Why Are Pickup Truck Beds Not Connected To The Cab?

When we think about vehicle design, our minds often go straight to aesthetics. We think about what makes the most beautiful vintage cars so stunning, be it the shape of the hood, the bumper design, the slope of the roof, or something else that makes it stand out. While the aesthetic appeal of vehicle design is exceptionally important in getting someone to buy that particular model, vehicle design needs to start from a completely practical point of view. These are machines engineered to abide by the laws of physics in order to properly function. One important design element that satisfies these laws is so commonplace that you may not have ever thought about it before: the beds of pickup trucks being a separate piece from the truck's cab.

Most of the vehicles produced are unibody designs, where the vehicle's chassis is built in one piece with its body. However, pickup trucks usually have a body-on-frame design, where they are affixed to each other. With a unibody design, there isn't much flexibility to be found in the frame, and because trucks are long vehicles and need to haul heavy loads, this lack of flexibility increases the chances for the frame to bend or even snap when it is trying to counteract the natural twists and turns of driving on the road. Separating the truck bed from the rest of the truck enables the bed to handle those twists and turns on its own, creating flexibility that otherwise would not exist. Simple physics may be the primary reason for this design development, but there are other ways it has helped pickup truck production.

If you are purchasing a pickup truck, you will never be given just a single option from a company. There is often a litany of different trims and packages to choose from. Two of the most important choices you will need to make, though, are what kind of cab and what kind of truck bed you want. You may want a crew cab with a long bed or maybe a regular cab with a fleetside bed. There are so many ways to mix and match these two pieces of the truck's body that it can be a little overwhelming. Well, this optionality most likely could not be achieved without the key design choice to separate the cab from the truck bed.

Because pickup trucks are body-on-frame vehicles, they are not built as one piece in the factory. Companies including Ford and Toyota are manufacturing their cabs and truck beds separately, and they will later be put onto a chassis together. This process gives companies the opportunity to customize cab and bed pairings however they wish, allowing the customer to get exactly what they want for their truck. There would be far less optionality if pickup trucks were unibody vehicles, because that would require the manufacturers to produce entire trucks on completely separate lines. The body-on-frame design simplifies the production process. So, not only does separating the cab from the truck bed help this heavy machine perform better and more safely, but it also expands the possibilities of what kind of pickup truck you can get.