Ford Patents Built-In Pickup Bed Rack With Stowaway Rails and It Sure Seems Handy

Ford's latest patent could drastically increase the usability of pickup truck beds, allowing for customers to nearly double the size of their cargo capacity at the push of a button. The new patent, filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), via CarBuzz, proposes rising rails on the walls of a bed that can not only hold large items of their own, but act as mounting points for additional storage compartments.

Under normal circumstances, the rails would stay retracted, inside the bed walls. But when deployed, actuators could extend the bed rails up on either side. With just the rails in their extended position, owners can store longer items like lumber or ladders—think anything too long to normally fit in the bed—horizontally across the bed, freeing up space underneath for other storage. If the long item is too heavy to lift up onto the fully extended rails, owners can place it across the bed walls with the rails retracted and then let the actuators do the lifting for them. According to Ford's patent documents, each actuator is capable is lifting 1,320 pounds, but the filing doesn't say how much weight each rail can hold without bending.