Tired of loose object shifting around the back of your SUV?  Wish you had something to protect the interior of your SUV when coming back from the hardware store with a load of mulch, sand, sod, plants, etc.? Problem solved.  Behold the Corvus Box.     The Corvus Box is a clever, new take on the old concept of a steamer trunk.  While roughly the size of a classic steamer trunk, the various configurations and access points of the Corvus Box bring the trunk into the 21st century and make it unique.  This handy storage box converts from a trunk capable of swallowing 3.75 cubic feet of gear to a folded-flat SUV cargo area liner with 6 inch deep sides, measuring 30” wide and 4 feet long.

The Corvus Box as a “Trunk” The Corvus Box, when in trunk configuration provides you with a sturdy storage compartment measuring 30” wide, 12” high and 18” long.  When we say, “sturdy” we mean it.  The Corvus Box was tested and proven in the famed Dakar Rally.  To help keep things in place, the Corvus Box comes equipped with tie-down islets perfect for strapping the box to the cargo hold-down points in your SUV cargo area.  Whether you are going wheeling and want a place to stow your muddy gear or simply making a trip to the store, this box converts your wide-open cargo area to a trunk.  Got Milk?  Yeah, me too and it normally rolls across the back of the family Mountaineer when returning from the store.  With the Corvus Box, the stuff stays in place.  Plus the handy access hatch in the center of the lid enables you to retrieve smaller items without opening the full lid.

 

The Corvus Box as a “Bedliner” The Corvus Box has been designed to open completely to two different configurations.  The first, shown below provides a 6 inch deep, open-top compartment with a center partition.  Use this configuration to store larger items that you may still need to keep separated, keeping items from shifting while under-way.  Each of the two partitions measures 30” long, 6” high and 18” wide.  The second configuration creates a single compartment, 12 inches longer than the above configuration while maintaining the all-around depth of 6 inches.  This single compartment measures 30” wide, 6” high and 48” long.  Use this configuration like you would the bed of a shallow bed-liner.  Perfect for larger items or bulk loads like mulch.

 

The Verdict

As mentioned previously, the Corvus Box is not only innovative, but it’s strong and durable too. This isn’t some cheap plastic box warmed-over, it weighs nearly 20 pounds empty. Corvus is so certain that its products are durable that they back the Corvus Box with a 10 year limited warranty.  We tested the durability of the box, quite accidentally, when it fell onto the garage floor from the roof of one our project vehicle.  The Corvus Box survived this drop from over six feet up without any damage.
 
The features of the Corvus Box are particularly helpful if you, like me, use an SUV as your daily driver, family vehicle and all-around chore-mobile, you know – the utility portion of your sport utility vehicle.  It’s almost inevitable that you will at some point carry something that may stain or damage the interior of your SUV.   

We do have a few areas of concern, though. First, the three locking latches have locks built into them that can easily be picked with a hairpin. Not so much of a problem with a closed SUV, but certainly a concern for those with an open-air Jeep. Second, the tie-down eyelets are held in place with two rivets each. The manufacturer tells us the rivets are rated for 505 lb/ft of tensile strength and 340 lb/ft of sheer strength.  Depending upon weight loads, we suspect they may rip out of the box more easily than we’d like. We will likely drill out the rivets and replace with small bolts and large washers. The tie-down eyelets are also only situated on one end of the box too. Finally, this innovative storage solution comes at a cost – just south of $300 at time of writing this article, which seems a bit steep in today’s economy. However, Corvus insists that the product be manufactured and assembled in North America, and we certainly applaud them for doing so.

Perhaps the best review of the Corvus Box came from my better half, which spends far more time behind the wheel of our daily-driver SUV.  She genuinely liked having a device that could be used to hold groceries in-place and then be opened-up flat to haul bags of mulch home from the hardware store. 

If you are in need of a single, highly configurable cargo hauling tool, the Corvus Box is worth a look. 

Capcan, Inc. (Corvus Box)

163 Ormond St., Suite 102 Brockville, ON K6V 7E6 CANADA Phone: 613-342-9685 Fax: 613-342-8545 Website: www.corvusboxes.com