It's the GMC Canyon Denali and the Honda Ridgeline in a battle of the small pickups (GM)

Ridegline Canyon11.JPG

Small pickups were once an essential part of the truck mix. A lot of young folks enjoyed them as an inexpensive starter vehicle.

But gradually, automakers phased them out in favor of crossover SUVs while concentrating on the full-size pickups that are their most profitable products.

In the past few years, however, smaller pickups — bigger than the modest Ford Rangers and Chevy S-10s of the past — have staged a comeback.

For US carmakers, Chevy's Colorado almost single-handedly revived the segment, which had been filled by trucks like the Toyota Tacoma and the Nissan Frontier. Soon, Ford will bring back the Ranger.

Of course, Honda has long had a small pickup in its lineup: the oddball Ridgeline. This wasn't a truck for truck people. It was more of an SUV with a pickup truck bed. Ridegline Canyon17.JPG

The styling was offbeat. But for the latest generation, perhaps sensing that small pickups are the comeback trail, Honda made the Ridgeline into more of a proper truck. We checked it out last year and were impressed.

So we thought it would be good to compare the new Ridgeline to more of a true pickup.

And then the GMC Canyon Denali landed in our driveway.

The Canyon Denali is the GMC version of the Chevy Colorado, given some further snazziness with the upscale Denali treatment.

On paper, it stacks up well against the Ridgeline, costing about the same and running a similar V6 engine. But there are some crucial differences:

The 2017 Canyon Denali arrived early in the year, during a respite from snow and ice, but before the weather warmed. Truck conditions! Price? $44,255, as tested. The base GMC Canyon, without the upmarket Denali trim features, is about $22,000.

The Canyon Denali is outfitted with a 3.6-liter V6 that makes just north of 300 horsepower and pipes the power to, in the case of our tester, an all-wheel-drive system through an eight speed automatic transmission.

The motor feels robust and quite trucky, which is to say a tad crude (the same engine is found in the Cadillac XT5 and comes off as much more refined). This is powerplant that can roar. The Canyon Denali also has a towing mode that can handle 7,000 pounds, about 2,000 more than what the Ridgeline is rated for.

Our 2017 Ridgeline tester tipped the cost scales at $41,370, and it landed at BI's suburban New Jersey test center after a light winter snowstorm in late 2016. The base pickup is about $30,000.

Read the review here.

The Ridgeline delivers a peppier, smoother ride than the Canyon Denali — much more car-like, which makes sense give its fully independent suspension. You just don't feel like you're in a truck, which for a lot of buyers will be a good thing. A problem with pickups in daily use is that they can beat you up a bit.

The Rideline's powerplant is a 3.5-liter, 280-horsepower V6. This is one of the world's great motors, perhaps the best V6 anywhere. Mated to a six-speed automatic transmission, this engine is more or less perfect and provides 21 mpg in combined city/highway driving. That's slightly better than the GMC's 21 mpg combined.