about electronics one thing that made me really excited was he said you can have up to a two hundred and thirty amp charging system now a stock razor turbo non dynamics is about 55 amps I think can-am is a little bit less than that so really good to see that he’s thinking a lot about electronic needs running lights these type of things that really come up more in a racing situation when you were running a lot of high powered light all your accessories for extended duration of time he didn’t touch too much on the dash instrumentation but he did say it will have a 10-inch screen which is bigger than the Polaris ride command biggest in the industry there’s going to pair stock on these vehicles far as brakes they created their own calipers they didn’t look at other vendors but they went with a dual piston front rear design he didn’t mention how big the rotors are he did mention the stock wheels the clearance is really tight given their brake design it is a 4 by 156 bolt pattern which is the same as the Polaris RZR as well as a Textron double X but he did mention that not all the current wheel designs are going to fit to make room for the brakes so finally four wheel drive he said it’s not gonna have an electrically actuated four wheel drive he said there will be three modes an open diff two wheel drive and a four wheel drive locked which you can change on the fly he mentioned it in reference to more of a king of the hammers beefy setup compared to what comes stock in at Polaris or a can-am which is electronically actuator uses small motor and finally Robbie didn’t talk too much about the trans but you did say it will be a CVT he’s gonna talk more about that next week so like he said Briggs from the get-go will have a CVT go get into more NSP did mention on their Instagram page that they’ve been using albums which is a really predominant transmission manufacturer of high-end racing transmissions to help with the design so really excited to see if there’s any other bells and whistles with with the transmission set up in the CVT I know for a lot of you guys you’re really hoping to not have a CVT Robbie’s a believer he did mention that he believes are easier to drive for almost everybody and he feels obviously confident that he’s gonna deliver a high performance of the heavier vehicle and not have any belt issues speaking of weight a lot of people kept asking Robbie finally mentioned that their goal was to come in at around 2,100 pounds he thought it could end up being 2200 pounds but there’s no way it’s gonna be 17 or 18 hundred which is a little closer to what a stocked Polaris or km I know a lot of people always like to argue about weight for that seat-of-the-pants feeling yes but we’re talking about a bigger heavier vehicle to come stock with 32 inch tires beadlock wheels a more thought out of robust chassis so I’m not too concerned I’d rather have the reliability and the toughness we’re talking 225 horse so yes and a way more but yes we’re gonna have more stock horsepower out of the gate with some more horsepower options so I think it’s gonna be quite enough to make a lot of people happy and most importantly the vehicle looks like it’s really really robust and it’s gonna hold up to take a real beating which you know as this market evolves that’s all we’re looking for and we’re looking for more performance so we can drive harder and now we’re starting to realize the weak points of a lot of the vehicles that currently exist we want I think the end consumer we’re all looking at hey how is this thing manufactured how well is this this in this bill I don’t have to go buy a new side-by-side and bhayya radius rods I don’t want to have to think about all these other things that could break on the trail or that I have seen break on the trail or break in the dunes so to someone all up I’m pretty excited about the vehicle only a few months ago I thought it wasn’t gonna see the light of day now I’m seriously thinking about purchasing one myself you could go onto the website which will link in the description and check out this whole video presentation I think it’s a good watch Robby Gordon gives us a lot of information he’s got a lot of knowledge and I like the underdog story of a guy who really really gets our culture who’s a racer who’s bonafide a little bit through and through going against the OEMs having the power and capability to call the shots which he brought up a couple times you can control the whole process make all this vehicle exactly how he thinks it needs to be made not from a CEO tell them what to do slowing the process down or cost averaging you know value engineering certain parts you mentioned that a lot of other side-by-sides chief thought on the hardware he bragged about how good the hardware is gonna be so on paper guys this really seems like it’s a hybrid of a production UTV versus a custom-built car so I’m excited about it I think for the price there’s a lot of value also included in the $32,000 price are going to be carbon fiber seats as well as a roof he did mention $2,500 in additional upgrades earlier it was 5,000 he didn’t talk about the graphics kit so little convoluted there but you know I think it’s gonna be really exciting so Robbie do talk about the shocks there 12 inch stroke shock they’re the same shock on all four corners of spring rate and valving they are gonna have externally adjustable compression and rebound dampening and they are going to be true true dual rate Springs so good to see I was kind of hoping for a name brand like Fox or King to appear in this vehicle but willing to give it a shot he obviously knows what he’s doing he’s saying the internal bypass design of the shock was something he originally designed back on his Riviera trophy truck which I think made his debut in 94 so you know a lot of different ways to skin the cat guys like him know how to set up a shock so I think he knows what he’s doing my two cents guys I’m really excited about this vehicle at first I was really skeptical I was there at the sand chill last year when he talked about it I heard a lot of people put down deposits honestly I thought those people were crazy because he didn’t say what motor or what shocks is going to have now at least know what shocks is going to have we know a lot of the design improvements that have been made since we first saw that part of that which was kind of like a cobbled together for cxx which what he’s telling us this new vehicle is a lot more thought-out he mentioned the front differential is very similar what’s on his unicorn trophy truck which is something obviously he’s been developing to make his trophy truck competitive at the highest racing ranks against all the other guys as they have all been upgrading to four-wheel-drive so Robbie knows what he’s doing he’s out there he knows how to work on stuff he knows how to drive fast I’m getting excited so hope you guys are – hope you guys liked this video tune in next week we’ll get into part two after he does his Q&A a walk-around if you guys like the content please like and subscribe I’ve got a lot more coming your way.