Honda Adds Ridgeline, First Pickup Truck With a Trunk [1.10.

[Ridgeline4wd_Archive]

Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Honda Motor Co., Japan's third- largest automaker, will offer the industry's first pickup truck with a trunk when it begins selling the Ridgeline in March.

The Ridgeline's 8.5-cubic-foot trunk, accessed by raising a lid on the floor of the bed, can also be filled with ice and used as a cooler for tailgate parties, Dick Colliver, Honda's U.S. senior vice president, said today at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

The truck and its trunk will be the focus of two television ads during next month's Super Bowl, the first ads for Honda during the game in eight years.

Honda is the only automaker among the six biggest in the U.S. that hasn't had a pickup truck. The company will use novel features -- such as the lockable trunk, a scratch-resistant bed and a tailgate that opens horizontally and vertically -- to draw attention to the vehicle in hopes of selling 60,000 annually.

``Looks alone won't get them to 50,000 units. I have some reservations about the styling,'' said Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst at Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. ``The most important thing will be how they advertise this vehicle, making sure people know about some of the unique features.''

Honda will run two 30-second ads during the Super Bowl, said Thomas Peyton, senior manager of national advertising at American Honda Motor Co.

Super Bowl Ads

One ad, focusing on the fact that Honda has a pickup, will air near the end of the game's first quarter, Peyton said. A ``more entertaining'' ad focusing on the trunk will run near the end of the third quarter.

News Corp.'s Fox television network is charging a record average of $2.4 million for 30-second advertisements during the Feb. 6 National Football League championship game. Peyton wouldn't say how much Honda is paying to produce the ads.

Honda last advertised during the Super Bowl in 1997 to promote its new CR-V sport-utility vehicle, Peyton said. Honda also ran Super Bowl ads promoting the 1986 debut of the Acura luxury division.

The Ridgeline comes in time to keep sales growing in a market where customers demand more light trucks, said Koji Endo, a Tokyo-based analyst for Credit Suisse First Boston

``Civic and Accord sales are slowing, so they need the incremental-sales benefit of the pickup,'' Endo said in an interview at the auto show. ``They'll probably be able to sell about 60,000 and perhaps could go higher.''

Starting at $27,000

The truck will be built in Alliston, Ontario, and sell from about $27,000 to $32,000, the company said. The four-door truck has a 255-horsepower, 3.5-liter engine that can tow up to 5,000 pounds.

The in-bed trunk ``is going to be copied by every competitor,'' Lindland said.

Honda, based in Tokyo, is No. 5 in U.S. sales, behind General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG and Toyota Motor Corp.

The company's U.S. operations are based in Torrance, California. Honda's American depositary receipts rose 22 cents to $25.88 at 3:26 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have gained 15 percent in the past year.


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