Will the Honda Ridgeline Win Truck of the Year Over Ford’s Raptor?
The North American Truck of the Year competition is going to be a strange one this year. After several instances of SUVs and crossovers taking the prize, like last year’s winner the Volvo XC90, the NACTOY group is breaking the big hatches out into their own category, leaving pickup trucks on their lonesome. That’s good news for truck fans who are tired of seeing their favorite pieces of metal get passed over in favor of glorified minivan, but it opens up some interesting new discussions, and paves the way for even more hilariously dumb winners.
For example, the only trucks I can think of that are eligible this year are the Ford Super Duty, Nissan Titan, F-150 Raptor and the Honda Ridgeline. Now, which one of those would you guys pick? I for one would probably lay my vote on the Raptor. As much as I love the new Super Duty, I feel like it’s really moved beyond a class 2/3 truck, and well into class 4 territory. Ford is just fudging some numbers to basically cheat it into lower levels. For that, it loses points in my book. But the Raptor with its new wide body, lower weight, hilarious new “Baja Mode,” and that mighty new EcoBoost motor easily take the win.
But the jurors are probably going to pick the Ridgeline.
The previous Ridgeline, which was about as poor a truck as our great nation has seen in decades, won the award once in the past. The new truck is still a bad excuse for a pickup, but it is vastly superior to the old model in every way. Why won’t these guys and gals vote for it a second time?
And for some reason, most of us journalists can’t understand why the regular readers think we’re all idiots…
