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Many have their doubts about the Honda Ridgeline's unibody structure and independent rear suspension. Not me. I once drove the latest Ridgeline generation to Racetrack Playa, a geological wonder you may have read about in Death Valley. The trip there was a tooth-rattling 54-mile out and back journey on a badly washboarded dirt road, but thanks to its carlike unibody structure and independent rear suspension doing a better job sucking up the washboard at speed, the Ridgeline survived the trip much better than two off-road package trucks that tagged along. It may have returned with one slightly leaky rear shock, but the Tacoma TRD Off-Road and Nissan Titan XD Pro-4X suffered dramatic explosive failures of their rear shocks and irreversible heat damage to their front ones.