2009 Pickup Truck Holiday Gift Guide

By Larry Edsall

With the holiday season upon us, here's our guide to the top gifts for the truck owners in your life. We promise, you won't find any Hitch Critters on this list:

TeleSwivel Hitch

“Move the hitch, not the truck,” is the motto for TeleSwivel, hitch adapters and receivers that use technology to enlarge the “target connection area” by allowing the hitch to reach out for the trailer.

TeleSwivel is made by William Innovations, a 10-year-old North Carolina company that until now has provided similar patented technology only to the Department of Defense. The company’s management earlier this year decided to pursue a non-military application for the technology.

According to Williams, the telescoping and swiveling technology enlarges the target connection area by at least 15 times, makes a single pass hook-up much quicker, and helps to eliminate the need to “muscle” the trailer, saving manpower, though we haven’t had the opportunity to validate this claim.

TeleSwivel is available in three versions: $349 for the hitch adapter, $389 for the adapter with hitch, and $799 for a heavy-duty version with 12,000 pounds of towing capacity. For information, visit the www.teleswivel.com website.

Step N Stor

For $350, you can equip your new Ford F-150 pickup truck with a tailgate that includes a retractable ladder (aka man step) that makes it easier to climb in or out of the bed. Or, for $130, you can equip any pickup with the new Step N Stor.

Step N Stor is made by Life & Storage Systems, Inc., of White Bear Lake, Minn., a company that for 25 years has produced metal warehouse storage racks. When one of the company’s employees, 65-year-old Roger Lawson, an engineer who also farms, took a tumble while getting out of his pickup’s bed, the company when to work and devised a folding ladder system that attaches to any tailgate with four screws.

Made in the U.S. of heavy-duty steel, Step N Stor’s rungs have a non-skid surface and the ladder can hold as much as 700 pounds.

For more information, call (800) 825-4777 or email sales@liftnstore.com.

Off-Road Teardrop Trailer

Small, teardrop-shaped camping trailers that could easily be pulled behind a family sedan were popular after World War II (and are making something of a comeback as cars get smaller and as people trade sport utilities for crossovers).

But you drive a truck, and you take it places where nobody in a mere passenger car can go, so Adventure Trailers of Montclair, Calif., has developed an off-road teardrop trailer with two feet of ground clearance and a cabin that’s nearly 4½ feet wide.

The rear hatch opens to reveal a full kitchen with a two-burner stove and 45-liter refrigerator, plus storage. The cabin sleeps two on a 53x77-inch mattress, and has storage shelves and drawers and LED lighting. The interior is finished in Baltic birch while the outside is wrapped in aluminum.

The tongue provides space for fuel cans, water tank and a nose box for batteries.

With kitchen, the unit weighs nearly 1,500 pounds and is priced at $13,449. Nose box, fuel cans, water tank, awning, kitchen, shower and other features add to the price.

For details, visit www.adventuretrailers.com.

Pirelli Scorpion Verde

Pirelli says its new Scorpion Verde is the world’s first “green” performance tire for light truck applications. Don’t worry, the tire is available only in black. The tire is the Scorpion Verde All Season.

The tire was designed to be lighter, quieter and to have less rolling resistance and yet to provide longer tread life and improved wet braking, dry handling, wet handling and snow traction. The result, says Pirelli, is lowered CO2 emissions because the truck on which the tires are mounted will burn less fuel.

For details, visit us.pirelli.com. Pricing not available.

Coker Excelsior Stahl Sport

Coker Tire Co. of Chattanooga, Tenn., used the SEMA Show to unveil its newest product, the Excelsior Stahl Sport tire. It’s a tire that uses radial tire technology but looks like a good ol’ bias-play tire, the sort the might have been original equipment on your vintage pickup truck. The tire offers the ride and handling and safety of modern radials while maintaining your vintage trucks’ appearance.

Stahl is the German word for steel.

The new tire is available in 20 sizes and fits wheels from 16 to 21 inches in diameter.

For information, visit www.coker.com. Pricing not available.

Rec-Rac

Rec-Rac is a bicycle storage system that secures one or two bikes along the inside edge of your truck’s bed.

It was created by Brent Price of Colorado Springs. Price’s family likes to bicycle in Colorado’s mountains, so he used his training in industrial design to devise a system so he could carry bicycles in his truck bed while leaving plenty of room for the family’s other gear and its two large dogs.

The Rec-Rac system attaches to the sides of the bedrails or the new bed channel systems so two bicycles can be carried in an upright position on either side of the bed, and without having to remove any bicycle wheels.

Rec-Rac costs $79.95 and is available from www.recrac.com or by calling (800) 867-7764.

Automoblox T900 Wooden Toy Truck

The T900 is a scaled-down Heavy Duty pickup that’s ready to tow your Hot Wheels. The T900’s handsomely crafted wood pickup features a beefy chrome grille and bumpers, sporty all-terrain tires on five-spoke chrome wheels and aggressive fender flares.

The T900 costs $45. Visit www.automoblox.com.

Truck Luggage

Truck Luggage, a division of Orland, Calif.-based Westside Research, Inc., says it has developed the only lockable, soft-sided truck bed cargo management system.

Available in two sizes to fit full- or compact-sized pickup trucks, a $179.99 rack system attaches to the truck bed’s side rails, can be adjusted fore or aft in the bed and locked into place. To that rack can be attached bicycle racks ($69.99 each), water or snow ski racks ($69.99) and a waterproof duffle bag ($39.99) with various compartments.

For information, visit www.truckluggage.com.

Yakima RackandRoll Multi-Sport Trailer

Earlier this year, Yakima Products, Inc., of Portland, Ore., bought RackandRoll trailers, and thus the new Yakima RackandRoll multi-sport trailer that can carry kayaks (as many as five), bicycles (as many as six), or some mixture of both, as well as all sorts of other gear and assorted Yakima cargo boxes, and yet folds down and has removable wheels for easy storage in your garage.

The multi-sport trailer is made from aluminum and is available in two sizes: RackandRoll 66, which is 66 inches wide and RackandRoll 78. The 66 costs $2,149 and weighs only 130 pounds. The 78 inch wide trailer runs $2,299.

For information, visit www.yakima.com.

Extrememax ATV RampXtender

Based in St. Paul, Minn., Extrememax produces a variety of snowmobile, ATV and marine products and accessories, including a set of ramps that also serve as a pickup truck bed extender.

The ramps are available in 6- or 8-foot lengths to fit mid- or full-size truck beds, and allow an ATV weighing up to 2000 pounds to be driven up into the truck bed. Then the ramps fold and mount over the open tailgate as a bed extender.

Price is approximately $400, depending on retailer. Visit www.extrememax.com for details.

Truckboss

The new Marathon Deck Lite can be expanded to extend 6-8 inches beyond the pickup’s bed width, is rated to carry as much as 2000 pounds, and is available in 7- and 8-foot lengths. Decks come with a folding vehicle ramp, headache ramp with center tie-down point and quick-connect LED lighting wire harnesses.

Based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Marathon has done aluminum fabrication since 1967, and for a decade has designed modular truck deck systems to carry ATVs and snowmobiles.

Price for either deck is $2,575 (Canadian). For details, visit www.marathondecks.com.

Carpod

Carpod, of Sherman Oaks, Calif., says it was the first company to provide a hitch-mounted cargo carrier with four independently framed sidewalls so the unit can be folded down for easier storage. Its Carpod is rated to carry as much as 450 pounds in a 22x48 ¾-inch area. Also available is a water-resistant shell that fits inside the carrier to keep your stuff clean and dry.

The Carpod contains retails for around $300. For information, visit www.carpodrack.com.

BedSlide

“Extend your reach” is the tagline for Bedslide’s products, which include:

• The Classic BedSlide, which comes with a marine-grade WeatherDeck rubber mat (mounted in the bed of the truck shown);
• The BedSlide Contractor Grade with a powder-coated reinforced steel framework (mounted atop the bed of this truck);
• The Avalanche/EXT (with Weather Deck mat) designed specifically for the bed of a Chevrolet Avalanche or Cadillac EXT.

BedSlide is based in Medford, Ore., and notes that its products are made in the U.S. Pricing ranges from $700 - $1,500 depending on size. For information, visit www.bedslide.com.