2005 Honda Pilot Test Drive

A Pilot Seat Worth Sitting In

It's got plenty of room and a reasonable price, but the best thing about the midsize Pilot is that it's made by Honda.

When Honda Motor introduced its midsize Pilot sport utility vehicle in 2003, reviews were nearly unanimous. Everyone cheered its roominess, quality and powerful V-6 engine. But what they really liked was that it was a Honda.

Anyone who has ever owned a Honda will know what that means. Honda's reputation for quality, durability and affordability is justly deserved. Who doesn't know someone who boasts that his ten-year-old Accord still turns over on the first try on even the coldest mornings, or who maintains that his 1995 Civic never needs anything other than water, oil and gasoline?

This vehicle, known as the Honda Passport -- and based on the Isuzu Rodeo -- was uninspired, a mere placeholder that the market knew would disappear once Honda was able to introduce a proper SUV of its own. The question, of course, was could a maker of reliable, if less-than-flashy, sedans and coupes create a SUV that was good enough to be called a Honda?

In the meantime, people had a pretty good inkling that the answer would be "yes" when Honda's luxury division Acura rolled out its own midsize SUV, the MDX, to near-universal praise in late 2000. The MDX offered three rows of seats, plenty of cargo space, excellent handling, good looks and superb finishing. In short, a real winner.

It should not take a Harvard M.B.A. to realize, then, that the smart thing for Honda to do was to offer a more modestly priced version of the MDX as its new midsize SUV -- which is exactly what it did. (The MDX, Pilot, Odyssey minivan and forthcoming SUT pickup truck due out next spring are all based on Honda's global light-truck platform.) The result? Read on to find out.