GMC News: GMC CarbonPro Bed Start Production In June

[Drew Dowdell]

GMC is taking its CarbonPro carbon-fiber bed into limited production in June for the 2019 model year and making it into its own edition.

GMC announced the CarbonPro when the 2019 GMC Sierra Denali debuted back in March 2018. GMC says that at first, the CarbonPro edition will be available in limited numbers of Denali and AT4 models and will expand availability of the package in those trims for 2020.  

The CarbonPro bed is lighter than a steel bed by about 60 pounds, but has much stronger durability and scratch resistance.  Carbon fiber is naturally corrosion resistant, making the GMC CarbonPro edition the most corrosion resistant bed in the industry.

Additionally, the CarbonPro bed has best in class cargo volume, increasing the cargo capacity over the steel bed by 1 cubic foot.  Tire indentations are in place at the front wall for motorcycles, and two additional tie downs are installed on the front wall. 

GMC tested the durability of the bed in extreme scenarios by dropping cinder blocks, 1800 lbs of gravel, and 450-pound water filled steel drums into the bed.  A generator was used to test the high heat exposure durability by aiming the exhaust directly at the corner of the bed. GMC even drove a Snowmobile with a studded track onto the bed and then accelerated at full throttle resulting in only minimal scratching of the material.

The CarbonPro bed comes with GMC's Multi-pro talegate

The GMC Denali and AT4 Carbon Pro Editions go on sale this summer.

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[smk4565]

How I wonder what this will cost since carbon fiber is really expensive.  And this is just a carbon fiber lining it sounds like but that could still get costly.  I wonder if they could get the manufacturing cost down if they could build the whole box from carbon fiber.

To go a step further if you could build the whole body from carbon fiber I bet a Sierra would be sub 4,000 lbs with the turbo 4 and would probably be faster than the 6.2 V8 models they have now.  And have more payload capacity.

Edited April 11, 2019 by smk4565

[Drew Dowdell]

46 minutes ago, smk4565 said:

How I wonder what this will cost since carbon fiber is really expensive.  And this is just a carbon fiber lining it sounds like but that could still get costly.  I wonder if they could get the manufacturing cost down if they could build the whole box from carbon fiber.

To go a step further if you could build the whole body from carbon fiber I bet a Sierra would be sub 4,000 lbs with the turbo 4 and would probably be faster than the 6.2 V8 models they have now.  And have more payload capacity.

It's not a lining, it fully replaces the steel bed interior

[Robert Hall]

53 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

It's not a lining, it fully replaces the steel bed interior

Are the bed outer panels steel or some sort of composite on these? 

[Drew Dowdell]

5 minutes ago, Robert Hall said:

Are the bed outer panels steel or some sort of composite on these? 

The outer panels are steel. 

[G. David Felt]

Very cool, I am excited to see this go into production and hope it get expanded into more body parts to help reduce weight thus improving MPG. Would be great to have a lightweight SUV body of this stuff.

[Drew Dowdell]

7 minutes ago, dfelt said:

Very cool, I am excited to see this go into production and hope it get expanded into more body parts to help reduce weight thus improving MPG. Would be great to have a lightweight SUV body of this stuff.

I don't think they'll use this in the body panels. They'll probably go aluminum first.... I think the hood already is. 

[smk4565]

4 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

It's not a lining, it fully replaces the steel bed interior

That is what I meant.  The inside but not the whole box.

[Drew Dowdell]

2 hours ago, smk4565 said:

That is what I meant.  The inside but not the whole box.

But a liner implies there is a steel or aluminum bed under there. There isn't. It's just carbon fiber.

[riviera74]

Now we can see more commercials where Chevy/GMC makes fun of Ford's (fragile) aluminum bed.