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Listen up, lads. A recent weeklong test drive - my third in the six or seven years the Honda has been sold - confirmed that it's indeed a desirable, capable vehicle, even though it pushes the boundaries of what most men consider a proper pickup.

First off, the Ridgeline is not built on a ladder frame with the body bolted on top. Let's talk pickups.

Specifically, let's talk about the Honda Ridgeline, so you'll have to bottle up some of that testosterone. The Honda folks, bless 'em, tried to give it properly masculine styling.

They succeeded to a degree, but the Ridgeline still looks like a truck driven by a suburban software engineer instead of, say, a tugboat captain or powerlifting champion, as the Dodge Ram or Ford F-150 styling suggests.

Those Ridgeline-driving suburbanites have a few secrets, however. The Honda has a unitized body, which is basically a welded cage of metal that incorporates body and frame. It's based on Honda's large SUV chassis, used by the Pilot and Acura MDX, but notched behind the rear seat to accommodate the bed.

The frame triangulation to stiffen the bed is hidden under the unusual body panel between the Ridgeline's bed and cab. (Chevrolet's Avalanche pickup, also based on an SUV, has a similar appendage.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Honda's Alabama factory produced 262,047 vehicles this year, a figure that was slightly lower than the previous year, the company said today.

Preliminary production results show that the Honda plant in Lincoln turned out 130,442 Odyssey minivans; 118,405 Pilot SUVs; and 13,200 Ridgeline pickups in 2011. The plant has ceased production for the year, so the figures represent a total for 2011.

The 3.5 million-square-foot facility in Talladega County produced about 10,000 more vehicles in 2010. Later in the year, production was slowed because of flooding in Thailand, which also caused disruptions.

"Honda experienced unprecedented challenges in 2011from natural disasters both in Japan and here in Alabama," Tom Shoupe , Honda's Alabama president, said in a statement. Production at all of Honda's North American factories were reduced in mid-2011 after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan, disrupting the automaker's supply operations. "But through all the difficulties, our associates embodied Honda's challenging spirit in working as one team to build high quality products for our customers.

Американский филиал Honda с радостью сообщил своим клиентам, что новый пикап Honda Ridgeline переворачивается лучше всех. То есть, совсем не переворачивается. Модель стала лучшей в тестах на переворот, которые проводила Национальная администрация по безопасности дорожного движения США (NHTSA). Ridgeline получил высший балл по обоим показателям – и за статическую стабильность (Static Stability Factor), и за динамическую (Dynamic Rollover). Новости компаний «Фольксваген

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