2006 Honda Ridgeline Test Drive

Look Out Detroit

With the passenger space of a large SUV and enough utility to work like a truck, Honda has hit another home run.

From The Driver's Seat

We came into the review of this vehicle somewhat biased against short-bed trucks. We've simply had too many experiences trying to get them to do trucklike duties, only to find that their beds were simply too puny to handle the chore or load.

But Honda has done three things right with the Ridgeline. First, it comes with a steel-reinforced composite (SRC) cargo bed that Honda claims has twice the strength of ordinary steel and also eliminates the need for a liner. We had bags of mulch, a bike and some garden tools in the bed and nothing left a scratch.

Second, Honda installed a versatile "trunk" right in the bed at the tailgate end. The trunk locks and will hold 8.5 cubic feet of whatever you don't want riding in the bed or the cabin. That's just a few cubic feet less than you can stuff into the trunk of a Honda Civic.

Third, the liftgate of the truck doesn't just collapse downward like it does on traditional pickups; it can also swing open from right to left, like the tailgate of an old-fashioned station wagon. Swinging the gate open enables you to get awkward loads into the bed of the Ridgeline more easily, and to lift heavier items out of the trunk without having to reach over the liftgate.

If you want an example of when you might use the trunk (also made of SRC), we took the Ridgeline to a trailhead and went for a hike. At the end of our trek, we were hungry for dinner, but couldn't wear muddy boots into a decent joint. So, instead, we changed shoes, tossed our dirt-caked boots into the trunk along with our backpacks and didn't have to worry about any of those belongings disappearing from the bed of the truck while we ate. We also didn't have to consider putting that grimy stuff into the pristine cabin of the Ridgeline like you might with a normal pickup.

And in case you're worried about grit in the trunk, there's a convenient drain plug, so you can take a hose and spray down the box with no concerns.

True, this is still a short-bed truck, so 8-by-10 foot sheets of plywood will hang way out the back. But there is enough width between the wheel wells to put a standard, 48-inch-wide sheet into this bed, so a 5-by-8 foot sheet, with the tailgate left down and the wood flagged, would fit just fine.

And with a towing capacity of 5,000 pounds, most buyers in the market for a sport truck/SUV should find that the Ridgeline has the chops to do most of the chores they might require.

Inside, the Ridgeline is more clever than other trucks, too.

The rear seats don't have uprights that flip forward, like you've seen in cars. Instead, the seat bottoms split 60/40 and flip upwards toward the seatbacks, freeing more than 40 cubic feet of cargo space on the floor. This is great for grabbing a couple cases of wine and a pile of groceries. You don't want that stuff in the trunk because it's harder to lift out from below-waist height, and you don't want it in the bed, obviously. Again, Honda makes it easy to own a Ridgeline and treat it more like an SUV than a traditional truck.

Furthering that notion, the Ridgeline has oversized, on-door cupholders in back, a huge, versatile center console with multiple storage options and even an auxiliary jack on the dash — much like the Element — so you can plug your iPod right into the audio system.

The cabin design itself is clean and fairly unfussy — it doesn't scream T-R-U-C-K. But these days even the F-150's interior is downright swanky and civilized.

Another thing Honda does differently is make its Ridgeline more like a passenger car. It has an integrated closed-box frame rather than a body-on-frame design, and instead of a rear live-axle, features fully independent front and rear suspensions. You notice these two features the most when driving the vehicle without a heavy load. Most trucks with live rear axles like to wallow a bit when they're empty, but the Honda drives like a fairly large car. Add some weight to the back and the ride improves some, but because it's not bad to begin with, the temptation to ride around with a laden vehicle to "balance" the ride doesn't exist.

What may bother some would-be buyers is the lack of gusto under the hood. Honda, in its bid to never build V-8s and thus produce cleaner and more fuel-sipping motors, furnishes the Ridgeline with a 3.5-liter V-6 — much like the motor in the Acura MDX and the Honda Odyssey — but has tuned this version for more mid-range torque. There's enough of that to get you to 60 miles per hour in about eight seconds, which isn't pokey. But under a full load, or when towing, Ridgeline owners might miss the down-low torque that a larger engine can provide. But with a (for this class) respectable 16 city/21 highway EPA miles per gallon rating, maybe today's wallet-watching gasoline buyers will happily sacrifice a little power for economy.