At the SEMA Show, Honda took the wraps off its Ridgeline Baja Race Truck, crucially a sign of things to come next year when its second stab at the pickup truck market, the 2017 Ridgeline, is released.
This machine, however, is destined for the SCORE Baja 1000 driven by Jeff Proctor, with the Honda Performance Division heralding its return to truck racing.
Developed by the HPD wing, the company says it’s powered by a 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V6 with at least 550 horsepower. The Ridgeline race truck gets a tube-frame racing chassis, according to Honda, but the production version will be a unibody model similar to the previous model. That engine, likely sans turbos, is destined for the 2017 Ridgeline.
Honda says we can even expect to see a similar front, side, bed and roof on the production truck, signaling the next-gen Ridgeline is going to stick very closely to the proven pickup truck format in this country and searching for more success than its oddball predecessor ever received.
Even if this Ridgeline racing truck is a fantasy for consumers and a toy for Honda to take to Baja, it is an interesting teaser for the Ridgeline you’re going to be able to buy in 2016.
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