Engineers at Ford and GM better get their thinking caps on. Somehow, in a modern pickup truck market in which most tailgates move like Transformers, Nissan might have just come up with the most unnecessarily complicated design yet. Rather than have a tailgate that can bend and fold in every which direction, Nissan designed one that simply gets out of the way entirely. A new Nissan patent filing, originally spotted by Autoblog, shows off a tailgate that rolls up into the bed like a garage door.
Every major pickup truck maker has some kind of unconventional tailgate system. GM has the MultiPro tailgate that folds in several different ways, Ford has the Pro Access tailgate that has a side-hinged door in the middle of it, and Honda’s Ridgeline tailgate is hinged at the bottom and at one side, so it can either fold down or open sideways. Nissan’s idea is to just slide it completely out of the way, and I’m not sure how much more helpful that is than just dropping the tailgate down as you would on any pickup truck in history.
It’s a two-piece tailgate with two separate handles and it looks odd
According to patent drawings, the tailgate is split horizontally, with an upper and lower section. Both sections have their own handle, which looks odd, but each handle does something different. The top handle opens the tailgate normally, allowing it to simply drop down. But the second handle unlocks the slide function, allowing you to slide it up and backwards. It moves along tracks that sit just beneath the top of the bed rails, so it will slide underneath any tonneau covers or tie-down points. The drawing shows that the tailgate sections can slide toward the back of the bed and then take a 90-degree turn down, mirroring its original position only upside down.
The patent also suggests this system can be powered, which would make retrieving the tailgate from the back of the bed much easier. It would be kinda cool if it worked via the key fob, too. You could open your tailgate like you would one an SUV.
But I’m still struggling to see the point of this. What good does it do to not have a tailgate in place, but also not have the benefit of the extended floor you get by dropping the tailgate down? Getting cargo from the back of the bed might be easier this way, but that could be as easily achieved with a side-swinging hinge. We even know that keeping a tailgate in place improves fuel economy.
Now, this doesn’t mean Nissan is definitely going to make this “garage door” tailgate. Car companies try to patent stuff all the time, just to call dibs so no one else comes out with their idea first. But with truck companies making more and more complex tailgates, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nissan puts this into production.
