2005 Truck of the Year Testing

Dodge Dakota
For 2005, the Dakota has once again defined itself in the market as the largest midsize truck. Also the most powerful as the category's sole representative offering a V-8 engine (there are even two versions of it, a 230-horsepower, 4.7-liter Magnum along with an estimated 250-horse High Output variant). The Dakota is either a midsize truck that can tackle full-size jobs or an in-betweener, really neither fish nor fowl. Depends on how you look at it.

Oddly, the Dakota's new razor-edged body design struck many as more closely related to the Nissan Titan's sharp pleats than to the softer lines of the big Nissan's actual sibling, the Frontier. Yet, inside, the Dakota's interior seems plucked from an econocar gene-pool, offering inexplicably drab colors and dreary plastic quality. Underwhelming, too, was the V-8, which so lacked the expected gusto that we even checked the throttle pedal to see if the floormat was bunched up beneath it. Makes you think we weren't overly impressed, right?

Wrong. The Dakota's stretched interior comfortably fit several taller drivers who felt pinched in the Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier. That and its unusually refined ride quality and hushed interior mark this as a truck that, while not quite a first-impressions knockout, is a workhorse to be appreciated over the long haul.