Honda has a clue about outdoors trucks

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Sourced from http://www.freep.com/sports/outdoors/outcol20e_20050120.htm

OUTDOORS: Honda has a clue about outdoors trucks

Ridgeline has lots of storage
January 20, 2005







BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST


The auto companies tout them as outdoors vehicles. But after looking them over at the North American International Auto Show, I have a suggestion for the designers -- bring in some good boat-builders and let them show you how to use space properly.


Boaters carry huge amounts of gear, from fishing tackle to anchors and their attendant chains and lines, and water skis and wakeboards to safety gear and tools. Because boat-builders recognize that places to stow this gear can be a major influence in the purchase, most have become masters at using every spare scrap of empty space to hold something of value.


Now I understand that automobiles and trucks must meet certain safety standards, and these standards in part determine how the final design will turn out. But do you expect me to believe that removing a couple of ounces of plastic would compromise the safety of the hatches on the bed sidewall storage units on a Chevrolet Avalanche truck?


Creating that storage space on the Avalanche was a great idea. But the opening to the storage space is so small that it's difficult to get long items, like gun cases and fly rod tubes, in and out of there, and to reach things down at the bottom.


Honda seems to be the first to catch on to the concept that outdoors types need space for stuff, and not just in the bed of a pickup. The new Honda half-ton Ridgeline pickup has an enormous cargo well under the rear half of its five-foot bed, a fabulous place to lock away expensive guns and fishing tackle and other gear.


The well has drains, which allow it to be used as a huge cooler (are you thinking tailgate party?). Or it can be washed out with a hose after hauling five big salmon on ice. This truck also has a two-way tailgate (opening down or sideways) and cargo lights built into the sides of the pickup bed, making it easy to find stuff at night.


At $29,000 to $32,000, it's right in line with most other half-ton extended cabs, and with Honda's reputation for reliability, its long-term durability is almost a given. If I were running Ford or General Motors, I would have my designers burning the midnight oil to come up with an equivalent design or something even better.


I drive a full-size pickup, at present a 2003 Chevrolet Silverado, because each year I make a half-dozen trips that last from five days to a month during which I haul kayaks, inflatable boats, skis, diving gear, specialized clothing and hundreds of pounds of fishing and hunting equipment. These trips sometimes require driving off-road in places that can make inexperienced passengers blanche, and about 20 days a year I end up sleeping in the back.


Sometimes, I take a couple of days to drive some place simply because I can't face the hassle of dragging 150 pounds of junk through the security systems at airports. I also make another 20-25 trips of two or three days in which I haul the same kinds of loads. I really need a pickup about 100 days a year, so it makes sense for me to drive a big one with four-wheel drive.


But suppose you're a part-time outdoors person, one who makes five to 10 trips a year that usually last two to three days and max out at a week, and you don't need to haul all the gear I do. In addition, your off-roading will be on Michigan two-tracks, which tend to be relatively well-graded.


Why not buy two vehicles -- a late-model sedan for city use and one of the new, small four-wheel-drive SUVs for outdoors adventures and driving on winter days when there's a serious snow problem. If your car budget is $35,000 -- not unusual for SUVs these days -- you could buy a well-equipped, year-old, low-mileage Ford Taurus or Chrysler Sebring for less than $15,000 and still have more than $20,000 for a small SUV.


I really liked the four-wheel version of the Honda Element, the back of which can be washed out with a hose. It has a neat storage well/ice chest under the rear deck. The back area has a surprising amount of room for outdoors gear, and the rear seats can be folded up out of the way to provide even more space.


Those rear seats also fold flat to create a second level of storage, but Honda missed the boat on that one. While the back of the front seat lies almost flat, it's not quite flat enough to make a comfortable bed. Had Honda given a little more thought to this thing, it could have marketed the Element as a bare-bones camper with rudimentary, built-in full-length berths, like the cockpit seats that convert to berths on small boats.


Another really intriguing vehicle is the new Kia Sportage, which I was told will sell in a well-equipped, four-wheel-drive model with a 10-year power-train warranty for less than $20,000. It should be available in the Detroit area by March.


This resurrected model is built on the same platform as its Hyundai Tucson sibling, has more power and a better ride than the old Sportage and should perform pretty much like most of the other cute utes in its price range. And by the way, the gap between the quality and performance of economy cars like the Sportage and high-end SUVs like the Toyotas has shrunk dramatically in the past five years, especially when you consider the light use most American SUVs really get.


As for the bigger SUVs, while they all claim to be rugged, individualistic outdoors vehicles, they all pretty much look alike, perform alike, cost too much and really don't offer much to get excited about.


I still dream of a pickup with a bed designed for modular units that would slide in and out as needed. For example, there would be a fishing module, no higher than my existing truck cap and made out of lightweight carbon fiber. It would let me hang nine- to 10-foot fly and trolling rods full length from the roof (with an extension over the cab?), keep waders in an area where the water and sand would drain away, and stow the 101 things that avid multi-species anglers carry and want to keep locked up.


It would be much smaller and a fraction of the weight of a traditional pickup-bed camper, because all I would need was a small, fabric cot that swung down or out from somewhere for the odd night when I decided to sleep next to a stream or lake.


This basic module also would have a quality rack on top to handle kayaks, canoes and bicycles. But I can see where a lot of people would want other modules, say one that included built-in dog boxes, room for a bunch of waterfowl decoys and secure storage for guns.


And when I wanted to haul something big, like a snowmobile or ORV or a load of manure for my wife's garden, I could pull the existing module out and use the basic bed or slide in another open-top, basic-box module with a built-in loading ramp, tie-downs and maybe even a tilt bed.


Silly boy! Dream on.


Contact ERIC SHARP at 313-222-2511 or esharp@freepress.com.

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The writer is obviously of above-average intelligence! :D