After buying a new truck, one thing you quickly realize is how the exposed bed is completely naked to the sticky hands of thieves. Anybody who walks by can grab whatever they want out of it. And nowadays, there seems to be more people willing to disregard both laws and morals to do just that.

The bed of a pickup is also naked to the elements. Without anything to cover it, you are at the mercy of Mother Nature. We learned this the hard way on a recent road trip with our brand-new Toyota Tacoma Double Cab. After encountering a brief but strong rainstorm that wasn’t on the forecast, we had to pull over on the side of the freeway. Frantically removing our cargo from the bed and stuffing it in the cab while getting rained on wasn’t exactly a fun activity. If we had our cab full with four passengers, that wouldn’t have even been an option. Instead, our gear would have gotten soaked.

Obviously, we needed a tonneau cover for our truck. However, we didn’t want to spend a ton of money. We also wanted a fairly simple cover that would be easy to take off and put back on. This way we could use all of the bed if needed and easily put the tonneau cover back on to enjoy its benefits. And when off, it couldn’t take up much storage space. The new Smart Cover from Smittybilt fits the bill perfectly. It comes in right around $300.00, making it affordable. It’s super simple to install, and folds up nicely. We slapped ours on a 2017 Toyota Tacoma, but it is available for most GM, Dodge, and Ford trucks. It made for a simple and affordable way to cover up our naked bed.