2006 Honda Ridgeline

If the folks at Honda have it their way, every garage in America would contain two CR250R dirt bikes, an AquaTrax watercraft, a Honda generator, and a new Ridgeline to tote them around. It's not a bad market strategy, especially considering the Ridgeline is a great truck for those who've been driving Accords to work and are looking to haul stuff and/or tone up their commuter-lane muscle.

The Ridgeline is Honda's first attempt in this segment. Although it sports a decidedly polarizing design, it's a hoot to drive (for a truck) and has some clever packaging devices that'll have Detroit wondering why it didn't think of it first.

Rest assured, this is a real truck. Okay, maybe not in the F-350 Super-Duty Crew-Cab Power Stroke 4x4 paradigm, but it can tow (5000 pounds) and haul payload (1550 pounds); it has a five-foot bed, can go off-road, and it has a big truck grille, with a big truck emblem--it's likely the biggest emblem Honda has ever put on a vehicle. And if we don't count the Subaru Baja (which is really a reconstituted car), the Ridgeline is the first unibody truck.

The Ridgeline rides on a mostly new platform that borrows front bits from the Pilot/Odyssey/MDX, but has extra crossmembers not found on the Pilot or MDX. This, along with the composite cargo bed with reinforced crossmembers, allows it to carry heavy stacks of river rock and brick piles that most previous Honda owners only could have dreamed about. The front MacPherson struts and rear multilink with trailing-arm suspension allow the truck to grip a twisty road better than a vehicle with the bed on the back should be able to. Most body-on-frame truck owners will be looking for the nearest turnout in the canyon road in order to let the Ridgeline scoot by.

Unfortunately, cutting the back end out of a unibody structure to make room for a cargo bed weakens the structure's strength. One side effect is unusually thick and awkward-looking C-pillars just aft of the rear-passenger side glass. Behind the backwards-angled sheetmetal are structure pieces that help keep the truck taut.