Best Used Honda Pickup Truck - Ridgeline

North American automakers have long relied on full-size pickup trucks to help carry them financially. Even in lean times, truck sales remained high due to the fact that these practical vehicles were need across many different facets of the American economy. A wide range of buyers from farmers to construction workers to small business people required the use of pickup trucks for the hauling and towing that helped them earn a living.

Japanese car companies never developed this reliance on large trucks, as their own domestic market was more focused on smaller, specialized industrial and commercial vehicles that did not double as personal transportation quite as often as pickup trucks did in America. For this reason, attention from Nissan, Toyota and Honda to the full-size truck market remained peripheral for a number of years. Both Toyota and Nissan relied on mini-trucks and compacts to carry the company name in the United States, and Honda abstained from truck production altogether, preferring to instead focus on their automobile development.

Eventually, first Toyota and then Nissan began to get much more serious about figuring out the lucrative pickup truck puzzle. The two companies experimented with ever larger vehicles, and eventually achieved a significant amount of success. All of this was too much for Honda to ignore, and they decided to leave their spot on the sidelines and join the fray with a pickup truck of their own. However, their approach would be radically different than any other manufacturer, so much so that it would straddle the line between pickup and SUV in a way that few trucks had ever done before. While their Japanese competitors had surmised that the best way to lure loyal domestic truck owners into their showrooms was by competing with the Big Three on both size and power, Honda went after an entirely different demographic of truck buyer that wasn’t currently being served by anything on the market.

The 2006 – 2007 Honda Ridgeline is the best used full-size truck available from Honda. With its unique design and high level of cargo management and hauling utility, it represents a big step forward for a company that has so far been known almost exclusively for its automobiles and SUV’s. This article takes a look at the used Ridgeline and examines the pros and cons of Honda’s singular approach to the full-size pickup concept.

2006 – 2007 Honda Ridgeline

Honda has never had a strong history in the truck market. Their only truck-based SUV, the Passport, was developed by Isuzu, and they have historically chosen to develop SUV’s from car platforms, staying completely out of the full-size field. However, eventually Honda was no longer able to resist the urge to exploit the red-hot truck market, finally bowing under the pressure to release the Honda Ridgeline.

The 2006 – 2007 Honda Ridgeline represents a truly unique offering in the full-size truck field. To start with, the vehicle is based on a car platform, making it the only pickup in North America to abandon the standard heavy frame usually used to underpin a truck. While Honda has done their best to stiffen the vehicle’s chassis, its automobile origins limit the weight that the truck can tow to around 5,000 lbs. The Ridgeline is also smaller than a standard full-size pickup – more in line with a Dodge Dakota than a Ram. The only engine choice is a 3.5-liter V-6 which produces 247 horsepower and 245 lb-ft of torque directed through a 5-speed automatic transmission. The Ridgeline is front-wheel drive with an all-wheel drive system that transfers power to the rear wheels should the truck encounter slippery conditions.

As if the Ridgeline weren’t already different enough from most other pickups on the road, it further sets itself apart through its cargo management system. Advertised as the first pickup truck with a factory trunk, the Ridgeline boasts 8.5 cubic feet of storage space located underneath the truck bed by lifting up a simple lid. The 5-foot bed extends to 6.5 feet with the tailgate down and an optional tubular steel extender installed, and the truck’s tailgate can be swung away to the side to facilitate loading.

The 2006 – 2007 Honda Ridgeline isn’t intended to be used as a serious work truck, but as a compromise between utility and comfort it is appealing on the used full-size truck market for those who want to stand out from the crowd.