2025 Honda Ridgeline Trailsport: Manna from Heaven

The term “like manna from heaven,” from the Biblical story of the food that sustained the wandering Israelites during their forty years in the desert, has entered our lexicon as an idiom for something deeply needed that arrives at just the right time. Yet a close reading of the source material reveals that the Israelites themselves didn’t regard it as such. “We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic,” they complain in the book of Numbers. “Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna to look to!”

Commentators have, over the millennia, puzzled over the nerve of these people. What could possibly be bad about an endless supply of free food?

I found myself pondering a slight variation of this question during a recent family road trip that, wouldn’t you know it, coincided with Passover and Easter. It concerned the vehicle I was driving, a Honda Ridgeline. This cleverly packaged, capable, comfortable unibody pickup hit the scene twenty years ago, just as the truck/SUV market in the United States was experiencing explosive growth. The right product at the right time, it seemed. And yet, the Ridgeline has never quite taken off. Honda rarely moves more than 50,000 of them in a given year here in the United States, a market in which midsize trucks from Toyota, Ford, and GM can crack six figures of volume. What gives?

2025 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport: Specs

Price: $41,600/$47,230 (base/as-tested)

Powertrain: 3.5-liter V-6; nine-speed automatic transmission

Output: 280 hp; 262 lb-ft of torque

Layout: Front-engine, four-wheel-drive, four-door, five-passenger pickup truck

Weight: 4420 pounds

Towing Capacity: 5000 pounds

EPA Fuel Economy: 18/23/20

Competitors: Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon; Ford Ranger, Nissan Frontier, Toyota Tacoma

The answers weren’t immediately forthcoming as I loaded gear we needed (along with plenty we didn’t) for five days of family vacation in West Virginia. Two adult bikes; bike stroller; hiking backpack; two child car seats; barbecue grill; portable cooktop; pots and pans, three suitcases; our geriatric dog and his special order, don’t-ask-what-it-costs food; and, last but not least, a week’s worth of meat and cheese, safely chilled beneath the bed in the built-in cooler.

Packaging has long been a Honda virtue—an old Fit will carry as much stuff as many midsize crossovers—and the Ridgeline may be its magnum opus, with cupholders and surprisingly cavernous compartments crammed into every inch of the cabin and bed. As part of a refresh for last year, the interior designers carved even more space out of the center console armrest, which we stuffed with all our plates and cutlery. 

Even with so much gear onboard, the Ridgeline proved itself roomy and comfortable as we cruised east along the interstate. Last year’s update also brought a larger touchscreen with wireless Apple and Android compatibility. It’s still not particularly attractive or fast-to-respond screen by today’s standards, but it was easy enough to use and is, thank goodness, supported with buttons and knobs for simple tasks like turning up radio volume or adjusting climate control.

South of Columbus, Ohio, the flat monotony of the Midwest gives way to the rolling hills and curves of Appalachia. The highways gradually submit to the terrain, becoming ever narrower and curvier as we neared our destination, culminating in a squiggly two-lane section of U.S. 60 just north of the New River Gorge. The Ridgeline shares its basic construction and much of its mechanicals, including an independent rear suspension, with the Odyssey, which has long been the best-driving minivan in the business. Those genes serve the truck well here. It is, make no mistake, a large vehicle, with soft shocks tuned for comfort. Yet it moves around predictably, with none of the scary rear-wheel hop you might experience in a traditional truck with a live rear axle.

Honda’s venerable, 3.5-liter V-6 feels more powerful than its 280 hp rating, thanks in part to the fast-shifting nine-speed automatic and in part to the fact that it is normally aspirated. So many modern vehicles, including pickups, now resort to small-displacement turbo or hybrid engines that it’s now a real treat to experience an engine that makes power with no hesitation, and no drop-off in the power curve, no matter how fast or slow you’re going. I could chase down pretty much every vehicle with an out-of-state plate. (The locals are another story—they zip around blind corners at WRC-qualifying speeds.)  

Many—if not most—of these locals drive pickups. Even coming from truck-friendly Michigan, their ubiquity out here is striking. As we parked at a local McDonald’s, my wife noted how relieved she was that we were able to blend in. Nobody could have said that for first-generation Ridgelines, from the 2006 model year on, whose too-cute grilles and awkwardly tall bedsides screamed “toy truck.” A major redesign in 2017 addressed those issues, namely with a crease and rubber weatherstripping that give the appearance of a separate bed and cab.

The truck has gradually become more butch with every passing year. The refresh for ’24 introduced a new TrailSport trim, which was on our test vehicle. It adds skid plates, a suspension tuned for better articulation off-road, knobby all-terrain tires, and requisite badging at front and rear. This is Honda’s third TrailSport model, after the Pilot and Passport.

The off-road TrailSport package helps the Ridgeline’s appearance without detracting noticeably from its on-road comfort and capability. Yet it lacks the exuberance of rock-crawling, dune-chasing competitors like the Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 and Ford Ranger Raptor. And here we arrive at what might be the limiting factor for the Ridgeline. A pickup truck isn’t just a car with a box in back. It’s an attitude and a way of life. Driving one tells a story about how you see yourself and want to be seen. In many cases, the story is fiction—just as most dentists don’t race their Porsche 911s every weekend, most pickup owners don’t ford streams on their way to a construction site. But it’s fun to pretend, isn’t it?

Honda is playing at a disadvantage here, since many of its rivals, both domestic and foreign, can fall back on a deeper heritage of rough-and-tumble blue-collar trucks. (Not for nothing has Volkswagen Group gone through the trouble of resuscitating the Scout brand to sell pickups, albeit electric ones.) Yet the company is no stranger to enthusiast vehicles, producing everything from 315-hp Civics to $10,000 ATVs. One wonders why it hasn’t brought more imaginative magic to bear on this segment. As it stands, driving a Ridgeline tells the world you’re a savvy consumer, but not a whole lot else. That’s sufficient for some 40,000–50,000 people a year. Everyone else, it seems, isn’t interested in manna from heaven. They want the fish and spices.

We got back home from West Virginia uneventfully, playing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” on repeat for seven hours at the behest of our five-year-old. The whole family was sad to see the Honda leave—my wife noted how well the Ridgeline suited our lifestyle. I agreed, but then my mind wandered: For about the same money, I could grab that Colorado ZR2 or maybe even a Ram 1500 Tradesman with its purposeful-looking steelies and optional twin-turbo six. That’s the trouble with people, be they desert wanderers or modern car shoppers: You can supply us what we need—everything we’ve asked for, even—and still fail to give us what we want.

2025 Honda Ridgeline Trailsport

Highs: Compelling combination of pickup truck capability and passenger car refinement and comfort. Surprisingly quick, too.

Lows: Lacks the charisma of its coolest tough-truck competitors.

Takeaway: Exactly the truck most people need, but maybe not the one they want.