A simple product built to completely reorganize your truck camping experience, the Pack Rack will debut as a multifunctional piece of indoor/outdoor camping furniture. It rides in a pickup truck bed as an adjustable-height shelf for holding gear and cargo, turning what might otherwise be a bulging, tarp-engulfed junkyard pile into a neatly stacked collection of ready-to-grab essentials. At night, that shelf becomes a bed, serving to lift sleeping mat and heavy-eyed adventurer off the dusty, gritty pickup box floor.
A few months back, we covered the Pacific Adventure Works in-wagon bedroll and wondered why they didn't make something similar for pickup trucks. In fact, many vehicle bed and camper-in-a-box kits seem to ignore pickup trucks the same way.
Sure, trucks lack a roof over the bed, but that's quite easily remedied with any of numerous caps on the market – they're even alternatively called camper shells, and you can order them in taller sizes to add more headroom than you'd ever get in an SUV or wagon. Make a bed platform that rises over top the truck's wheel wells and you get a proper queen-size 60 inches (152 cm) of sleeper width, more comfortable than the narrower, tapered designs that fit atop wagon floors.
Many pickup owners are handy folks who build those types of platforms themselves, but given the amount of other vehicle-camper gear that's hit the market in recent years, we've been waiting to see more truck kits, perhaps built out of something more rugged and weatherproof than the basic plywood that tends to feature in DIY builds.
We asked Pacific Adventure Works at the time of coverage if they had any plans for a pickup version, and while the company said it was on their list, it was first and foremost focused on getting SUV-specific models ready for launch.
In the meantime, Colorado startup Pack Products has swooped in and filled the void. Its pickup-specific sleeper solution isn't quite as collapsible or compact as Pacific's, but since it's designed for the raw, boxy confines of the pickup bed, it doesn't really have to be. The rack folds in half for transport and storage, setting up with a flick of the wrists and adjustment of the six individual legs.
The legs readily raise and lower the platform height to find the right middle ground between under-bed storage and headroom, locking in via pin ring. The platform itself looks like a platform roof rack, with powder-coated steel slats providing support enough for a steady, solid night of sleep.
Beyond just a rack and bed, the Pack Rack also works as a table, whether it's in the base vehicle or outside.
Pack Products is preparing to launch a Kickstarter campaign on May 7 to get the Pack Rack off the ground and into trucks. Prices will vary based on size, with the single-person model starting at US$225 and the two-person Duo model, essentially two single units set next to each other to fit across the width of the vehicle, starting at $400. The company will offer several sizes for different pickup trucks and bed lengths, as well as a few different sizes for SUVs. Each model weighs between 25 and 37 lb (11.3 and 16.8 kg).
Source: Pack Products
