Car and Driver: 2017 Honda Ridgeline Backs Its Thing Up for the Camera

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Like a naughty Instagram photo, Honda’s new Ridgeline pickup truck has scooted its rear up to a camera lens and snapped a butt selfie ahead of its debut at the 2016 Detroit auto show. The resultant image is far more revealing, then, than a typical pre-reveal “teaser” photo—if slightly less titillating than Instagram’s best—and gives us a clear look at the 2017 Ridgeline’s entire rear end.
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As has been communicated to us by Honda, the new Ridgeline drops the original model’s bizarre sloped C-pillars for a more conventional and decidedly truckish, three-box profile. Honda also stuck with cleaner surfaces this time around—the old Ridgeline featured ribbed cladding and somewhat fussy design details—and this simple rear end should play well with the new truck’s face. (Although we won’t see the front end until the 2016 Detroit auto show in January, Honda previewed the Ridgeline’s face via a sticker replica on a Baja trophy truck at November’s SEMA show.) But back to that butt—as is clear from Honda’s preview photo, the Ridgeline will have a conventional tailgate, not the split unit rumored earlier in the truck’s development.

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We enjoyed the first-generation Ridgeline’s basic formula of mixing a unit-body with a fully independent suspension, all-wheel drive, and useful but not outrageous hauling capability. Those features will carry over to the 2017 model, albeit with presumably better fuel economy, greater towing and hauling capability, and a more attractive shape. Bring it on, Honda—and next time we see the Ridgeline, it’ll be in the metal at the Detroit show.

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