What if Honda built a dual-cab ute? 2022 Honda Tourmaster imagined

Dual-cab utes have been Australia's top-selling vehicles for the past five years and are on track to make it six in a row this year.

Although it hasn't been widely reported, before its shutdown Holden discussed with Honda the possibility of sharing a ute.

As exclusively reported by CarAdvice’s own Joshua Dowling, under the proposal Honda would get a version of the Colorado, while Holden would receive a version of the Jazz rebadged as a Barina.

Although General Motors and Honda would go on to work together on electric and autonomous tech globally, the negotiations between Holden and Honda didn't develop – so we've done some dual-cab match-making on behalf of Honda.

Honda has a car-derived Ridgeline pick-up in the US, but it has not been developed for right-hand-drive – and the brand hasn’t offered a body-on-frame ute in more than two decades.

So we wondered what a Honda dual-cab ute rival to the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger would look like if it was based on an Isuzu D-Max – reviving a vehicle-sharing partnership that saw Honda and Isuzu donate models through the 1990s.

CarAdvice artistic guru Theophilus Chin (@theottle on Instagram) imagined a dual-cab Honda ute for the 21st century, in the process reviving the nameplate applied to the last Honda-badged body-on-frame ute ever sold: Tourmaster.

The original Honda Tourmaster, sold between 1996 and 1999, was a rebadged version of the TF-series Isuzu Faster pick-up, sold only in the Thai market – so it's fitting the reborn 2022 Tourmaster is based on the Faster's modern equivalent, the Isuzu D-Max.

Above: The 2021 Isuzu D-Max X-Terrain, on which our proposed Honda is based.

If our dream became a reality, Honda would become the third automotive brand to use the new D-Max's platform, following Isuzu itself, and Mazda, which used the D-Max to create the revised and rebadged BT-50 ute.

This artist impression focuses on the new Tourmaster's front end, which sees styling cues from the Honda Ridgeline grafted onto the body of the latest D-Max, in flagship X-Terrain guise.

We envision unique badging would comprise the sole change to the ute's rear end, while the Honda's interior would likely be shared with its Isuzu donor, including a 9.0-inch infotainment touchscreen and small driver info display – meaning the new Civic's unique infotainment software and digital instrument cluster would be off-limits.

The Isuzu's 3.0-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine would carry over, to save on development costs – though we'd love to see a fuel-sipping hybrid variant.

Above: The original Honda Tourmaster. Bottom: 2021 Honda Ridgeline.

For now, it's unlikely Honda will re-enter the dual-cab ute market in this region. Honda ended its partnership with Isuzu in 2001 (except for a brief hydrogen heavy vehicle partnership in 2020).

Would you buy an Isuzu-based Honda Tourmaster ute? Or is the original the best? Let us know in the comments below.

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