The 2006 Honda Ridgeline drives, well, like you would expect a Honda to drive. But before you cough and say – ack – it’s a truck – consider the source: this is the Honda truck, not a rock pounding, teeth chattering traditional truck. And while your brain tells you that it is, indeed, a truck, while driving down the road your senses shout that you’re really in a car, a Honda car, too, and that someone may have stolen your truck right from under your nose. Really.
On asphalt, the Ridgeline rides smooth like a Honda sedan – only taller, bigger and more powerful. The reason the Ridgeline is like a car in its paces is because it uses a suspension setup normally reserved for a car – a front and rear independent suspension that eliminates the kind of compromises many trucks suffer from, namely rear control under load and ride quality. Typically, trucks require a solid rear suspension to handle towing requirements, but Honda engineers were able to get 5,000 lbs. of tow capacity out of an independent rear suspension by designing a larger fresh air intake system, along with transmission and power steering coolers. There’s also a dual fan radiator.
Honda engineers devised a hybrid type of frame on which to build the Ridgeline. Instead of the traditional ladder steel frame, on which the three main elements of a truck are built – nose, cab and bed – Honda took a unibody frame and welded a steel frame onto it, making cab and bed one piece and creating separate sections for the front and rear suspension. Honda claims that the resulting truck frame reduces body twist significantly, an important improvement when it comes to ride quality, load capacity and towing. Judging from two days of on and off road testing, the engineering works incredibly well. When combined with Honda’s 255-horsepower 3.5-liter V6, the ride is powerful, quiet and smooth. Through autocross courses with load and without, on highway and rural roads, in traffic and in mud, the Ridgeline stayed in line and under control. It is an exceedingly easy truck to drive, with plenty of visibility and command of the road. The V6 is the same engine that powers the 2005 Honda Pilot, which weighs about the same, so the engine does not feel as though it is under a heavy weight load. Before you think it's just a Pilot with a truck bed, however, think again: in order to reach standards in payload hauling, towing, performance and driving with loads, engineers made significant changes -- including the frame, intake and radiator enhancements mentioned above. All told, they claim that 93 percent of the Ridgeline is unique. Off the road, the 2006 Honda Ridgeline is capable, and the fully-automatic Variable Torque Management System (VTMS) handles most every type of condition most people are likely to encounter, such as dirt roads, snow, mud and hill climbs. During our testing, we were able to scale a 28-degree dirt and sand hill without much trouble -- as long as we got a good head start and remembered to turn the VTMS on and turn off the Ridgeline's vehicle stability control. With the vehicle stabilty control on, the Ridgeline will self-correct the vehicle and neutralize the torque management. We were able to navigate water pits, rough roads and more. In addition to the VTMS, the Ridgeline has 8.2 inches of ground clearance, a 25-degree approach angle, a 22-degree departure angle, and a 21-degree breakover angle for negotiating rough terrain. Granted, when it comes to off-road prowess the Ridgeline is not on par with trucks such as the new Nissan Frontier or Toyota Tacoma, and the ground clearance may not seem enough -- but it is enough for most normal off-road endeavors.
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