For years, pickup trucks have been vehicles of choice among a lot of car buyers. In fact, just recently, Consumer Reports referred to pickup trucks as possibly “the new family car.” This is because the number of women who have registered full-size pickup trucks increased by 67% from 2008 to 2016, according to data gathered by IHS Markit. At the same time, it has become increasingly common for car buyers to go out and purchase family trucks. As Ram brand spokesman David Elshoff has noted, “Family trucks are 40 to 50 percent of our mix.”

Without a doubt, the appeal of the pickup truck is not going away any time soon. It doesn’t matter if you're single or you have a large family. Either way, there’s a chance that you want to see a pickup truck in your garage.

After all, the pickup truck has a lot of great selling points to boast about. For starters, pickup trucks tend to be more powerful than your typical sedan. That’s because they are designed to have engines that are capable of hauling something as large as a boat in the back. At the same time, pickup trucks are readily able to take on just about any kind of track. No matter how rough the road is, you can be assured that a pickup truck will be able to go through. Meanwhile, pickup trucks also tend to have water-wading capability. So if your area happens to suffer from a little flash flood, your truck won’t have any problems.

Some car buyers also choose to buy a pickup truck because they know there are several modifications that you can easily do to it. In fact, when it comes to a DIY pickup mod, it seems your imagination is your only limit.

Curious to find out what we mean? Let’s check out some DIY pickup mods that are really quite out there.

19 Truck Garden

If you are very proud of your green thumb and you want to showcase it while on the road, then the best DIY pickup mod for you is to turn your cargo bed into your very own mobile garden.

To make this happen, you would need a tarp to cover your truck’s entire cargo bed. Once this is done, pour in enough garden soil and be sure to spread it out evenly. Once you are satisfied, go ahead and start planting. You can plant several types of flowers or even vegetables on the truck. Since they are on the cargo bed, you can rest assured that your plants will get sufficient sunlight. Just make sure to water them too.

18 Pickup Truck Home

For some pickup truck owners, their truck is not just a ride. Instead, it is also the place that they call home. Especially when you have a particularly large truck, the cargo bed space tends to have enough space to fit a mobile home.

The key to this DIY pickup mod is good design and planning. Before you even mount the home into the truck, the layout of the interior should already be determined and finalized. That way, you know where the bedroom will be as well as the sitting area. It is also critical that you figure out where the bathroom and kitchen will be located.

17 Pickup Truck Swimming Pool

Especially in certain states, the weather can be brutally hot in the summer. In other words, everyone could use some cooling down. And if you happen to own a pickup truck, it turns out you can make a DIY mod and easily turn your cargo bed into a little pool.

To make this happen, you just need to purchase a pool liner to cover the entire cargo bed of your truck.

Once it is securely in place, all you have to do is fill the space up with water and you and your family can finally take a dip. Feel free to set this up during a campout, summer barbecue or even a tailgate party. And once you’re done, all you have to do is to access a valve to instantly let all the water out.

16 Pickup Truck Camp Site

Have you ever dreamt of camping out under the stars even just in your own backyard? Well, if you happen to own a pickup truck, this is easier to do than you think.

In fact, you can easily transform your truck’s cargo bed into a wide tent space. Go ahead and install it on the bed itself. Just be sure that you line the flooring so that the tent is much comfy and cozy to lie on.

Meanwhile, depending on where you plan to camp, you might also want to install a netting on your tent. This way, you won’t have to worry about bugs or other insects making their way into your pickup tent.

15 Truck With Mattracks

When you are out somewhere where it practically always snows, you have to think hard about the kind of tires that you outfit your truck with. Do you go with regular winter tires or do you take things further with a DIY mod? For some people, pickup trucks running in the snow are better off when using Mattracks.

Mattracks is a famous brand for rubber track conversions that can be outfitted onto a lot of 4x4 vehicles easily.

These include everything from ATVs to SUVs to pickup trucks and other bigger vehicles. For a pickup truck, you have a lot of choices. In fact, there are light duty tracks, medium duty tracks, heavy duty tracks and extra heavy duty tracks that you can consider.

14 Pickup Truck Accommodations

Especially when you are out enjoying the outdoors with your friends, it can be a real challenge to find a place to stay. Fortunately, if you bring a tent with you, you can readily mount it on top of your truck and turn it into your very own accommodations.

At the same time, you can also tie parts of your tent to the trees so that it would have added support and it would not just blow off in case the wind picks up. If you plan to do this though, just make sure that you also have a ladder. After all, gaining access to your roof-mounted lodging may be quite a challenge.

13 Onboard Hot Shower

When you are out camping for a few days, you can end up missing some of the home comforts that you are used to. One of them is most likely a hot shower. And fortunately, it’s now possible to enjoy one wherever you are so long as you have your pickup truck with you.

This DIY pickup mod requires the installation of a rooftop pressurized shower or sprayer. This includes a pipe to be mounted on the roof, which would serve as your water source. Typically, these camp showers are solar heated, so you don’t have to worry about the power source for heating up your water.

12 Pickup Truck Kitchen

When you are out camping or tailgating with your friends, it’s really nice to be able to cook food on site. This way, you can also feed your group with meals that are nice, hot and fresh. Perhaps this is why there are some pickup truck owners who have decided to transform the cargo bed portion into a mobile kitchen.

Fortunately, it’s quite easy to do a DIY mod on your pickup truck to create your own cooking station. In fact, there are sliding tables that can be installed so that you have a place to chop your ingredients. At the same time, a small sliding stove can also be installed in a similar manner to allow you to prepare hot food.

11 Truck Food Stall

If you happen to have an entrepreneurial spirit, this type of DIY pickup truck mod is certainly for you. In this case, you are turning the pickup into a food truck of sorts. The only difference is that you have to stand beside the truck to be able to properly prepare and serve food.

Onboard the truck’s cargo bed, you can easily fit in a grill, small stove or even a griddle. You can also put a small table beside it, so you can chop fresh ingredients.

Meanwhile, you can also set up a little condiment counter in another part of the truck. This way, everything is accessible, and you can serve customers real fast.

10 Ice Cream Pickup Truck

During hot summer days, we’re pretty confident that kids and adults alike are screaming for ice cream. Why not seize the opportunity and get a small ice cream business started using your pickup truck?

According to a report from Grizly, it seems one man did this by doing a DIY mod on his 1955 Ford truck. The ice cream truck was branded John’s ice cream and it sold all sorts of frozen delights, including fudge, popsicles, drums, ice cream cones and more.

Today, it’s still very much possible to create the same set-up with a brand-new truck. Just make sure that the freezer unit you use fits nicely on your truck’s cargo bed.

9 Pickup Truck Outdoor Cinema

In today’s households, family time could mean gathering in the living room with popcorn in hand and enjoying a movie. For some people though, movie time is even better when done outside. And believe it or not, if you have a pickup truck, you can have an outdoor movie experience any time you want.

The one DIY mod that you need to do to your pickup truck is to install a screen onto the truck’s hitch stand. Then, across it, you set up a movie projector around the same height as the screen. Once this is done, you can play a movie for your friends and family anytime.

8 Pickup Truck Trailer

For some families, going out of town means taking out the camper van and having the adventure of a lifetime. What if we told you though, that you don’t really need a camper van if you already have a truck?

In fact, as a DIY mod, all you have to do is to transform the cargo bed portion of your truck into a trailer.

Especially if there are only a few people in the family, a truck bed mounted trailer should be good enough to serve everyone’s needs during the trip. It can have a small seating area and even possibly a washroom. Of course, that would all depend on your final design.

7 Tailgate Nets

Typically, a pickup truck’s bed comes with a door that you can use to close up to the bed and keep any stuff you have from sliding out while you are on the road. On its own, this door is already useful and very dependable. This is exactly why we would be quite surprised if any truck owner decided to take it out.

Unfortunately, there are some truck owners who have chosen to do just that. Instead of the typical truck door, they decided to make a DIY truck modification and replace it with a tailgate net instead. While this may still be able to keep stuff from sliding out of the truck bed, there is no assurance that small items wouldn't just slip right through the net and fall off.

6 Extremely Big Lift Kits

Some pickup truck owners want their ride to be just a bit higher. To make this happen, they often turn to a lift kit as their DIY modification. However, there are those truck owners that just seem to take things a little too far.

In fact, some of them go on to install extremely big lift kits on their trucks so that they stand higher up from the ground than anyone could imagine.

What these owners don’t know, however, is that doing this can significantly affect their truck’s stability. This is because as the truck is lifted, its center of gravity is increased. And unless you get wider tires, your ride won’t be as stable as before.

5 Extremely Lowered

While some truck owners like to lift their vehicles all the way up, there are those who prefer to have them lowered. In fact, some even go as far as lowering them to the point that the truck can already touch the ground. Doing so, however, can cause some safety issues for your ride in the long run.

As Your Mechanic has explained, “The lowering process can change the camber (at rest, or when the wheel is raised as over a bump), which in turn has two negative effects, reduced traction, particularly for braking, and increased tire wear.” Meanwhile, it also added, “Steering geometry may be changed enough that the car can’t be steered safely. This applies primarily to cars that have been lowered several inches or more.”

4 Huge Vertical Exhaust Stacks

From time to time, you may encounter a unique looking kind of truck based on the side pipes that are emitting smoke simultaneously. These are known as exhaust stacks and some pickup truck owners add them on as a mod. The sole purpose of these is to let exhaust exit upwards and away from the vehicle.

According to online retailer 4 Wheel Online, a smokestack exhaust can help lower your truck’s exhaust gas temperature. This, in turn, greatly helps to enhance the truck’s performance as well. However, keep in mind that such exhaust stacks can emit a lot of smoke and other motorists near you may not appreciate it.

3 Motorized Bed Cover

For some truck owners, having a bed cover in their pickup truck is absolutely helpful. After all, it helps keep their items away from the sun’s glare. Not to mention, it can also function as a sunshade in case you want to hang out in your cargo bed and take a break.

If you are the type who doesn't like having to take the bed cover on and off though, perhaps you should consider getting a motorized bed cover instead.

Forget about having to remove it from the truck completely. With a motorized bed cover system, the entire thing just moves up and out of the way when you don’t need it around.

2 Amphibious Pickup Truck

In a way, you could say that a pickup truck can do just about anything. It can go through rough terrain. It can haul really bulky items. It can be converted into a mobile home. It can be transformed into an outdoor kitchen or even a garden. But did you know that it can also be turned into an amphibious vehicle?

That’s exactly what some engineers did to a Corvair Rampside pickup back in 1961. According to a report from Fox News, the team installed a fiberglass hull to the truck, along with propellers that are driven by a hydraulic pump that was attached to the truck’s engine. In the end, the amphibious Corvair sailed over water successfully.

1 Truck Bed Drawers

For some people, having a lot of storage space means everything. That probably means there are lots of cabinets and shelves in their house. And in some cases, you may also find that they have placed a number of storage units in their trucks. In fact, they’ve gone ahead with a DIY pickup mod to install several drawers in their truck bed.

These truck bed drawers can be particularly useful. Especially if you own some sort of service business, you can readily use the drawer space to carefully organize all your accessories and tools. This way, when you go to work, you won’t end up spending half an hour trying to locate everything.

If you decide to do this, however, just remember that drawers in your truck bed can also be a serious eyesore.

Sources: consumerreports.org, foxnews.com, yourmechanic.com, statista.com