The Three-Row Pickup Truck Is Coming

Image: Stellantis

Trucks have replaced sedans and wagons as the everyday driver from thirty years ago, that’s just a fact. Remember when your friend’s mom in high school had a wagon with seats in “the way back” that folded out of the floor? What’s old is new again. Ram filed a patent for a third row of seats that fold out of the back wall of the truck cab to fit a couple extra miscreants in the way back. Is this necessary? Did we need this? Fuck it, why not add a fourth row? And some seats in the bed like a Subaru Brat?

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Image: Stellantis

Back in my day pickup trucks had two doors, a bench seat, and a three foot shifter coming up out of the floor. They were workin’ machines that were meant for haulin’ stuff and hawking chaw spit out the window, in that order. But now (probably because of woke) pickup trucks are built bigger and easier to drive for the soft-handed folks in the suburbs to haul their cases of oversized skin creams home from the Costco and commute to jobs in finance and acquisitions or whatever.

Illustration: USPTO

Ram first showed off this new innovation in seating technology in Ram’s REVolution electric concept at CES last year. It seems like Ram is actually evolving a pair of vestigial rear seats that are only in place when you need them. The truck’s rear wall will actually double as a mid-gate that opens to create a larger cargo area when you need it. This does give you the option to haul stuff or people, which makes the truck a bit more versatile. Most people with three-row SUVs aren’t using the third row every day, and most people with pickup trucks aren’t using the bed to haul big objects every day either, so in that way it makes sense.

Illustration: USPTO

These “third row” seats don’t look particularly comfortable, and likely will be used for short drives rather than cross-country road trips. I wouldn’t worry about it too much, only the family’s least-liked kids will end up back there anyway.