I’m declaring a winner to the Tailgate Wars, and it’s going to be controversial, so grab your pitchforks. Beating out the Honda Ridgeline’s “Dual-Action Tailgate,” GM’s “MultiPro Tailgate,” and Ram’s “Multifunction Tailgate” is the 2024 Ford F-150’s Pro Access Tailgate. Here’s why.
The Tailgate wars have been getting wild this last decade. We of course had Ford’s “Man Step” almost 20 years ago — a design Chevy poked fun at in the commercial below. Then about a decade later, GMC and then Chevy launched its own “man step,” which was really a step inside a step inside a step called the MultiPro tailgate. It was basically step-ception.
Here’s the Chevy commercial in question:
Here’s how that “Man step,” technically called the Integrated Tailgate Step, works, by the way:
Basically, there’s a step that slides out of the top of the tailgate. When the tailgate is down, that step is in a great spot for you to reach with one of your feet, and you can pull yourself up into the truck using a handle that also ejects from the top of the tailgate and folds 90-degrees to stand straight up. It’s fairly straightforward:
Also straightforward is Honda’s Dual-Action tailgate that both drops and swings. A version of it has been out for about 20 years at this point,
Here’s a look at both of those “actions”:
And here’s a photo from Honda’s website showing the hinges:
As for GM’s MultiPro tailgate, here’s a skinnier, younger, more energetic me showing how it works for… seven minutes. I’m not sure why this video is so long, but hey, clearly I was excited:
And I had reason to be excited; the MulitPro tailgate is a fun gadget. Let’s go through its functions, beginning with its basic tailgate function:
If you fold the tailgate-within-the-tailgate down, you get easier access to things in the bed:
If you fold the tailgate-within-the-tailgate-within-the-tailgate down, you then add a step to that tailgate-within-a-tailgate. And if you fold up a handle that hinges from the driver’s side bedside, you can easily hoist yourself up into the bed:
Here’s a closer look of the step (the tailgate-within-a-tailgate-within-a-tailgate). It’s got optional speakers and charging ports built in!:
If you just fold down the tailgate, and then fold the tailgate-within-a-tailgate-within-a-tailgate (the step), you can use that as a load stop:
If you keep the tailgate up and fold the tailgate-within-a-tailgate, you get a work surface:
And if, from there, you fold up the step, you get a load stop for the second-level of your bed (since you can slot boards into the inner walls of the bed to create a double-decker):
The MultiPro tailgate is a legitimately impressive piece of tech, and customers seem to really like it.
Then there’s the Ram’s Multifunction tailgate, shown above. It basically splits the tailgate into two swinging sections: A long section (on the left) and a short section on the right. The two sections (doors), when closed, can be folded down and used as a traditional tailgate. Have a look:
I actually like the idea of the Multi-Function tailgate. It allows you to gain access to the bed even when you have a trailer jack just behind your hitch. Typically ,if you tried to drop a tailgate, it would hit the jack, so having the ability to swing a door — especially a small one that won’t interfere — seems useful. It also seems useful in a tight parking spot. Customers seem to like it.
My issue is that I don’t like the way it looks; the offset seam just looks…odd.
So why do I like the F-150’s Pro Access tailgate? Well, for one, as cool as GM’s MultiPro tailgate is, it’s just too complex for my tastes, and it doesn’t really solve the “accessing stuff in bed when parallel parked or when hauling a trailer” issue. Plus, I prefer simplicity in my pickups, though I recognize that many folks who regularly load and unload their trucks might love that option, just as they might like Ford’s “Man Step.”
The Ram’s tailgate is a bit hideous for my tastes, I like the Ridgeline’s but think that huge swinging gate would be tricky in parallel-parking situations, so that leads me to the Pro Access tailgate. It’s just a door within a door; it’s simple.
The door is in the middle, and it’s wide enough to let you get sizable objects in and out of the truck. Because that door hinged inboard and not all the way at the edge of the tailgate, you don’t have to swing a giant door, and you’re able to access the bed from the middle of the truck instead of the very edge like you would if you cracked open the Ridgeline’s tailgate in, say, a parallel parking spot.
Speaking of parallel parking spots, I parked an F-150 in one, and you’ll see how a normal tailgate really doesn’t work well at all, especially if you had to lift something heavy like, say, a pancake air compressor:
The Pro Access tailgate lets you just swing open that center door, and grab your things. If you lived in a city like I do, I could see this coming in clutch fairly often:
If you’re towing, that inboard-hinged center door also lets you grab things from the bed without worrying about hitting your trailer jack, as 2024 F-150 chief engineer Milton Wong points out here:
Wong also showed a step that pops out from under the F-150’s bumper.
You can step on that, and then grab this little grip area that Ford designated on the left side of the tailgate, and hoist yourself up:
Here you go:
I’m not convinced that, if you need to frequently load things into and out of a truck bed, the Pro Access tailgate is the best option over, say, GM’s MultiPro tailgate or even Ford’s own “Man Step,” but for occasional towing duty and definitely city-parking, it seems like a decent, no-BS, simple solution.
It’s a door in the middle of a tailgate. That’s it. It’s useful, but not complicated. And what’s more, because it’s in the center, the seams are symmetrical:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C7R9Tv8JOQm/
I guess I never had issues with the normal tailgate on my truck. Probably because the bed is low enough to just step on up to it without the need for stairs.
TIL – I should only focus on the best tailgate a truck has and nothing more the truck has to offer.
Wait a moment, some of these have electric components in them? Cow manure will kill that super quick. I hear other parts of the country have other equally corrosive chemicals. What the hell are they thinking?
Marketing to “suburban cowboys” who use their trucks as commuter vehicles.
Yup. Most farmer’s trucks end up with wooden half tailgates, aka 2×6 across the back. The tailgate usually gets turned into a v when their idiot son drops a hay bale on end onto the tailgate from the top of the stack. My dad had 3 tailgates meet their end that way. His sons only made that mistake once, but he had 3 sons
I mean, backup cameras are legally required, so it’s impossible to get a new consumer truck with no electronics in the tailgate
After yesterdays measuring I took my mini pickup out today, the tailgate goes down, and up. when it is down it is down and when it is up it is up. The number plate has hinges so when it is up you can see it, when it is down, you can see it. I did put new struts on it last year , they cost £28.49.
The problem of a standard tailgate hitting the trailer’s tongue jack is easily solved by buying an extended hitch ball mount.
Why not get an actual truck?
Like this that has vastly better tailgates?
https://www.fleetleaseremarketing.com/details-2018-ford-transit_chassis-t250_9_aluminum_flatbed-used-1fdyr5zm4jkb07100.html
This needs more likes. Get out of the USA and you find actually useful beds and less need for gimicky tailgates.
Best truck I ever had was a flatbed dually.
Parallel parking a modern pickup? Well the tailgate is the least.of your problems.
When I street parked my 1975 f150 in Manhattan, I would always put the tailgate down to reserve a little extra space so I could get out of the space.
All these problems would be moot if the trucks were shorter and lower like they used to be. That said, why not a side gate? Something like the Corvair rampside even.
Didn’t expect a whole article to explain this, but glad you did. I see where you’re coming from, but this strikes me as “the best they could do that wasn’t already patented”.
I still vote for the GM version, it is both a very stable step (I’ve tried the man step, it always seemed flimsy) and gives easier access to the bed along with all the other modes you mentioned. If you’re abusing the tailgate enough to worry about failure points I’d just stick with a traditional tailgate over any of these anyway.
So no lift? I thought once these trucks got so high it would be inevitable.
I would like that as an upgrade to my Raptor’s man-step tailgate. The truck is already tall, and I park my truck on my driveway which is a nose-down slope, so the open tailgate with step out is still pretty high. The swinging panel in the middle with the little step near the hitch would be so much more useful.
Ram’s seam could be closer to center if they didn’t slap 8” square Ram symbols on the gate.
Actually, I like the off center design. I can imagine situations where you don’t have room to open a big hunk of tailgate, and it also looks sort of nifty for hanging some 10 foot long pieces of pipe or lumber sticking out the back When you don’t want to have the tailgate down for some reason.
Dodge could have just put a crease on the left to make it symmetrical
GM’s solution is just so damn complex and electrically controlled. On top of that, it is made by GM. I wouldn’t touch that with a 8 ft 2X4 that coincidentally none of these trucks can carry with the tailgate up.
Honda still wins for me. It is the least complicated of all, and is made by Honda. Tailgates in general get beat to shit, so I’d be wary of anything that has hinges within the span of the gate period.
I have a Ridgeline, and the swing out feature has never worked, it’s a common problem. 🙁
There’s a two internal metal rods that make it work, that even after tweaking/bending them, I still can’t get it to work correctly.
Honda makes good cars/cuvs, but ford makes > 15 times as many trucks. The ridgeline is a niche product, so the parts that are from a passport/odyssey/etc will be great. But the unique truck parts wont have near the quality investment/experience as an F-series (or a silverado/sierra/ram)
I put a flip out, flip away step like the one on the Ram on my 2002 F250. So helpful to get up into the bed.
The next salvo in the tailgate wars will be when GM brings back the Glide Away tailgate from their 70’s wagons and puts it on the their trucks.
You guys remember that one? It folded down like a normal tailgate, but it also swung away to the side, and it ALSO slid down under the floor! Like magic!!
Actually – No
The 1971-76 GM full-size wagon tailgates only retracted into the body while the glass pulled up into the roof.
Ford wagons opened to the side and down from 1966 until the last of the Panther wagons in the 80s.
Mmmm, Ridgeline tailgate still wins for me. Simplest of all the multifunction tailgates, looks like a normal tailgate (no extra seams), and provides good access to the bed even in a tight parking situation or when towing. It’s the only one I would actually pay for.
The Ridgeline is just a ripoff of the Ford Magic Gate that was introduced on wagons in the late 60s. Everything old is new again, I guess.
The real solution to this problem would be to just make trucks lower so you could reach over the bedsides, but then you couldn’t fit the 22″ wheels.
I saw a lowered new Silverado at a hardware store recently. It looked really good and was the same bed height as trucks from 30+ years ago!
Can someone rip off the 1970s Buick Estate Wagon clamshell tailgate that retracts under the floor, as well ? I’m not sure if they were the fist one to do it, but it’s the only one I could think of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwtxPd-2mh8
Just need to somehow magically combo it with the ability to fold down normal as well.
Whoa, those are neat.
This would also cut into the sales of drop hitches, since you’d be able to tow without compensating for significant height differences. I’m all for it, but they’re not going to do it.
The Ram tailgate wins for me, especially since that pickup also has those compartments in the bed sides. That seems like the maximum utility offered right now. But this does seem useful.
I wish you could order the Ram boxes on just one side.
That would be nice. In general, I wish vehicles were a bit more modular and offered more individual options. I get tired of the option I want including a bunch of things I don’t care about or maybe specifically don’t want.
If it was hinged on the other side you could load from the curb when parallel parking. I also wish my jeep tailgate opened the other direction for loading and unloading curb side.
I was thinking the same thing. The “man step” was a straight up innovation that solved an actual problem. I would chuckle when seeing Chevy’s with notches cut into the corner of the bumper as a stop gap until they developed their Optimus Prime transformer tailgate.
Good thinking!
I was thinking that the swing open allows the driver to open without going around and/or the road crown helps keep the tailgate open, and/or people are mostly righthanded so open the latch with their right hand and/or with the jeep, keeping the spare tire out of traffic. I an not an automotive designer though.
Agreed. Not sure how everyone screwed this design up. My Bronco tailgate also swings the wrong way. Guessing most people can’t actually parallel park these enormous trucks, so it doesn’t matter….
I always think the same with my Jeep!
A differently designed tailgate would be a cool aftermarket item – no idea how one wos fo about developing such a contraption without completely changing a lot though.
Lots of companies make drop down wrangler tailgate kits so the tailgate drops like a pick up truck. The spare tire needs to be on a swing away so there is that.
Yes, yes, I was referring to a tailgate that allowed you to change the side it opens to – probably uber difficult to design, though.
Now, even better if you could come with a tailgatge that opens both ways, like the Ridgeline’s!
Personally, I think the RAM multi-function tailgate looks better and is more useful with two openings. The GM one is too complex and the new Ford one just looks awkward when closed
It’s possible the lack of symmetry could be largely ameliorated through the use of an appropriate-width pinstriping tape. (3/8″? Difficult to tell for sure)
The tape line would of course be basically two-dimensional, but at a glance and/or from a distance the tailgate characteristics would appear to be symmetrical.
Or perhaps Ram could offer an optional center racing stripe. It would start on the hood, cross the roof, and have a section that reaches from the seam on the right and across the emblem and extend the same distance to the left of the emblem. If not Ram, I can see the aftermarket offering it.
If Ram really cared, they could do like the Ridgeline does at the front of the bed. Stamp in a fake body line on the longer door to create the visual symmetry in a way that looks like a legitimate body seam from anything but close inspection.
I remember a few decades ago, thieves would steal tail gates.. if it still a thing? Do these fancy tailgates have features that mitigate that?
Apparently the thieves now sing and gather on hill tops to show off their ill-gotten tail gates! https://www.ispot.tv/ad/Ownz/gmc-sierra-anthem-t1
Yeah, when I lived in Houston about 5 years ago it was super common. A couple coworkers had theirs taken. I can only imagine it’s just as common now, but because more trucks come with electronically locking tailgates it’s just thwarted more often.
There were some trucks from Detroit
Whose sides were too tall to exploit
Ford invented a gimmick
That the others did mimic
So the owners could be less adroit.
Cotd!
I don’t claim to understand it, but man do I love the zeal. I don’t even want a truck and I’m reading this.
Love this energy.
Why I’m think? Grammar. 🙂
He card reads good!