The Chevy Multi-Flex tailgate is a direct descendant from GMC’s MultiPro tailgate. Before it was introduced in 2019, the MultiPro was GMC’s most closely guarded secret. A 3D-printed version was hidden in a locked storage room, occasionally wheeled someplace on a covered gurney. Any Zoom-esque conference calls were allowed no video where this tailgate was concerned.
The birth of the MultiPro came in 2009 not from a C-suite type or a team of Ivy League engineers, but from a technician who has just a high school education. After one of his managers complained about not being able to reach things that slid forward in the back of his pickup, Jim Gobart realized there was a better way. Calling it “The Stairway to Heaven,” Hobart realized that if you folded the tailgate in half, you could reach further into the bed. Building on top of that, if you fold that middle part down, there’s no reason it couldn’t become a step.
Gobart’s Stairway to Heaven was the best idea…. at the absolute worst time. 2009 was the height of the Great Recession, and GM filed for bankruptcy. It wasn’t at all practical to properly vet the idea of a folding tailgate when so many other more immediate issues needed to be dealt with.
Five years later, Derek Patterson, a lead engineer, took Gobart’s idea to the new GM Innovation Hub. When GM took the prototype to test audiences, they were most impressed by three things: 1 – the ability to step into the bed more easily, 2 – that this flexible tailgate let you reach further into the bed, and 3 – that it was possible to add a second level of cargo. Fast-forward a few more years, and the GMC MultiPro tailgate has extended to the Chevy Silverado, and Jim Gobart’s name is on 11 GM patents, with more pending.
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