2017 Honda Ridgeline First Drive Review: Insistent Iconoclast
Honda Updates Its Niche Pickup Truck for Its Niche Followers and Does One Bang-Up Job
By the grace of lady fortune, or maybe mere dumb luck, I’ve been Motor Trend’s tip of the spear for covering the midsize pickup truck’s revitalization over the last two years. I like to think I paid my dues leading up to the new cadence. In the immediate years prior, I logged extensive time with the final generation of the Ford Ranger sold in the U.S. It had a regular cab, of course, and it felt wheezy and dreadfully unsafe to be in by the early 2010s. There were two different Frontiers afterward, both of which you can find at Nissan dealers today. There was the original Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, a fun sendoff model for the second-generation truck. Although cool to play with in its off-road element, the Taco was more than well done by this point in its cycle.
Then the new hotness arrived. The general attitude I sensed from the GM camp during the 2015 Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon launch event was, “Yeah … forget about the last Colorado and Canyon. We’re going to try this whole midsize truck thing again.” Toyota’s sentiment at the 2016 Tacoma soiree: “Yeah … we know what we’re doing with Tacoma. We don’t want to mess with it too much.” And most recently, the OEM perspective at the 2017 Honda Ridgeline get-together: “Yeah … we have a weird truck. We’re keeping it weird and making it better.”
So here we are, in San Antonio, Texas, to get an all-too-brief taste of the new second-generation Ridgeline. After a two-year hiatus, Honda’s pickup is back. The basic recipe is unchanged from the first model; it’s a unibody design with a plastic bed (now longer and wider) and a V-6 with an automatic transmission. It prioritizes an on-road car character that was barely believable for the segment in 2005 when the first Ridgeline went on sale but seems more than suitable a decade later. This time, you can even get a front-wheel-drive Ridgeline.
Driving in the hills surrounding San Antonio reveals an agreeable and compliant truck. Sliding into the driver’s seat is a cinch, there’s plenty of power seat adjustment available, and your head’s height makes you feel as if you’re in the center of the driving action. Some trucks, by design, project the sensation of sitting way up high, and then your brain signals you’re more at the truck’s whims than your own. The Ridgeline’s outward sightlines are excellent, the empty-bed front-to-rear balance is fairly uniform (there’s no rear live axle to thrash the backside), and you feel confident driving the truck—unless you’re embarrassed by the Ridgeline’s wallflower appearance.
