How to Add Seats to Your Truck (and get a bigger tow vehicle for your large family!)

We are a family of six and we drive a crew cab Chevy truck. That means we utilize all six seats, including the one up-front and in-between the driver and myself.

My son loves this cozy arrangement. He adores sitting up front with the grown-ups and pursues the role of Back-Seat Driver Assistant with gusto (assisting me, Back-Seat Driver Numero Uno). He helps to navigate, reminds us of the speed limits, and when he’s tired, he has me to sleep on. Literally.

I love my son, but it’s time to move on back, boy…

…’cause we got ourselves some extra seats!

Thanks be to all-that-is-good, we had two extra seats installed in our truck last month. Ben reluctantly moved to the back and I am swimming in extra space up front.

I’ll treasure the time we spent together, son, but I’ll also treasure having space to put my coffee cup in the cup holder without your legs knocking it over.

Here’s what our truck looks like from the back:

What’s cool, is we now have a total of eight seats, just like our old minivan. Except now we still have a substantial amount of truck-bed left… and of course, the pulling capacity, which beats any beefed-up SUV or van. (The frontrunners being the Ford Excursion and Ford 1-ton vans.)

Here’s how we did it.

First we called the best custom sleeper top/cap/cab people in the country: Cowtown Sleepers, out of Fort Worth, Texas. We discussed what we wanted and got a bid, made an appointment for the work to be done, and put down a deposit.

We opted for a two-seat cab, with a raised ceiling (more headroom), windows on all sides with two that open and close, a door that locks with its own window and about 26 inches in width. We did not get carpeting, but instead bought a $5 outdoor rug from Wal-Mart and put it on the floor.

We thought about getting a bigger cab (you can go for the 42 inch size!), but opted for a smaller one since it will allow us to pull the RV in the truck bed if we ever want to do that, and also we retain a good deal of truck bed, which we do need. (It’s interesting to note since they create the fiberglass frames in-house, they use one-size and then cut it down to your order. Therefore, a larger cap is not always more expensive.)

They will remove the back window and add a rubber boot seal to attach the cab frame to the truck and keep out the rain.

You can see Bella in her seat below.

The kids can either climb over the truck’s back seats to get in and out, or use the convenient door that leads to the truck bed. Because they are young and less likely to break a hip, jumping down to the ground is no problem for them, and they even enjoy it.  We now have a tradition of letting them ride in the truck bed once we enter the RV park and start driving down the driveway. (As long as they sit on the floor of the bed!)

Anyway, if you’re reading this far, you probably want to know the price.

For what we got, we paid a total of about $2500. Not too bad.

Working with Cowtown Sleepers was a great experience. They’ve been doing this for 20+ years and can do anything you want. They’re reasonably priced, but you’ll have to make an appointment several weeks in advance. (Proof of their popularity.)

Here’s an excerpt from their website:

We are located on I-35 South in Fort Worth, TX. Cowtown has been adding that special touch to your truck since 1977. We use quality resins so our tops flex with your truck. Each Cowtown top is designed to minimize wind resistance while maximizing gas mileage. We take pride in the quality of tops we produce.

We WILL NOT build anything that we would not buy ourselves.
We offer a full line of of custom toppers and sleepers. If you need some custom fiberglass work we can do that to. We can also match any paint job. So for your trucks next sleeper, topper, flatlid or if your in need of custom fiberglass work give us a call
(817) 293-9100

If you have any questions about our seats, let me know.

Tagged as: businesses I like, chevy trucks, cowtown sleepers, fort worth, rv custom modifications, texas, tow vehicles, truck modifications