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The Honda Pilot gracefully borrows key styling cues from Honda's smaller Honda CR-V sport-utility. The grille and headlights are a careful enlargement of the CR-V's fluid wraparound face, while the body-color moldings give the Pilot a more refined and upscale look.

The wheel arches are just aggressive enough to offset any impression this is a toy truck, but subtle enough to be consistent with the Pilot's likely hangouts in upscale neighborhoods and parking lots. Large Honda badges on the grille and liftgate make it clear that Honda is proud of the Pilot, and expects customers to feel the same way.

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The Honda Pilot packs an amazingly large amount of interior room into its small overall package. The middle seats are comfortable for adults, but the third-row seats are strictly for young children or short trips. Both rows of rear seats split 60/40 to fold. With both rows folded flat, the Pilot offers 90.3 cubic feet of cargo space. That compares to 80.1 cubic feet in the GMC Envoy, 81.3 in the Ford Explorer, and 81.4 for the Toyota Highlander, all with the seats folded down.

The Pilot's front seat is spacious, with two comfortable bucket seats and a versatile center console. The seats give excellent access to all the controls. In a particularly clever move, the largest dial in the center of the instrument panel is the switch to shift the audio controls from front- to rear-seat audio. Several observers with young children immediately recognized that as the control they would use most, and they appreciated its large size and central placement.

The headliner-mounted DVD screen does not take up much space when not in use, and is highly visible to small children in the second- and third-row seats.

The front-seat center console includes a fold-out cell-phone holder with a power outlet. Unfortunately, this was the only interior feature that did not seem to be fully thought out. Whenever the cell-phone holder was in use, it completely blocked the two cupholders mounted in front of it in the console. However, the console provides plenty of storage space, with a compartment behind the cell-phone holder (where my cell phone actually ended up most of the time), and a covered compartment located on the Pilot's centerline provided more storage in the space between the console and the instrument panel.

The other instruments and controls will be familiar to anyone who has ever driven a Honda. The company does not vary much from the layout that decades have proven to be a model of ergonomics.

Passive safety features include dual-stage/dual-threshold front airbags and front side-impact airbags with occupant position sensing on the passenger side.