In The Metal: 2024 Honda Passport TrailSport Ups Its Game

The interior of the Passport is its highlight, with plenty of space and comfort, and features orange contrast stitching on the steering wheel, door panels, and seats, and the TrailSport logo embossed into the headrests. The logos are also molded into the standard all-season rubber floor mats.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, as is wireless charging. The big update to the interior is a new wider center console that can now contain a full-size tablet and, our favorite touch, a wider tray in front of the shifter that can fit two generously sized phones.

Cargo space remains excellent, with 50.5 cubic feet of space available, besting many other off-road specials like theSubaru Outback Wilderness.

最大的新闻是悬架系统,它的再保险vised spring rates, enhanced damper valve tuning, and optimized stabilizer bars to increase articulation and improve the off-road ride quality. The dirt track ride quality was already good, so we're hoping the improvements, including the all-terrain tires, can give us the ability and confidence to get up our local benchmark mountain trail to the camping site in inclement weather. The new tires measure 245/60R18 and give the Passport an extra 10mm of track width front and back.

The suspension may have previously been a weak point, but Honda'si-VTM4 torque-vectoring all-wheel drivenever was. Fortunately, that's sticking around. The couple of times we've challenged it in slippery conditions on lesser tires than all-terrains, it has shone through and kept us from falling off the road. With the added grip of the new rubber, we're expecting to be impressed when we get to drive the new PassPort TrailSport on the rough stuff.

In TrailSport press releases, Honda talks a big game about its off-road heritage, but the TrailSport line so far has been a little weak. While we don't need Honda to challenge Toyota's TRD trucks and crossovers, there's a big space in the market between chest-thumping off-road rigs and more realistic vehicles for everyday life that can truly go places that people want to. Whether that's up to that awesome campsite, hiking trailhead, fishing spot, bike trail, or whatever outdoor pursuit people are into but don't need or want a huge gas-guzzling body-on-frame rig for commuting, school runs, or going to the grocery store.

Honda tells us that the 2024 Passport TrailSport has been "tuned and tested in some of the world's most challenging off-road environments, including Imperial Dunes "Glamis," California. That's a place we're familiar with. It's a punishing place for machinery and the dunes are big, with deep, soft sand. We have our doubts, but if we can take the Pilot TrailSport out there on the stock tires without needing to be pulled out of the sand, we'll be amazed. Properly amazed.

For now, call us cautiously optimistic of the upgrades.