James R. Healey

USA TODAY

Honda's deep into a re-make of its anonymous Ridgeline pickup that is expected to look more like a regular pickup as the car company tries to broaden the overlooked vehicle's appeal and boost sales.

The redesign is unlikely to go on sale before late 2015 or early 2016, meaning Honda will have been out of the mid-size pickup market more than a year,after discontinuing the Ridgeline this summer.

The automaker's mum on details, but a dark silhouette on a Honda website shows a vehicle with a shape similar to conventional pickups, rather than having the original truck's buttresses behind the passenger compartment.

Honda has been vague about just when the replacement is to arrive. It said in December 2013 that it would be about two years before a new-design Ridgeline would be on sale.

It's unclear if that timing will be good or bad. General Motors will be heavily promoting its 2015 Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon mid-size pickups, which just went on sale. Toyota, which dominates the segment with its Tacoma, will ramp up marketing to avoid losing sales and market share to the new GM entries.

And Ford Motor, which sold its last U.S. Ranger small truck in 2011, is mulling a return to the small-truck market, though it envisions a true compact pickup, smaller than the GM and Toyota trucks, to keep the price low and mileage rating high.

A new-design Ridgeline might drop into a sweet spot in the small/mid-size truck market, or it could arrive after the initial pool of gotta-have buyers is drained by the fight between GM and Toyota. Or Honda could be working up a bigger version that would come as a huge surprise -- although Japan-based rivals Toyota and Nissan both field full-size trucks. .

The recently discontinued Ridgeline model is powered by a V-6 engine somewhat similar to that in the Acura MDX SUV and the Honda Odyssey family van. It was built at the Alabama factory that builds the MDX and Odyssey.

It used unibody construction, as in a car or crossover SUV, but underpinned by what Honda describes as "a closed-box ladder frame."

Honda launched the mid-size, crew-cab Ridgeline in March 2005 as a 2006 model, pitching it to people who wanted cargo capacity, but not the rude manners of trucks of the time. Nowadays, full-size crew-cab pickups, even with features such as off-road packages and trailer-towing options, are much more genteel, meaning the new Ridgeline has a higher bar to clear to distinguish itself via polite manners.

Despite being a mid-size pickup, the discontinued Ridgeline has some full-size capabilities. It can haul about 1,500 pounds of people and cargo, for example. Some full-size, crew-cab pickups can't. Towing is limited, though, to 5,000 lbs., more than a ton less than a full-size, crew-cab truck.

The discontinued Ridgeline has a clever storage bin under the cargo bed. It will hold 8.5 cubic feet of cargo, as much as a small car's trunk will carry, and keeps it out of sight of prying eyes.

Honda gives no hints which attributes and features will be in the new Ridgeline.

Here are Autodata's sales totals for midsize pickups that were currently in production in 2013, Ridgeline's last full year of production: