Lake City Flat Top

This article originally appeared in the June 2015 issue.

Nestled in the forests of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Mike Kinzer and his crew at Silverlake Manufacturing have been working on something special, something the likes of which the world has never seen. Okay, not really, but it is something that any snowmobile or ATV enthusiast should take a long, hard look at.

How much of a hassle is it lugging your sleds or quads around? Never mind that, how much of a pain in the neck is it loading and unloading them from your rig? Let’s say you’ve actually got a truck that’s big enough to accommodate your toys; where do you put the loading ramp once they’re loaded? You can’t leave it at home, because you’re offloading them onsite and reloading them when you’re done. What if you have more than one sled or quad? What’s a guy to do?

Mike has the answer. He’s been making custom sled decks since 1999, but about four years ago, he realized something.

“A lot of dually flatbeds, you can put a couple of quads on them, but there’s just no place to put a ramp,” said Mike. “Single-tired vehicles, there’s just no way to put two of them up there; it’s just not wide enough. If you make it wide enough, it looks ridiculous.”

Room To Spare

His solution to this problem is three-fold. First, you need to get a flatbed, no two ways about it. A flatbed by its nature protects whatever’s in the bed because the truck cab takes the brunt of all the wind and debris. Second, the sides of the flat bed fold down to give you that extra room you need to fit two quads or sleds side by side on the back of the truck. When not in use, they fold back up and are held in place by a coupler safety pin. It’s a sleek, elegant solution that’s functional where it counts, but also looks really nice when folded up at the rest position. Third—and here’s the important part—there’s a hidden compartment under the bed itself that houses a 48-inch wide loading ramp. Just open up the locking door, pull it out, and it’s ready to load anything you need. Yes, anything: pull a pin and the ramp is extendable to a full 64 inches wide, which is big enough to accommodate the widest side-by-sides. Once you’re done, simply fold it back up and stow it in its hole.

“That opened up a whole new market for us,” Mike says. “I know why nobody else has the ramp in the back. It makes the sub-frame wider than the truck frame, so it’s a lot tougher to install. Most manufacturers go through dealerships, and they just want a bolt-on deal, they don’t want to have to weld anything. I’m the only one who does it. That’s my main selling point, that it’s for work and play.”

Options For Days

The sub-frame he’s talking about is an aluminum super structure that’s 3/16-inch plate, which is something that no one else does as a standard feature. He’ll also do custom etching on the sides, although that does increase the cost and the lead time quite a bit. In fact, there’s a whole range of options available, from an overhead rack with a hidden fuel tank to underslung toolboxes on the sides, if you’re so inclined.

“It’s a pretty trick-looking rig. On the website, the list of options is immense,” adds Mike. “You can go everywhere from a $4,000 flat bed that you put on yourself. We sat down and added it up. If a guy wanted every option that we offer, it’d be $14,000. So there’s quite a range.”

People are starting to take notice of how great these flatbeds work. Mike estimates that his business triples in the wintertime. Since he’s based in the Pacific Northwest, about 80 percent of his buyers use the flatbeds for snowmobiles, though he says, “It seems like everyone that wants to go sledding right now also has in mind during the summer to put their quads or their side-by-side up on there too.”

Miles To Go

If you want to get your hands on one of these, odds are you’re going to have to get your truck—and yourself, too, I guess—to Coeur d’Alene to get the bed installed on it. In most cases, it’s too hard to ship just the bed to a dealership for the customer to pick up and install on his own.

“At least 95 percent of the time, we install them here and the reason is that it is kind of technical,” says Mike. “It takes a little bit of aluminum welding and a little bit of steel welding to install it. Most people would rather spend a day running around Coeur d’Alene and let me do it.”

Mike says they’ve shipped beds clear to Alaska, but one customer came all the way from New Hampshire. He’d bought a new truck, had it shipped to the local Ford dealership in Coeur d’Alene, where Mike installed the bed, then flew out to pick it up and drove it back. “Then the next year he bought another one! So that’s the farthest I’ve ever gone.”

If you’re keeping track at home, it’s about 2,700 miles from northern Idaho to New Hampshire. At the moment, the distance is a small price to pay for such a durable, useful product. However, Mike is welcoming dealer inquiries, so one day soon you won’t have to make the trek to get your new bed installed.

“You know, people are going to look at it and say, ‘Oh, I can buy a flat bed down the street.’ But the main difference is that ramp that stows in the locking compartment,” says Mike. “It’s not in the way at all, so that you can use it for your toys as well. Every one of them, up against the headache rack has wheel trucks and tie downs for bikes. There are several options that people are going to say are cool, like the overhead rack and the hidden 20-gallon fuel tank in the overhead rack. But [the hidden ramp] is something nobody else does, and everybody else wants.”

Carrying On

Whatever toys you’re going to be hauling, Silverlake Manufacturing’s flatbeds will carry them. If this sounds like it’s up your particular alley, talk to them ASAP, because they’re most likely going to be in high demand soon and you don’t want to miss your chance.

Silverlake Manufacturing

208-623-6601

www.sledecks.com