Been following the shortbed discussion (I’ve got an old GMC 8′ that’s been fine since 1978).
Some years ago I saw a concept truck by one of the Big 3 called a “Wide Side” which had the long bed dually body, used only the outer rear wheels and tires under the outer fenders, and consequently had no wheel arch intruding on the bed area – yhe bed was full width nose to tail. The exec profiled pointed out they could do it with no “new” tooling. I thought it was a wonderful idea, but never heard of it again.
A further thought I had, to be able to have an 8′ bed, a crew cab, and also a reaonable turning radius, would be this –
Crew cab / short bed body, but the bed extends UNDER the rear bench seat a couple of feet, perhaps 12-18″ high, to allow hauling a reasonable amount of 8′ goods with the gate up, and an apparently 6′ bed. Perhaps the rear bench has a thinner cushion, or you sit a bit higher.
Got all that? So what we have, looks like a dually / crew cab / shortbed, but has 4 wheels, a 5-1/2′ wide by mostly 8′ box, with no new exterior body tooling.
GM execs, give me a call . . .
Forrest
Replies
I don't get this "Wide Side" thing. Where were the wheels, if they weren't under the bed?
I thought those trucks with rear wheel steering were really neat. But I haven't heard much about them lately.
I also liked the idea of the hybrid trucks, where you could pull 120v power off of them. But haven't ever seen one yet.
It took me a minute to figure it out also.What he is talking about is that the outside of the bed body would be stamped with expanded fenders like a dually.However, instead of installing dually's it would have a wider axle so that you only have wheels in the "outside position". Since there are no inner wheels then you don't need a feeder well on the inside of the bed body.
Actually, given the offset of a dually wheel, you don't even need the wider axle - the entire outside wheel lies outside the plane of the mounting surface on the brake drum.
Forrest
Boss,
The rear wheel stearing option took away some towing and payload capacity. Plus it never really caught on with the truck guys enough for GM to even break even. Oh yeah, it was made by DELPHI too.
GM discontinued it for 06 or 07. Might be a few 06's out there with it but I'm not sure.
That hybred was a Dodge, "contractor" I think it is called.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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guess there is no perfect truck... but the 120v thing is easy and cheap...
i have a 2000watt converter came off an old ambulance... but they have gotten really cheap (around $200 on ebay) (1000w $79 at biglots) with my 2000watt i have it just wired with booster cables but last time i had a real use for it a friend was demo'n some old army buildings and the 2x12 x 24' were mine for the take'n cept he was knock'n em down with a dozer... usually destroy'n the ends... so with saws in hand we were cut'n the best 12' to 20' out of each one... time was an issue get'n this stuff out so... with 2 guys saw'n and 2 guys loading a trailer we had over 500 of these cut stacked and loaded on a 16' trailer in about 6 hours.... AND he thanked me for take'n em... anyway never thought to run the truck but it started right up even after have'n 2-3 saws (one electric chainsaw) run'n all day...
i use it mostly when i have small repair work at a shopping center where there in no power to the unit i'm work'n on and i don't want cords run'n outside the space where people are walking and run'n a generator wouldn't be nice... I've used it some on my boathouse just clamp it to my trolling motor battery when i had the power off to the boathouse...
sometimes it's just a better option than a genset ...
all days are good... some just better than others...
p