2006 Truck Of The Year Testing

You could say trucks haven't changed much over the years. Slip under the skin of a new F-150, and you'll find its basic architecture isn't a million miles removed from a Ford pickup built half a century ago. The reality, of course, is that everything has changed. Whether they're workhorses or personal transport, today's trucks are smoother, quieter, more powerful, more efficient, more comfortable and--yes--tougher. More versatile, too: You can pick 'n' mix drivetrains, cabs, and beds to tailor most trucks to suit your personal duty cycle and your personality.

So the arrival of Honda's Ridgeline onto the U.S. truck market is an event of seismic significance. Honda has never built a truck before, and the Ridgeline doesn't so much break the rules of truck making, as blow them apart and drive over the bits. It's a unibody. It has a transverse-mounted engine. It has independent rear suspension. Can it really be a truck? Without a doubt, that was the key question to be answered during the 2006 Truck of the Year showdown.

There were others. Like whether DaimlerChrysler has continued its steady improvement of the Ram in its regular and super-duty iterations. Was Mitsubishi's Raider more than just a tasteful redesign of the Dodge Dakota? Could Isuzu spark consumer interest in its brand with a mildly remodeled and repackaged Chevy Colorado? And had the Lincoln Mark LT really turned one of America's great luxury marques into nothing more than a trim level on an F-150?

As usual, our evaluation began at the track, where each contender was run through the usual barrage of MT performance tests. This year, though, we added a little extra. A lot extra, actually: The bed of each contender was filled to the manufacturer's specified maximum payload, and each truck was run again against the clock. The results, in terms of how much each of these trucks is rated to carry and how it performed with a full load, were revealing.