Have you recently wondered, “What would the face of the redesigned Civic look like plastered on a desert-ready racing truck?” Honda has your number. This is the new Ridgeline.
Except it’s not.
The Japanese automaker announced its return to the Baja 1000 at SEMA on Tuesday and revealed the machine that will carry HPD’s HR35TT race engine — a 550 horsepower, a 3.5-liter twin-turbo V6 — across the finish line.
Underneath its lightweight body, the Ridgeline Baja Race Truck is exactly that — a tube-frame racing truck with nearly nothing in common with the vehicle with which it shares its name. However, that twin-turbo V-6 does have the same block, cylinder heads and crankshaft as the engine found in the future Honda pickup.
The next-generation Ridgeline will debut in the first half of 2016, Honda said in the release.