Honda’s Ridgeline beat the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz to the unibody truck world by sixteen years, and the Japanese automaker has used a lot of that time to refine and develop its lone truck offering. For the 2024 model year Honda is cashing in on the overlanding trend and building an off-road oriented rugged Ridgeline TrailSport. The Ridgeline joins the Passport and Pilot in the TrailSport model family, each offering light modifications to make them look a little tougher and go a little farther off road.
Every trim of Ridgeline is upgraded for 2024 with a new 7-inch digital instrument cluster, and a larger 9-inch center touchscreen with a faster processor. Wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are now standard features of the Ridgeline. There’s also a new larger center console arm rest, and a big cell-phone Qi charger platform under the center stack.
“With every new TrailSport model we bring to market, Honda light trucks get more rugged than ever and the increase in Ridgeline’s off-road performance continues that trend,” said Lance Woelfer, assistant vice president of Honda Auto Sales, American Honda Motor Co., Inc. “Our more rugged Ridgeline will continue its strong momentum with sales up over 20% this year.
From the outside you’ll be able to spot a TrailSport model from its RIDGELINE-stamped tailgate. The stuff you can’t clock immediately includes a set of General Grabber all-terrain sport tires, an “off-road tuned suspension”, and steel underbody skid plates. And the totally invisible stuff, like a new i-VTM4 torque-vectoring all-wheel drive system and unique valve damping, contribute to an apparently more capable Honda truck. Most Ridgeline owners probably weren’t going so far off the pavement that they needed this kind of capability, but when were truck buyers known for buying only the capability they need?
Honda says it tested this new Ridgeline in “some of the world’s most challenging off-road environments” like the dunes in Glamis and Dubai. Yeah, if this thing can handle off roading in the UAE, it can probably wobble down the two-track you use to get to your favorite glamping spot. The new intelligent traction management has modes for sand, snow, mud, and pavement, so hopefully you won’t get stuck anywhere, and if you do, you went somewhere you definitely weren’t meant to be.
The TrailSport model offers this Diffused Sky Blue as a unique color, and I’ll be damned if I wouldn’t upgrade to this trim just for the color. It’s a sweetheart of a color, dontcha think?