Honda’s SEMA Concept: The Offspring of the Ridgeline and an ATV

PreviousNext

The light-truck and side-by-side divisions of Honda got together and produced one heckuva machine.

You’re looking at an unholy and superbly outrageous mash-up of a Ridgeline and Pioneer 1000. Honda is calling it the Rugged Open Air Vehicle Concept. We’ll call it a wide-by-side.

Designed and developed by Honda R&D here in America, the ROAV Concept is a physical thought exercise of what the ultimate off-road Honda four-wheeled vehicle could look like. The vehicle combines the utility of a Ridgeline with the off-road ruggedness and extreme styling of a Pioneer 1000 side-by-side.

This wide-by-side is strictly a concept, make no mistake. However, it does use a host of existing Honda components, such as modified Ridgeline body and suspension, along with production Pioneer doors and custom designed bed and tailgate panels modeled after the Pioneer. That’s right – Honda went through the trouble of supersizing Pioneer 1000 components, scaling them up for deployment on this Ridgeline.

The interior is Ridgeline-based but has been modified for a life exposed to the elements and the type of detritus side-by-side drivers generally hurl at their machines. It features an honest-to-real Pioneer 1000 steering wheel adapted to the Ridgeline steering column, along with Civic Type R seats reskinned in waterproof Pioneer 1000 material. Since this is 2018, there are also smartphone holders (put cases on those suckers) and durable paint-on surfaces to protect the exposed instrument panel from the elements.

We sent a quick email to Honda asking about dimensions and off-road measurements such as approach angles. The company replied saying they didn’t have much to add beyond what’s shown in the pictures, since the ROAV is a concept vehicle.

Adjusting our glasses and zooming in on the photos, it is possible to tell that this Honda wide-by-side rolls on light-truck Dick Cepek Extreme County tires sized 305/60 on 18-inch wheels. Skid plates abound up front and there’s definitely some sort of custom suspension bits on the Ridgeline chassis. And, yes, the exhaust exits out the side.

Don’t look for this rig to appear in a Honda powersports showroom anytime soon but it is encouraging to see the manufacturer willing to let down its corporate hair and knock out a wild concept such as this. Next up: the release of a side-by-side RZR-fighter on November 27^th.

This article originally appeared on Off-Road.com