Low Floor, No Lifting
By Eric Dykstra
Once you humped that refrigerator down three flights of stairs, you’ve still got to lift it into the bed of your truck. But if you had one of Dallas Smith’s converted F-450 Deeps, it wouldn’t be a problem. Dallas Smith Corp. makes low floor, axle-less trucks for small business and personal use. Lowering the tailgate/ramp reveals a truck bed only 15″ off the street.
The F-450 Deep starts life as run of the mill truck, then Dallas Smith cuts off everything behind the cab, replacing it with their patented “lowfloor” system. As you might have guessed, this makes the truck front wheel drive.
It’s definitely not for everyone, but if you take on a lot of moving projects — or just love to baby your motorcycle — you could find tons of uses for this. Pricing is hard to come by on Dallas Smith’s site, which makes me think it’s likely far into “if you have to ask” territory.
Dallas Smith Corp [Corporate Site]
December 10th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Sweet, I can see this being very handy. To bad about the front wheel drive only, I was hoping they converted the truck to electric to replace the rear drive shaft with a couple of motors attached to the rear wheels.
December 10th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
What happens when you load the truck up with a heavy load? Are you going to be scraping your rear bumper on the roads?
We have a Mits box truck. Climbing up to the rear cargo and lifting stuff up is a pain. Also having tree branches wedged between the cab and rear box space sucks too.
December 10th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
I saw this thing at the SEMA show…and in response to your question Dano, I remember that this truck can actually haul more gvw than the conventional version (forgot how much more exactly). I spoke with a ford rep there and they said that this application could be available to the masses in mid ‘O8??? CANT WAIT…
December 10th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
I hope they didn’t patent the idea…
If they did, I think the GMC motorhomes from the mid ’70s would probably qualify as prior art, being that they had the same setup:
December 10th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
This kind:
http://www.auto-nomics.com/images/jimmaher-mh-1.jpg
December 10th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
http://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/images/threads/000/198/101/3051530-sdfgkkl499limo.jpg
This is what I’m afraid of.
December 10th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Actually it is patented, however they do license it out quite a bit.
Patent 5035462
~eriC
December 10th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I think the patent you wanted is: 6398251
I just went to google patents and typed in dallas smith corp. and quite a few patents popped up…but i think this particular one covers the actual suspension???
December 14th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Found some video on the truck from the SEMA show
http://www.trucktrend.com/multimedia/58/videos/6202040/fullscreen/index.html
December 14th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
[…] Low Floor, No Lifting Love it or hate it, this low rise cargo system will definitely draw looks wherever it goes. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the show model is low, black and mean. If you gotta haul stuff, you might as well do it in style. […]
December 15th, 2007 at 3:07 am
Ok, so i have two thoughts on this truck
1) So if I don’t own any type of ‘fun’ vehicle (bike, quad, etc.), what use is it to me????
2) To me is seems as though you lose bed width for bed depth, amounting to roughly the same cubic footage, but being that it is FWD, if i load this thing full of cement bags, how well will it drive when the rear droops and the fronts picks up? Would I begin to lose power and traction since all the weight has picked up off of the front drive wheels?
December 16th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
From the picture here it does not look like you loose any square footage and you definitely gain in cubic footage
http://dallassmithcorp.com/productsdeep.html
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:57 pm
My motorcycles would really appreciate that thing, I wonder how many peoples bikes I’d have to tow at $100 a pop to pay that thing off.
December 24th, 2007 at 12:03 am
I’d sooner hack up an old truck myself, but it might be interesting advertising for businesses.
December 29th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
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