Honda Is Finally Getting a Real Body-on-Frame Pickup Truck

Honda is finally getting a proper body-on-frame pickup truck.

Following a rumor that floated out of Japan earlier this month, Honda and Mitsubishi have officially signed a memorandum of understanding to launch a new Honda-badged midsize truck based on the Mitsubishi Triton. Scheduled to debut in 2028, the play will give Honda a quick ticket into the body-on-frame truck market—though it relies almost entirely on Mitsubishi doing the heavy lifting via a classic badge-engineering agreement.

The new truck will be manufactured at Mitsubishi’s assembly plant in Thailand alongside the Triton, and will aim primarily at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region. The badge-engineered truck gives Honda an instant workhorse offering without having to fund the massive R&D of building a truck from scratch.

Underneath the Honda badge, the truck will still ride the Triton’s rugged ladder-frame platform. Power is expected to come from Mitsubishi’s 2.4-liter turbodiesel engine delivering 201 horsepower and 347 pound-feet of torque and paired with a six-speed automatic transmission.

The hardware will also include Mitsubishi’s Super Select 4WD-II system, a locking rear differential, and a tow rating of up to 7,716 pounds.

Mitsubishi already lends Nissan the Triton platform for the Navara, which is sold in markets like Australia and New Zealand. Honda's version is the third derivative of the same fundamental truck architecture, which also underpins the reborn Mitsubishi Pajero.

For U.S. truck fans, the Honda-badged Triton will join the long list of forbidden automotive fruit — you can continue to thank the "Chicken Tax" for that.

The 25 percent tariff levied on imported light-duty trucks has been in effect since the '60s, but the truck would also be subject to an additional 25% levy under President Trump's wide-ranging tariff binge under Section 232. Without local assembly in America, the Thai-built truck would cost orders of magnitude more than domestically built entries like the Ford Ranger, Chevrolet Colorado, and Toyota Tacoma.

Unless Honda makes the unexpected decision to stand up production in North America, U.S. buyers looking for a Honda pickup will have to wait for the next-generation Ridgeline.

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