Nothing says ‘Murica quite like a big, powerful pickup truck. If you or someone you know likes these coal-rollin’, big tire-havin’, poor-handling, noisy, fuel sucking Who Gives A Crap Because They’re Awesome-mobiles, check out these truck-tastic gifts.
Americans are addicted to pickups. Gas prices can go to a million dollars a gallon, but we will never stop buying the things. They’re a huge part of our culture; Chuck Norris drove one for God’s sake!
But truck culture is just as much about modifying and making the truck yours as it is about towing a house and carrying a bed full of anvils. That’s why you see so many special edition pickups, and that’s why some of the most tricked-out vehicles on the road come with a tailgate. So for the holidays, give the truck nuts in your life something for their beloved four-wheeled workhorses.
Hi-Lift Jack
“Hold my beer!” you yell in a slur as you launch your jacked-up Ferd Fteenthousand off the biggest dirt mound in the county. You fly through the air for what seems like an eternity, all the while regretting not having thrown some weight in the bed, because you’re about to land really hard.
You land with a loud crash, blowing a tire and wrecking your front suspension. The girls are impressed, but you still need to swap that popped tire and mend your oily bits to get home, and that little scissor jack that came with your truck won’t even reach the center of your big-ass 35-inch Super Swampers.
The solution is the Hi-Lift jack. This thing is the Hercules of jacks, lifting your enormous truck high off the ground without breaking a sweat.
It’s a great truck accessory for someone who lives in a state like Kansas, where there’s nothing else to do besides go mudding, smoke meth and tip cows. If you’re mudding and you’ve had a few too many Blue Ribbons to really estimate the proper depth of a mud pit, no worries. These Hi-Lift jacks also act as great recovery tools, not just to lift your tire out of a rut, but also doubling as hand winches.
So drink as many brews as you want. This jack will get you out of the mess you’ll inevitably find your drunken self in.
MAXTRAX MKII Vehicle Recovery Device
Getting stuck off-road can be a lot of fun, but if you and your buddies are stranded somewhere without another vehicle, you might resort to cannibalism for sustenance. And eating your friends is no fun.
Sand and mud can be particularly tricky to get out of, as your tires tend to dig themselves into a hole, eventually “turtling” the vehicle until the wheels are no longer grabbing the earth.
Australian-designed Maxtrax (or a similar cheaper version) are here to help. These reinforced-nylon boards are shaped in such a way that they can be used as a shovel to dig a grave for the remains of the friends you just consumed. Or they could even be used to clear dirt out from under your tire well before crippling hunger makes you do something regr-edible (see what I did there?).
Once you’ve removed that dirt, you can wedge the Maxtrax between your tire and the terra firma, and since the orange plastic mini surfboard has cleats on either side, it will stay in place while your tire claws right up and out of the ditch.
ARB Snatch Strap
But you wouldn’t have even considered eating your friends if you’d done what you were supposed to do in the first place: go off-roading with a friend in another vehicle.
Not only does off-roading with a buddy mean you’ve got a ride if your rig dies or if you get hurt, but if you bury your truck to its axles, your friend will be able to yank you out.
And sometimes, we really mean yank. If you’re stuck badly enough, it’s going to take some momentum to to get you free. The problem is, when that tow vehicle speeds up and yanks a normal tow strap, the impulse can be both catastrophic to the vehicles and dangerous for the onlookers. You know how Captain hook got his name? He went wheelin’ and a tow strap launched a hook into his arm. True story.
One way you can avoid becoming a tow hook-wielding pirate is to use a snatch strap like this ARB one. Also called a “kinetic recovery rope,” this snatch strap is designed to stretch and store the tow vehicle’s kinetic energy, ultimately helping ease the recovery and prevent damage to both vehicles.
Smittybilt XRC 9500 Pound Winch
Hi-Lift jack, Maxtrax, snatch strap— that’s all very cute, but the big-dog in the vehicle recovery game is the winch. A winch can slowly tug you out of some of the most grueling situations in a controlled, safe manner.
This Smittybilt 9,500 pound light-truck winch comes with a lifetime mechanical warranty and five-year electrical warranty and has gotten great reviews all across the outer reaches of the interwebs. People install them in their Jeeps, trucks, boats, airplanes, spaceships, cats, goldfish you name it.
This would be a great addition to our $600 Moab Jeep.
Napier Truck Bed Tent
If you like the idea of camping but you’re afraid of snakes or bugs or moist ground, then you probably shouldn’t be camping. But if you insist, here’s a tent that will fit right in your truck’s bed and keep you high off the ground away from tarantulas and scorpions.
The Napier truck bed tent fits two people and keeps its inhabitants high off the ground and away from critters. It’s got great reviews and some of the buyers use it to avoid campsite fees. And the fewer campsite fees you pay, the more money you have for more truck stuff!
AirBedz Lite Truck Bed Air Mattress
Do you want to be suspended by Cadillac levels of comfort while out camping? If so, this AirBedz truck bed mattress is the ticket.
What makes a truck bed air mattress unique is the special cutouts for the wheel arches. They allow you to to take full advantage of all your bed’s space. It also comes with a cigarette-lighter electric air pump, so you don’t have to turn blue in the face trying to blow the whole thing up with your mouth.
Currie Enterprises EZ Tire Deflator
“Airing Down” is an important part of off-roading, particularly rock crawling. The idea is that your deflated tire can conform to the uneven surfaces better, ultimately increasing the size of the contact patch and “grabbing” the terrain.
Getting the proper tire pressure is crucial. If you’re using beadlock wheels, you might be able to get away with running single-digit tire pressures, but if you’re using a standard wheel and you drop your tire pressure down to six PSI, you can bet that your tire will separate from the rim. Off-roading on a rim is probably not going to go well.
This tire deflator by Currie Enterprises isn’t the Cadillac of tire pressure gauges (that honor goes to the $370 Longacre temperature-compensated gauge), but it is a damn good one. Just grab one section of the tool and thread it onto your valve stem, unscrew the middle section to release the valve stem core, and rotate the third section to release air until the tire is at the desired pressure. Easy peasy.
VIAIR Constant Duty Onboard Air System
So now that you’ve “aired down,” you’ll need to air back up. What’s that? You’ve got a bicycle pump and a little electric compressor from Walmart? Good luck with that, especially when you’re trying to fill up giant 37-inch mud terrains. You’ll be there for five decades trying to get that thing aired up.
Instead, install this awesome VIAIR onboard air system. Not only will it help you quickly get your tire pressure dialed in, but you can also use it to power air tools. Air tools on the trail? Yes please.
More importantly, you can use this compressor to make balloon animals.
Penton LED Light Bar
When you’re climbing up Hell’s Revenge in the middle of the night and you don’t want to fall off a 500-cliff to your demise, you’re going to need some good lighting. And sometimes, the stock headlights just don’t cut it.
That’s where this Penton LED light bar comes in. It’s got great reviews, and many of the buyers have found very creative ways to seamlessly integrate it into the front of their trucks.
It’s a solid way to help you spot deer on a dark country road, or if you want to partake in some redneck hooliganism (don’t we all), this light bar can light up a pond as you do some late-night bullfrog huntin’.
Weathertech FloorLiners
So you picked up your drunken friends from the bar and they promise you they’re fine. You’re driving along and BOOM, they’ve vomited all over your floorboards. Fan-freaking-tastic.
Keeping a car clean can a royal pain in the Arsch, but one of the best defense mechanisms to keep your automobile from picking up bodily fluids and dirt is a well-fitting slush mat.
Weathertech’s FloorLiner conforms to your floorboard, leaving very few cracks for dirt and moisture to creep through.
The FloorLiner will come in especially handy if you live in the rust belt, as the salt and water from your boots will collect in the liner rather than on your floorboards. This means less rust. And we hate rust.