FINALLY!! Us believers in Speed UTV are getting to take the first cars on a test drive, been waiting for such a long time. We had some challenges, but overall I think this SxS is going to be a fantastic car, and make a lot of people happy. This is a long video, but I think it points out a lot of good details. Overall, for the price I paid, I think I stole it. The quality is fantastic, the shocks work extremely well, and keep in mind this is a brand new company, first 10 cars. It's pretty remarkable what Robby Gordon and his team have accomplished. I'm stoked to be apart of the first test drive, which is a part of history for the brand.

Transcription:

(0:00) All right, the speed UTV is out. Here's my review. It's awesome. Thanks for watching. We'll see you on the next one. [Music]

(0:16) Hey everybody, welcome back to the channel. Chupacabra Off-Road. My name is Nick Olson. I am the founder of this brand. We make parts and accessories for off-road side-by-side vehicles. Thank you guys for tuning in. As you can probably tell, I'm very excited to finally be able to make this video because last weekend I took delivery of one of the first 10 production speed UTVs. I got car number six. Very amazing, fortunate to be in this position, and I wouldn't be in this position if I wouldn't have purchased my car from anywhere else other than Coyne Powersports. So before we get into it, support the dealers that support the industry, that support people like me. If you like what we're doing here, getting help from companies like Coyne Powersports makes a huge difference. So here's the number, go ahead and give them a shout. They're the first dealer of speed UTVs. They've got the most on order. Give those guys a shout if you're interested in learning more about the speed.

(1:06) Okay, for the video, I think it's good to start off with a little story and kind of explain everything that happened, and then we can kind of touch on my riding impression of spending a lot of seat time over the weekend here in these new vehicles. The weekend started off Friday with a reveal, ribbon cutting. That video is on our channel, I'll link it below, but if you want to learn more about that, check that out.

(1:30) So fast forward to Saturday, we go ahead and towards the later part of the day, Robbie starts us off with a safety meeting, goes over some of the features and benefits of the car, and then we get in the cars, get gassed up, and we start heading out to the desert, which is Standard Wash, a popular riding area outside of Lake Havasu. So we get to Standard Wash, it's about a little 10-mile ride on the highway, get the cars warmed up, let them cool down, everyone's double-checking all the machines, and we're hanging tight. And one of the content guys from speed notices that the lighting is pretty much perfect. We're at golden hour, so he jumps in the back of my car and says, "Nick, let's go get some shots." You don't have to ask me twice. Finally, we get this car out into the desert and drop Rob off and try to get some of these shots you see here. First couple miles on the vehicle, it's pretty exciting. I'm still in two-wheel drive, I'm just trying to get a feel for it. It's a little bit of a nerve-wracking position to be in because, you know, I'm trying to get some content for speed, make the car look cool. I don't even know how it feels. I'm not trying to be that guy who rolls it in a wash or, you know, gets into a pickle. So I'm just feeling it out and getting to see what it does and look at some of these cool shots.

(2:47) And we end up getting done with that and then jumping on to the trail ride, which we're gonna make a short ride, I want to say 15-20 miles out to this log cabin and go hang out, which was the goal. We end up taking the car out about another 10 miles or so, and we have to pull over and stop and check on another customer's vehicle. I wasn't sure how to shift four-wheel drive, so Robbie Gordon actually jumped in my car and was showing me, explaining how to do it. You got to do it, you know, not from a stop, but rolling as the front diff is rolling at trail speed. And unfortunately, at that point in time, the car dies on us. Him, Max, another team member from Speed come over, start diagnosing, looking at fuses, and unfortunately, the wiring harness was grounding out. And after pulling the skid plate, we had learned that a zip tie broke, and the wiring harness was rubbing against the drive shaft, which at that point in time was very unfortunate because I couldn't drive my car anymore. We had to tow it back in, but it was undrivable with what we had and how we were going to be able to fix it. And as a simple mistake, I think with the production that they weren't aware of, but it just was what it was, and I only got about, yeah, 18 to 20 miles in my car total for the first day.

(3:59) So, bummer deal. The car has to get towed back, but they did let my dad and I jump in Max's car, and this is the infamous KOH car, the Little Bandit, and that car is on 35s, it's got a lot of power, and my dad drove it back, and it was fun to see what that car felt like. So the next day, Sunday rolls around, and I end up jumping in Todd Romano's car, car number four. Here's a little clip of what it looks like. Now, this isn't a brand new production car of this fleet of 12 that arrived. This is a pre-production car, so it's close. So that's one of the reasons why I'm gonna call this video an impression, because I spent a lot of time in Todd's car, but there probably were a couple little items that they mentioned that weren't completely reproduction of things that they had learned and made changes on. So it is what it is, but I got a good overall feel of the vehicle, and the guys took us on a good ride. So we went down towards Parker, hopped in the dirt, and the ride started off with some slower, chill riding. I don't want to necessarily call it technical, there was no crawling per se, but it was kind of stuff that a lot of people would really encounter day to day. It reminds me of a lot of Southern Utah-style riding as well. Just bumps, tight turns, we had the car in first gear, and really enjoyed how the speed worked in those type of conditions. Just as all day, the gearing is good. I'll mention more of this in a minute, but the ride, well, someone saw we stopped and got some content. Slower paced type of stuff from, you know, five to 30, 40 mile an hour sections here and there. Fun little rip over to the Desert Bar, which was pretty cool. It's the first time actually making it to Parker, and we stopped there for lunch and hung out for a bit before we continued on our ride.

(5:25) At this point, so far, so good. We end up making our way back up towards Havasu. We encountered different types of terrain. We get into this section, you definitely have to pay attention to out here. There's all different types of rocks, you know, sometimes they're the size of a bowling ball or a microwave right off the side of the trail. Fast, chattery, you know, race car, it's fun terrain out here, and it was good to see the speed, you know, in its real element as we get the speeds pick up, you know, rough terrain, and get a feel, like I said, what it's feeling like.

(6:02) So we get going through that. We end up continuing on our ride. Ride leads us into the dark. We go through this very cool little wash trail that I marked on my map because I want to come back and find it, and then we make our way back up towards Planet Ranch. And then from Planet Ranch, we hit a very fun, fast section. I want to call it maybe like race course style. I just had grooved turns, fast, or some GEOS, things had to really pay attention for. It's night at this time, and I've been waiting this whole weekend, I mean for months, years, to get the car in its right element on a trail like this. So I'll show you a bunch of footage here at the end of that, but it was great to see what it felt like. And there's different types of terrain. At this point, we've kind of done different types of speeds and different, you know, soil types. A little bit looser, some harder pack stuff. And then from here, after this section finished, we end up making it to this log cabin, which was cool. We stopped and had hot dogs. And then from there, we cruised back some pretty nasty, bumpy wash back to Havasu to the speed shop.

(7:00) So that second day was a much better indicator than the first day. I think we did over 100 miles the second day, and at least 80 of that was off-road. So I got to spend a full pull again in the number four car, Todd Romano, but did get to ride in three different speed cars throughout the course of the weekend. So I think give me my first impression, which we'll get into.

(7:15) So both days, 125, 130 miles off-road roughly in the speed. Let's talk about my impressions. I just have a little list here. I'm gonna kind of go down and explain what I thought and felt, things that I'd like to see potentially improved or things that I didn't like as much, and overall we'll sum it up and bring it home.

(7:38) Okay, so instead of starting off with power, I'm going to start off with the clutching, the shifting, and the drivability, and then I will talk about power as it relates to that. So what's unique about this vehicle that has three speeds that you can adjust on the fly, and all three of those speeds had a really wide usable range that I really enjoyed. So compared to other vehicles where you're in low range for a section, and if it starts to open up, you've got to stop, please stop, put it into high range on your Can-Am and your Polaris, this you're allowed to do it on the fly. So, you know, I could spend time in each of the three gears. I needed to do a bit of shifting in first gear for this first section here I mentioned on the first of Sunday ride, and we're headed out to Desert Bar, it was awesome. The throttle curve was very smooth. Robbie and the team said they learned some things about that King of the Hammers. That's something I was looking for because if you guys have seen the channel, I'm a bit squirrely as a rock crawler, and the X3 is so torquey and so quick from that first zero to five miles an hour. This was the opposite of that. Very nice and smooth in first gear, easy to ride that type of terrain, that all-day ride. It was very enjoyable. I think it freewheeled out very nicely with less clunk or slowdown or the binding I've experienced in a RZR. I don't want to call it binding, but I think you guys know what I'm trying to say. Clunking's not fair to call the Polaris too. It doesn't clunk, it just the way it'll freewheel out when you're in low range. And because it felt like it was a little broader, this trail section here was, you know, a couple miles an hour up to 20, 30. It didn't feel like I had to stop and put it in a second gear, and the beauty of the speed is I don't have to. I can just match the gear speed and bump it. That's very nice just as you're going through terrain like this, where you're kind of in between the low and high on your Can-Am or Polaris.

(9:12) So I like that. I thought the clutching was very good. I never saw clutch start belt temperatures, I think over 190. It never felt like it was really putting a big strain on the belts at all. But to be fair, we weren't in the dunes, we didn't have paddle tires, I wasn't using the speed key. So I'm excited to see what the power feels like when we have all those things going for us, how it stacks up when I drive it back-to-back with the X3, back-to-back with the Pro R. But, you know, plenty of speed for, plenty of power and torque for off-roading, and second gear, very broad, and third gear was really cool that you could start from a complete stop and it would just wind right up and be great for, we did, you know, a couple highway connector sections, like before we started our big ride on Sunday. So that's that whole setup. You know, as long as the belts end up being really reliable, which we had no blown belts on our ride, that's going to be a really good system that I'm very happy with. Because I think we expected that this car was going to have more of the race car vibe and be fun to drive and aggressive, but I think if you buy a UTV, you're going to take it all over the place like I like to do, and it's nice on those long all-day rides to have something that's just smooth and very pleasurable and good to drive.

(10:27) So that's what I think about clutching as it leads to the power. So if I describe it, the first word I think of is smooth power delivery, usable, easy, broad, drivable in a sense. So that's what I would call it for now. And then also, too, you know, like I said, I was a pre-production, I think they made a couple changes. It's hard to tell if it felt different from my production car. We'll comment more on that in a future video once I take my car home.

(10:50) Okay, you're going to get going fast. You need to slow down. Let's talk about the brakes. Now, when we first took off, the brakes definitely needed to be seated in. They didn't feel spongy, they didn't feel like there was air in the line, but you could tell that the pads needed to be broken and they weren't grabbing. So it started to get better in my vehicle, and once we started to get a little bit of dust on them, hit the brakes. The brakes weren't that strong, but I think once I get another 50 or 100 miles on it, they should be broken in pretty good. In Todd's car, they felt good. We had 32, so I'm hopeful that these stock brakes are going to work good on 35-inch tires. Speed did launch right before this release an upgrade option of some Willwood brakes. Now, these are $3,400 plus, they're a pretty spendy upgrade. I bought the speed because I was hoping I would have to spend a lot of money upgrading things. Now, it's an option. I think it makes sense because, you know, for a racing application, you want the best brakes you can get. I also think, you know, there's a high-end customer for the speed, and anything that they make, some people are going to buy. I'm just hopeful that on, like I said, when I do start running 35s, that the brakes are going to be sufficient once they're broken in, and I'll report more on that in the future. So that's just kind of what I want to say in terms of the braking performance right now. Like I said, Todd's car, broken in, the brakes felt good. Stock, it just needed some miles for sure.

(12:14) All right, let's talk about my favorite, suspension and handling. Now, I had high hopes. I did a predictions video about how I thought this was going to work really well in the bumps. And starting off with the shocks themselves, they're 3.25-inch shocks, they're the biggest shocks that come stock on any side-by-side, particularly in the front. I think the biggest is a 2.5 from the competitors. The small bump compliance, how light the valving is in the first couple inches of stroke is awesome. It's better than I think any tuned vehicle I've owned. It's better than any stock side-by-side. My 2021 X3 XRC is a very well-suspended car in stock form. I was blown away by it. I've done a spring kit, just got my valving back. We're going to go take it out and shoot some content with it. But the stock speed is very good. You can tell how big the shocks are. You can just feel it. I mean, it's a heavier car. Like I said, it's about 2,450 pounds, and those shocks are very controlled. And you take that ultra supple small bump compliance, and you jerk the wheel a little, and it feels like the car is really going to, you know, it's so plush, it's going to move around. And then as it starts to lean over, you get onto the sway bar. So the sway bar has adjustments built in. I'm excited to play around with those. I've talked a lot about suspension on this channel. You're trying to match that gooey plushness, feel the terrain, but also not have it move around a lot. And I think those two elements together, the way it's designed, the shocks are awesome.

(13:41) And then when you talk about the chassis and handling, the chassis is stiff, and I think it doesn't feel vague. You know, one of the taglines Razer used to use was razor sharp handling. When I think when you look at the elements of how the car comes together, the wider A-arms, how the geometry is dialed on the hubs of the front wheel, all of that, I do think I felt it, and it felt very intuitive. It felt very predictable, precise, because I think the chassis and the A-arms, everything, the knuckles feel so stiff. It doesn't feel vague. You know, like an example would be, you're driving your Can-Am or your Polaris, and maybe your tires are a little bit lower, or you put a new tire, maybe a taller tire, and it wallows a little. Or maybe you change the offset of your wheels, and you know, you went the wrong way on your wheel offset, and you don't have that precision. When you come in fast and do a rugged turn, that's, I think, optimized on the speed. It felt like I could really feel the A-arm pushing against the wheel bearing, and you know, the tires were a little high pressure-wise. I want to say we were in 25 PSI. I'd probably drop it to 18. But it felt very predictable and precise, the front-end handling-wise. So I'm really pleased with that. I expected it to be, you know, like all these things on paper, but I do think if I'm being honest, I can feel that. And I think some of the other guys, they commented as well, and I'm curious what all of you future speed owners will say when you get to drive it, if you can feel those differences compared to other brands.

(15:19) So small bump compliance is great. That's great on that slower stuff where you're just not getting beat up all day. That's another thing that I liked about the drivability, that, you know, that 5 to 25 mile trail ride stuff, the shocks just really don't chatter around you. I'll show you some footage. You can hear the audio. The front end of the vehicle is just not having vibration like you experience other vehicles. And then once things get faster and more ramp up, I think we did bottom the car once with a passenger in the rear, going pretty big into a G-out. I was pushing the car hard to see what it would do, but there is a nice mixture. I think the range is just wider than another shock. So, you know, like we did a video with MTS tuning our X3, and what they mentioned is on your stock X3, here's your fully soft, here's your fully stiff. And with better valving, you open up that range. That's what I think speeds achieve. So like if a stock Razer or stock X3 is in this window, a stock speed is this. Meaning it's better down here, and then it still ramps up better up here. There's just a wider range in terms of, and that just leads to, like I said, a better, more comfort, more feel on the low end, a great mid-stroke. I will say a lot of the cars were lowered and kind of sacked out. I think they all need to be reset and bumped back up. Me driving Todd's car most of the day, it seemed like it was sort of the correct ride height. And I know with internal bypass shocks, that's a big deal. If the vehicle is an inch too low, so I'm going to be very particular with that and do a lot of tuning, and I'm going to be constantly measuring that every few rides and see if they do sack out the stock springs over time or need to be adjusted. Because I know from my past experience that keeping that thing at the right ride height it was intended for, for the internal bypass shocks, it's going to be important to have that optimized feel as well as performance and handling.

(17:06) So the seats, the seats are beautiful. They're carbon fiber. Who doesn't want billet aluminum and carbon fiber on any of their toys, you know? The seats, I went with the tall and the wide on my vehicle, and then when I did drive Todd's car, it had the standard seats. I'm very glad I got the tall and the wide. The cutout on the shoulders fit me better, you know, the holes for the harnesses themselves. And the extra width was nice. I mean, I'm like a 34-inch waist, I'm 6'3", 203 pounds. I think most of you guys are going to want to go with the wide. I will say that it is a race-style seat, so after that long day in the saddle, it was just, it wasn't plush. I'm definitely going to now order the air cushion that they offer as an upgrade for the stock seats. I think I didn't order it when I placed my order because I wasn't sure if it was going to work with the seat heaters, and I had to have my seat heaters. But I'm pretty sure speed will allow you to do both, and what's cool about the air cushion is you can adjust the PSI in it. I think I might also want to be a little bit higher up in the car. That'll help probably bump me up an extra inch, but I think just for all day rides, the stock seat had my butt feeling a little bit more sore. So I would recommend, you know, if you're probably above 5'10", 5'11", 6 feet, you definitely want to go tall, and if you're a little bit wider of a guy, definitely just get the wide seat. I think you're going to be happier, but I think most people would probably prefer, I'd probably say like 60-40 if I had to guess from, you know, YouTube people I know how they're built and what they prefer. So that's my thoughts on seating.

(18:39) So the dash setup is very cool. A couple things I like about it, you have front and rear backup cameras, which is a nice fit and finish. Unlike the Polaris, they don't shut off at 15 miles an hour for safety. So you could use that front if you're going over some technical rocks, maybe rock crawling, it could be helpful. Obviously, for backing your vehicle up, it's nice to have. There's a lot of different presets. I did hook the app up to the dash, and it's pretty cool. We're watching YouTube videos in your dash. I did take my Onyx off-road app, and then I also mirrored it into the dash. And I don't know how usable it would be in the real world of being able to see it. I could see it, but you know, you're still, you're on your app, you're always zooming in and zooming out if I'm leading the ride, let's say. So I think it's something that you can do, but I think, you know, if you're going to use your phone for GPS, you're gonna probably have it in your pocket or a door bag, or maybe we have it mounted up somewhere where you would use it if you're not using a bigger GPS system. So it was good. The only thing I, all the data was nice because you had a water temp as well as oil temp, you had the belt temp. My wheel tire pressure sensors weren't hooked up, so that was a little bit of a bummer. I think that's just because they were new and then get them all calibrated. So a little bummed on that, but that's gonna be a nice feature benefit when it is done. And it's nice to have all that data. So I was constantly watching the temperatures on everything just because it's new and you're curious. I want to be able to report back to you guys. So, so many different options, maybe more than you even need, but pretty cool. You can customize it, and I'm a fan of the dash.

(20:15) Real quick, the tires, the tires are good. I would like to try the 35s. Like I said, I wrote briefly in Max's car, which had the Speed 35s. I think the shape of the tire is good. I think they're not overly heavy either. I'm going to double-check on it, but again, I think pressure was a little higher. I think we were 23 to 24, 25 pounds. I ran 22 to 23 in my race car. I think I did a recent ride in the same area on my Can-Am two-seater, which is quite a bit lighter. I got away with 14 PSI, and I felt a little nervous being that this vehicle is a little bit heavier. When I get my car back, I'm going to put those speed tires at about, I want to say like 17 to 18. I think that makes sense because you give up a lot of small bump sensitivity from 18 to 23, 18 to 25 PSI. And I don't like running too much. I still want to have traction, I still want to have comfort. And I think two, three pounds, in my opinion, is pretty noticeable. So I do think the tires are good. It's interesting to see how well they wear, but I think as a stock tire, it's probably the best stock tire that comes on any UTV. I know a lot of you guys that have bought a Razer Pro-Rs and Turbo-Rs aren't big fans of what comes on those. A lot of other vehicles come stock with a Maxxis Carnivore. Same thing, people aren't a big fan. I had those Maxxis Liberties that came stock on my X3. They're all right, they're not as good as tensors. But I say all that to say that the tires are very good. I don't think most of you guys are going to want to upgrade unless you want to go with a different tire size.

(21:49) Before I move on from the dash compartment, I want to bring up the steering wheel. The steering wheel is big in real life. It's why they had to make it that way, so you could see the dash. It's an interesting shape. It takes some time to get used to when you're using it. One of the other guys on the ride commented that it'd be fun to try back-to-back with a round steering wheel. Now, you might lose some visibility, but you know, it's just something we've been driving with most of those round steering wheels our whole life. And as we're trying to develop a feel for what the car is, it was another element to think about that felt a little unique. So I might upgrade. One thing too, ergonomically speaking, is having a steering wheel maybe be a little bit closer to me. It was closer to the dash, and where you get your seat set up where I like to be in my position and have my leg set up, my arms were a little bit more extended. So I might be able to kill a couple birds with one stone by maybe getting a quick release for the stock steering wheel, as well as maybe try a round aftermarket steering wheel and then bump it out maybe an inch and a half. And I think that might be the right mixture of feel that I would say I would prefer, or at least I'm curious to try compared to the stock setup.

(22:40) The stock headlights I tried a couple times with and without the light bar. They were nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to write home about. I do think if you're going to be doing any type of off-road riding, you should have some additional light of some sort. You can see some of the footage here. The riding we were doing was, you know, the dust would just hang. We didn't have some breeze. And even if we gave guys a head start, it was still hanging. And the light bar here that I'm using, it just really amplifies a lot of dust in scenarios, places like this that are just dusty, you know, wash, Havasu, Parker area. So I would suggest having some extra light down on your bumper, on your mirrors, of course, and it's going to be helpful and probably some ambers as well.

(23:19) Storage, I make a lot of accessories for storage. Door bags, our B2G for the X3, the storage is better than any stock UTV. The bed is massive. On top of the bed, underneath each seat, you have a lot of room. So you have enough room for a tool roll under, you know, the driver's seat or the passenger seat. You can put a subwoofer under the passenger or the rear seat. There is a lot of space to have a meaningful size tool roll under each of those seats. So you could do that. You know, if someone comes out with a cool little extra fuel container, that will be helpful. And then on top of it, you know, the bed's so big that you've got your seat, you know, even a couple guys upgraded with the AGM jack, all that is below your line of sight. All your weight is down low. And with the full-size spare and the Crescent box combined with all that, of course, I think someone like Chupacabra has developed some door bags because it's nice to be able to reach and grab a couple things like your phone when you're all locked in. But the storage is very good. And I like that they did that by keeping the package of the wheelbase, like I always comment on, of not being so long. So kudos to Speed for building out enough storage on this vehicle. I think it's going to be great.

(24:24) ...if you have three small kids, the center between the two rear seats is where the battery is and it comes up a little bit. I think it might be difficult for any aftermarket guys to make a bench seat. I'm not sure if they could without it being very high. So I think if you want to do a Baja rack, it might be an individual right or left rear seat replacement where you could have additional storage. You know, in some of the videos we do, like on our YouTube channel, we do multi-day trips, and you just want to have a second cooler, extra parts. If you're clicking off 500 miles you want in Baja, and you want that extra storage for those types of things.

(24:59) So I do think that I don't need a roof rack. You know, Speed offers that as an option. I had one on my old car, I didn't really use it because I want to keep all my weight as low as possible. And I think with all these storages built into the car, I'm not gonna have to worry about it.

(25:13) Only a couple quick more points on the interior. So my car came delivered with the PCI radio already wired and installed. Where they have it is up in the center of the dash, which ideally is where I would like to have a GPS unit. I started thinking about it and spending more time in the vehicle. Down low, there's a panel with a sticker where a Kicker audio spot would be. You end up not really adjusting your radio a whole lot after you turn it on. I think ideally, I would maybe want that PCI radio down low in front of the shifter. And then, like I said, where that in the center heart of your console would be nice to have a GPS unit right there. I think that's probably the ultimate layout. Then you don't have it sticking up above the dash and being in front of elements. If you guys don't run a windshield like me, you'd still be able to see it. The co-passenger, co-driver would be able to see it. It would work really well. I think that's what I thought the way Robbie had it set up. I think they've got their own proprietary dash mount so far, but we had to buy jumpers that plugged our helmets straight into the dash, and that's a little more cluttered too. So I think if you got them low, you could maybe run those wires low and around. Got it up here nice where they should be, where you're gonna grab them when you're wired up for headsets and/or helmets.

(26:26) So that's just something that is okay. I think on the nice side though, there were a lot of switches already installed. Getting the digital bundle that I got, that already came with blinkers, I had a horn, we had the seat heaters and all, and extra switches for mirror lights are already ready to go. So the good thing about that is they're ready. There are no additional upgrades. They're looking pretty decent quality. The only potential downside is, let's say you're like me and you love SwitchPro, you want to do an SP, you know, eight or a twelve-piece SwitchPro. Where would I put it? Would I want to take the switches out and put my SwitchPro in? Would I have to get new dash pieces because they're already cut out? I don't know if I'll do that right away. I have to figure that out. But the SwitchPro is clean. It's a Gucci accessory. I love it. I've talked about them a lot. I think they're a fantastic product, and I might not need it, you know, because it is an expensive upgrade. But if you do want to reconfigure, maybe that's more personal and something that I commented. So I'd rather have the switches than not. Just saying if you're going to move it all around like I might, then it's maybe a little more work. I might have to, like I said, buy a new dash panel.

(27:28) One of the final interior details that I wanted to give the Speed team a huge high five for is the pre-wired setup for all the accessories. Because I got the digital package, I mean, the dome light is already pre-wired. My future Chupacabra side mirrors with Baja Designs lights are already pre-wired. All that stuff is ready to go. There's a dongle if I want to add a subwoofer. The door is already cut out if I want to add the audio package later. So that is just a very nice detail. It's cool that they've thought of almost everything. The same thing, light bars, all that stuff is going to be very easy to add because they built the wiring harness that way. So it's very smart. Any of you guys who have built your own side-by-side, especially with the new cage, know what I'm talking about. It's a pain and saves a lot of time, a lot of man-hours. It's easy for those of you that are new and not as mechanically inclined as well. So that's a very thoughtful feature, and kudos to Speed on that one.

(28:14) Okay, let's talk about some of the issues that I saw and some of the little growing pains that the Speed team needs to get figured out on all of our cars, which I think is going to lead to happier trails and less drama for everybody else in the future. Again, being one of the first ten, it's kind of an expectation with a brand new brand that some of these little growing pains are going to happen. So let's get into what those are. There's one good sign, there were no flat tires, there were no broken axles, there were no loose suspension components, and no broken belts on all of our vehicles for both today. So that was a good sign.

(28:53) The biggest issue that happened was one of the guys driving one of the vehicles came around a turn, missed a turn, hit a bigger rock, and hit the rock up through the rear skid plate, and it did crack the gear case or the transmission. So that's a bummer. I invested in the heavy-duty rear skid plate. I'm now going to, you know, not be so cheap and get the nice full skid plate just because I do do a little bit of rock crawling. I think you get that money back and resell. I shouldn't have cheaped out and got the whole thing from the get-go. The Speed accessory on the side of the belly, it arcs over very nicely. So that was an unfortunate thing. I think you definitely need to have a beefier skid plate. Like I said, definitely at least spend the money on the rear like I did because it's very cheap insurance to have something potentially cashed off like that. I mean, that type of stuff happens. You know, you make a mistake, you bottom out the car. I think he had a bunch of people in it, maybe hit something harder, and then next thing you know, bam, now you're dead in the water. So that was, you know, somewhat driver-related, but also make sure that that is protected and safe with the beefier HMW upgraded skid plate.

(29:52) I mentioned before about the brakes. It took a little while to get seated. You know, I think that they should still be good. Again, I'll report back when I do get 35s and they get broken in, see what I think, if it's something that you might want to think about spending extra money with the Willwood upgrade.

(30:03) The tailgate. All of our tailgates had a little bit of wiggle with the latches. It's not something that I could necessarily hear. It's a brand new vehicle. I'm listening for all different types of sounds. I just noticed it on the walk around that the latches wiggle a little. I think maybe add a little bit of Teflon to it and just kind of get it a little bit tighter. Or maybe have it, the tailgate, compress against some foam so it just barely locks in and prevents that. So I'll pay attention to that. If I hear any wiggles or rattles in the first 500 or 1,000 miles, that might be something I suspect that I noticed.

(30:29) I did mention suspension-wise, the ride height of the vehicles ends up lowering down. I think that's pretty common in all vehicles. Like I said, we'll reassess, we'll recalibrate, we'll go drive it, but I'll have a tape measure. I'm pretty good at that in general, but I'll have a tape measure pretty much out for every ride and obsessing over the ride height because of the reasons I mentioned before.

(30:52) These little issues, us being the first ten, ideally, I think the Speed team could have put 25, 30, 40 miles, but I understand why they wouldn't say, "Hey, here's your brand new car. You paid all your money for it. Oh, by the way, we took it out and broke it in." So it's one of these nuances. I understand why they didn't, but we had to figure out some of these small issues on the trail. You know, maybe like my wiring harness, they would have found that type of thing, but you know, it is what it is. I get that they wouldn't. They want us to be the ones to put our first scratches, first dirt on the vehicle. So it's just a different situation, us being in the first batch, and I think they'll have a lot of this stuff ironed out. But it did lead to me having to get, you know, towed home that first day, and luckily it's an easy fixable mistake.

(31:41) The fuel gauge, it looked like on our long day, everyone's saying I only lost one bar, I only lost two bars, and I think when we got to the end of the day and filled up, we had drank more gas than what the gas gauge showed. So I'm not sure if that's a calibration adjustment they can make to show the fuel capacity. You know, I think most turbo power cars, I remember back when I used to have my Razor 1000s, they seemed to be pretty good, but once I got a Razor Turbo, Turbo S, all of a sudden you've got most of the tank, and then it drops down and you've got half. So it seems like it's an issue for, you know, the fuel sloshed around an off-road vehicle. But they did say that on a lot of the type of riding that we did here, typical 100 miles there, and Parker and Havasu, they could get about 100 miles out of the tank. So, you know, as long as we can get about 100 out of it, it's good to know if we're doing Baja rides, we need to make sure we've got enough fuel and guys can make certain sections of length without fuel. That's really all I care about. It'd be nice if I got good fuel efficiency, but you know, it's a nice to have, and it's hard to tell, but it's something I hope it can be improved.

(32:38) Now, on the seats, I mentioned I'm going to upgrade to the air cushions for a little bit more cushioning, maybe even having a seat specialist or an upholsterer add a little bit of cushion to the lower back lumbar area. It's something that could be helpful. But I also noticed with the carbon seats, they do flex a little, they move around like kind of a, like this, I'm moving. There are two adjustable rubber rods that the seat sits against to provide some support. Those are on threaded screws, and I think those screws need to be longer to fit more people if you ran the seat up forward. So those may be adjusted, or perhaps a little bit bigger brace to sit against the seat because I think the nature of the carbon seat is it's going to move a little, so you might feel that when you're driving. I noticed that, you know, in my car a little bit, that it moves around a little more even when you are secure with your harnesses. So that's something I point out that it'd be nice to have improved.

(33:37) On our first break-in ride, there were a couple of small issues. One vehicle had an alternator wire, I believe, that was loose that was affecting the charge system. They got it sorted out. I think another guy lost a charge tube from the turbo, I believe. So again, kind of leads back to what I'm saying, it would have been nice if they would have found a lot of these things if they would have put the first few miles on it. But that's what we did. So, judgmental, the second day went so much better. You know, I think we're learning quickly, and all of these things are, in my opinion, pretty much small and fixable. It just kind of reminds me when I had my race car that I built out, you get a lot of the core items done well, and then it's like, okay, well there's these little things that pop up, you got to get everything to kind of work in harmony. So they just, you know, what we kind of have decided to take on being the first crowd here, the first alumni of February 2023 alumni of Speed retail customers.

(34:23) The final thing I would say is there's a little bit more of a learning curve with driving the vehicle, predominantly getting it shifted into four-wheel drive, learning how to use the gears. I'll do some videos, I think the Speed team should, and educate people. It's a little different, you know, are you going to be able to put it into four-wheel drive if you kind of already start to get stuck on two-wheel drive? You know, some of those times, you guys know how it is, you could be in somewhere soft in a wash or the dunes, and you don't realize you're not in four, you guys like to drive in two, and then you kind of bury the back end, and you just put it in four to get yourself out, and that needs to have some momentum. Can you do that? That's a question I'd like to see if they can answer. And there's a couple of other things too, like the primary clutch is adjustable, so I would like to see, you know, them take the cover off and show us how to adjust it. And we'll do some videos on some clutch tuning too because, like I said, I'm definitely going to try some 35-inch tires, some paddles, and try to learn more about being proficient on the clutch tuning and get the RPMs where they would suggest.

(35:20) So, just, you know, us being new on the block, some instructional videos, some help. Like I said, Robbie jumped in my car and showed me how to operate the four-wheel drive. I wasn't sure when we went out on the ride, and it's good to know that type of stuff. And it's just different than pushing a button like all the other vehicles most of us have already owned. So that's it, gang. That's my first impression. I'm excited to get the vehicle here in a couple of weeks. A lot of people have commented, hey, you didn't get to take your vehicle home. Well, obviously, me, because my wiring harness needs to be repaired, and they could probably get that done here, you know, in the next day or so. But also, too, you know, they're going to go through everything. They're going to, you know, take a look at all the fluids. It's going to be good for them to have that. They're working on a new transmission, if you guys hadn't heard already. They found that there was an issue, so they're having some new ones built and sent over right away to get installed. So I'm supposed to be able to pick that car up back in a couple of weeks. I'm excited to go interact with the team, you know, seeing how those guys diagnose problems in the field. They're very knowledgeable. Daniel's awesome. Obviously, Max and Robbie are awesome. The whole team there.

(36:10) So I'm, if you've continued watching the video this far, you can probably tell by now, I'm very stoked. I think the car is great. I honestly feel, guys, that for the money that I spent, I stole this car. I think all of us that were early believers, that bought in at the original pricing, are going to get a tremendous amount of value. I mean, just because of the happy accident, if you want to call COVID that, not that it was happy, but a happy accident of purchasing something at a pre-COVID pricing. So I think you have a lot of value built in. So I think a lot of Speed customers are going to be stoked. I think it's a for sure legitimate option. Is it better than a Pro R? Is it better than an X3? I'm excited to put it head-to-head and answer that more. But like I said, it's more of an impression video. When I get to put some miles on my vehicle and drive it back-to-back, I can explain how does the power feel, how does the suspension feel. And I think I have some people here who can help me do that. So looking forward to that, guys. Thank you guys for watching. I'm going to leave you with some bonus footage. I'm going to show you just some more riding content. You can kind of just see if you really want to nerd out and see where it looked and felt and sounded like, and show you some sights and sounds here from Desert Bar, which is cool to check out if you haven't been there, and just kind of give you an idea of what the whole weekend experience was.

(37:22) So it took me a little while to get this video out, but we were just enjoying the moment. It's awesome to be a part of such a thing. I got to have that experience with my dad and Robbie, and have that intimate experience. So it's something I think we're going to look back on in the future and be excited. I mean, the team worked so hard, and it was just awesome, this awesome experience. I'm very fortunate to have it. So shoutouts again to Speed UTV. You can't not say that Robbie and his team, what they've done with a small team, is incredibly impressive. I mean, all the other competitors are going against still farm out their shocks and their tires and some other things, and they just decided to take their destiny in their own hands, and it's inspiring. So love that they did all that. Loved being included in this first release and looking forward to more videos here coming soon.

(38:24) We have everybody that's going. [Music] Hold it for five seconds, three to five seconds, couple seconds, it'll change mile per hour, kilometers. So the dash will change both. So if you see yourself doing 100, you're really not doing 100. If you're doing 100 kilometers, you're going 60. Okay, it is oil leaks. We're going to find out if we have any. Brake lines, let us try to find out anything and everything we learn from your car so that we get our processes down. Everything we learned today, we're going to share as well. [Music] Foreign, foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music]

(40:04) [Music] Foreign. [Music] Thank you. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music]

(42:24) [Music] Thank you. [Music] Oh, now I see why everybody's making fun of me. It's a little dusty out here. All right, guys, we finally got a little dusty chattery. We're on our way towards the little cabin area. I think we're pretty close to it, but beautiful lighting. It's going to be a night ride. I wish I would have had some extra lights for today. We'll see how good the stock lights do. So good so far. So far, so good. And the adventure continues here as they are looking good in that turquoise too, right? Looking good in that turquoise. Feeling it? You feeling it? [Music] That was amazing. That was amazing. Thank you. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign.

(46:36) [Music] Thank you. Made it to the desert bar. Finally, I've been hearing so much about this place. I'm stoked to finally check it out. [Music] Killer day. Just awesome weather. Cool to be here. Wow, this place is way bigger than I ever thought it was going to be. Thanks, Robbie. Thank you. It's like a great day so far. Good to have a heart attack. [Music] Zombies. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign.

(49:53) [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign.

(51:27) Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music] Foreign. [Music]