GRANDVILLE, Mich., –– It seems like the theme song of Honda should be "We Are the Champions" by Queen, because Honda continues to win big not just during award season, but throughout the year! This time, Honda is standing proud with five 2018 Consumer Guide Automotive Best Buy awards. The winning vehicles include the Accord, Ridgeline, Pilot, Civic, and HR-V. Let's take a look at how they did it.

Every year Consumer Guide, one of the most trusted names in the automotive industry, awards vehicles in each one of the 20 categories, or segments, with two major focuses in mind: overall value and price. Just by understanding the goal of the awards, we can see why Honda has come out on top in five categories.

What's changed this year? Many luxury or higher-end tech and connectivity features have been made available in non-luxury vehicles. Suites of safety features are more often than not being offered standard with new vehicles - in fact, by government mandate all 2018 model year vehicles must be equipped with a rearview camera. And most notably, the market has shifted towards small crossovers and SUVs and away from passenger vehicles, even though Honda's sales reports might say otherwise.

Check out the winning Honda vehicles for Consumer Guide's 2018 Automotive Best Buy Awards: 

Compact Car: Honda Civic

Midsize Car: Honda Accord

Subcompact Crossover: Honda HR-V

Midsize Crossover: Honda Pilot

The 2018 Honda Pilot took a second seat to the 2018 Toyota Highlander, but continues to offer great value in the segment with new tech features for the 2018 model year. 

GRANDVILLE, Mich.,––The market is changing, and we're glad to say Honda has been keeping graceful stride with the change! SUVs have become the high stakes player in the sales game, while car sales have respectively taken a dive. This change has lead to reports of very steep decreases in car sales and overall sales with other manufacturers. In instance, Ford reported a decrease of 21/2% in car sales.

Despite the slight overall decrease, American Honda's truck division increased in sales by 9.2% year-over-year, leading to a 1.2% increase year-over-year. Let's take a look at the Honda April Sales Report in more detail!

Honda thankfully still saw strong demand for their cars in April, unlike many other manufacturers, despite the drop in year-over-year numbers. The one Honda car that posted an increase? The Honda Fit, which increased by 0.8% with a total of 4,871 units.

Honda also saw strong demand for their trucks. The CR-V posted a year-over-year increase of 26.6% and a month-to-month increase of 13%, which might be thanks to the redesigned 2017 model. The Ridgeline also helped the segment increase overall by posting sales of 3,186 units. Not to mention the HR-V, which posted a month-to-month increase of 22.4%, the Odyssey and Pilot which helped the truck division reach overall sales of 61,114 units!

The 2017 Honda Ridgeline AWD Black Edition.

There was talk that the Honda Ridgeline (at the time ten years into its first and only generation) would leave us about mid-decade.  Honda instead gives us an all-new one, just in time for the boom in mid-size pickup trucks.  And the good news is that this Ridgeline is still weird.

2017 Honda Ridgeline AWD Black Edition.

Weird in this case means "not like every other truck".  Honda, as it does when it is at its best, has come up with the vehicle most truck owners really need instead of what they think they want.  That formula pretty much shifted the family sedan market from the Chevrolet Impala to the Honda Accord over the past 35 years.

The Ridgeline is a maneuverable size, isn't packing overkill under the hood (though with the current rush in most vehicles to 2-liter turbocharged fours, a 3.5-liter V6 is on the large side), and it delivers and EPA fuel economy estimate of 18 city/25 highway.

Thoughtful touches abound.  The tailgate folds down like any other truck's, but it also opens out like a door.  Then there's the lockable compartment underneath the truck bed:

2017 Honda Ridgeline trunk.

Yes, it's a truck with a trunk.  And most of us who use a truck most of the time for hauling people and not things, will find that handy.  Also handy is the fact that the trunk is lined in plastic and has a drain plug at the bottom, because you can do this:

2017 Honda Ridgeline trunk/ice chest.

Apparently, there is a phrase in Japanese for "tailgate party", and Honda is familiar with it.

What about things that won't fit in the trunk under the bed, and that you don't want to leave in the bed?  The Ridgeline has that covered, too:

2017 Honda Ridgeline rear seat.

There is significant space under the rear seat, all the way across, for storage.  And if that's not enough:

2017 Honda Ridgeline folding rear seat.

That same rear seat, folds up, allowing for large items, from boxes to a bicycle.

2017 Honda Ridgeline AWD Black Edition interior.

Our tester was the top-of-the-line AWD Black Edition.  $42,870 is what it costs and it comes with every feature Honda offers in the Ridgeline...a leather-trimmed interior, leather-wrapped heated steering wheel (Sidenote: In my first real winter....yes, this is my fourth, but the drought meant more sunny, warmer days the past three winters) back in Northern California, I have become a huge fan of the heated steering wheel), an eight-speaker premium audio system with subwoofer, Apple CarPlay, navigation, tri-zone climate control, heated power front seats with memory for the driver, and Honda Sensing, a safety suite including collision mitigation, adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assistance, forward collision warning, lane departure warning and road departure warning.

In other words, one seriously loaded truck,,,for one price.  Add in $900 destination and handling charges, and it stops at $43,770.  Which, these days, is reasonable money for a truck, let alone one with the features and usefulness of the new Honda Ridgeline.  We're fans and we hope there'll be a generation three after a long and successful run for this one.