Honda's Recipe For Success With The Ridgeline

It can be said that Honda has the Midas golden touch in America. Its core products are nearly always perennial sales leaders in their respective classes yet they are also often named as the choice for the enthusiast on a budget. The brand rarely strikes out on a product with the Insight and the CR-Z as the only lackluster products unbecoming of the brand's portfolio. Honda immediately fixed up its latest Civic when it arrived to a poor critical reception. For all of its success Honda however is a stubborn brand often unwilling to join the masses and preferring to go its own way infamously eschewing V8s and body-on-frame trucks. The Ridgeline's lackluster sales can certainly be attributed to its unique unibody design and Honda's complete reluctance to update the model. There is some method to Honda's madness with the Ridgeline as it is probably harder for an "import" brand to succeed in the pickup segment than it is for a domestic brand in the compact and midsize sedan segments. In both cases the factors at play go far beyond just the quality of the product. Honda found out the hard way what it is like to lure full size and lifestyle buyers with a mid size sized unibody truck with full size ambitions. Nevertheless Honda isn't giving up as it is all but ready to unveil its long overdue second generation Ridgeline at the Chicago autoshow. Here is a recipe that Honda must follow to make the second generation worthwhile.

Would you ever consider the Ridgeline if in the market for a pickup? Can the Ridgeline sway consumers to buy a pickup who ordinarily wouldn't buy one? Is its biggest competition the mid size or the full size pickup?
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800over - 1/26/2015 11:31:28 AM

+1 Boost

"It can be said that Honda has the Midas golden touch in America.
Its core products are nearly always perennial sales leaders"

Who wrote this redundant crap? the Midas golden touch? nearly always perennial sales leaders?

ParadoX - 1/26/2015 4:40:06 PM

+5 Boost

Accord, Civic, CR-V have been at the top or near the top for at least a decade. Its core products sell well. No dispute about that.

MDarringer - 1/26/2015 7:10:57 PM

-3 Boost

@ParadoX the quote implies that the Fridgeline is a core product with the Midas touch. It's core products as of late have money on the hood which is something new for Honda.

MDarringer - 1/26/2015 7:13:07 PM

-2 Boost

The Fridgeline will continue to be a class trailing, wannabe pickup. As long as it's an Odyssey masquerading as a pickup it will not prosper.

chewy - 1/27/2015 12:44:11 AM

+2 Boost

It's not gonna blow up the sales charts but the second time around Honda should do better fixing the things that no one liked in the first generation. The goal is to steal some customers from mid size and full size trucks enough to justify its existence.