Second-Generation Honda Ridgeline Unwrapped in Detroit

DETROIT – The second-generation Honda Ridgeline compact pickup gets its public debut today at the 2016 North American International Auto Show here.

Media got a sneak peek at the truck, which remains unibody-based, last month at Honda’s holiday media party in Detroit.

“(With the first-gen Ridgeline), we studied what worked and what didn’t work and we think this has all the features that everybody wants with the capability,” Jeff Conrad, group vice president of the Honda brand at American Honda told media in December.

Research found owners of the original Ridgeline liked the truck, but wanted better fuel economy.

Rejectors wanted different styling.

“(They said), ‘I can’t get by the styling.’ So we changed that,” Conrad says. “The pickup light-truck segment likes a traditional look, so we gave this a traditional look. We think that the front end is a gorgeous look.”

Honda touts several class-leading wins for the new Ridgeline – acceleration, fuel economy, handling, ride quality, cabin quietness, all-weather traction and cabin space – but releases few specifications in pre-NAIAS materials.

It does claim a payload capacity near 1,600 lbs. (726 kg), where the GMC Canyon and Toyota Tacoma top out, as well as the “only 4-ft.-wide flat bed space in the midsize pickup segment,” with 48 ins. (1,219 mm) between rear wheel arches.

Compared with the previous Ridgeline, which went out of production in 2014, the new bed is 5.4 ins. (137 mm) wider and 4 ins. (102 mm) longer at 5 ft. (1.5 m) wide and 5 ft. 4 ins. (1.6 m) long.

Honda once again will offer an in-bed trunk, a feature at first mocked, but later adopted by certain pickup competitors.

New for the second-gen Ridgeline’s trunk is a flat floor and drain plug.

The truck also has a dual-action tailgate, hinged at the bottom and left side, which seemed to function well in a test last month.

The brand says it has upped the truck’s interior materials, with higher-end finishes than before. Again, inspecting the new Ridgeline last month revealed above-average materials in a leather-equipped grade, although we took issue with a volume slider in lieu of a knob on the center stack, quickly becoming a common Honda foible.

Standard on the truck is tri-zone climate control, push-button start and a full-color display screen in the gauge cluster, while an 8-in. (20-cm) display audio touchscreen with either Apple Car Play or Android Auto is available.

Calling it a first for any pickup, the new Ridgeline will have a 540-watt in-bed audio system. With that feature, plus an available 400-watt AC power inverter to plug in a flat screen TV, Honda calls the Ridgeline “the ultimate tailgating vehicle.”

The new Ridgeline will get Honda’s 3.5L direct-injected V-6 mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission. Honda’s Pilot CUV uses a 3.5L DI V-6 but with cylinder deactivation, not mentioned in the Ridgeline pre-show materials.

The Pilot’s 3.5L DI V-6 makes 280 hp and 262 lb.-ft. (355 Nm).

The first-gen Ridgeline’s naturally aspirated 3.5L V-6 made 250 hp and 247 lb.-ft. (335 Nm) of torque.

For the first time Honda is offering both front- and all-wheel-drive configurations for the Ridgeline, with the latter the automaker’s torque-vectoring technology with normal, sand, snow and mud modes.

Available will be Honda’s suite of safety and driver-assist technologies (lane-departure warning, collision-mitigation braking, forward-collision warning, road-departure mitigation and lane-keeping assist) under the Honda Sensing banner.

The Ridgeline again will be assembled at Honda’s Lincoln, AL, plant. The truck was designed and developed by Honda R&D Americas.

Honda sold 520 first-gen Ridgelines from its existing inventory last year in the U.S. and 13,389 in the first-generation model’s last full year of sale in 2014. Sales hit their pinnacle of 50,193 in 2006.

The Toyota Tacoma was the No.1-selling model in WardsAuto’s Small Pickup segment in 2015, with 179,562 delivered, up 15.8% from 2014.

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